The gate in the warehouse folded shut without touching anyone.
Sera watched the last pale edge withdraw between two empty shelves. Dust settled where it had stood. A local officer looked at the vacant space as if the disappearance ought to tell them what every other gate would do.
Three streets away, another opening had begun drawing against its foundation. Engineers had moved residents from the nearest wall and braced it while they examined the supply. At the old transit yard, a third gate held steady enough that people on both sides could see a passage through.
The shutdown had not given them one answer.
The yard commander wanted the stable opening demolished before anything emerged.
“I’ve got charges,” he said. “No one in the immediate buildings. We can bring the frame down from here.”
Sera looked beyond him at the settlement representatives waiting inside the marked approach. One held a list of people separated during the evacuation. Another had brought a map with routes that did not exist on the human side. They had heard the commander say no one and knew he meant no one he counted as being here.
“People may be using that route,” the first representative said.
