The first support buckled behind a field no one could cross to inspect it.
Eli heard the metal give through the alarm, a deep changing note followed by the fall of loose fragments. The chamber’s light traveled outward along the control route instead of fading with the damaged frame. Juno called the changed value and told the hatch crew which side of the approach to avoid. People moved one pace left because a person they trusted had named a present hazard, not because a display had refreshed with another unexplained command.
Bram held the protected case against his chest.
The outer fastening had survived the snag. A technician had identified emergency deployment and prisoner-transfer sections through the index, and named a missing volume. More could be missing. The surviving case might show what Rook authorized in several decisive moments. It could not establish that every relevant order had been inside it or that nothing had traveled by another route.
Sera had the independent receiving point ready.
“Case first if your hands need freeing,” she told Bram through the line. “People keep the walking lane.”
He waited for two technicians to pass before moving it around the hatch’s turn. The case would be useless to the dead if preserving it blocked the living. It remained dangerous enough to power that losing its origin in the rush would matter. He carried both facts in the same careful movement.
