Eli placed his finger on the exclusive recovery clause. Bram waited while he read it again.
The clause gave Aegis exclusive rights to distribute recovered materials from sponsored operations, with the team’s share calculated after listed costs. “This. I want the deductions defined and a way to inspect the accounts.”
“Those are standard terms.”
“Standard isn’t the same as clear.”
Bram considered the page. “The deductions are in the schedule. I can ask whether you may receive a detailed account after each operation.”
“Before signing.”
“Yes.”
Kellan turned back to the medical schedule. “Suppose my brother needs treatment while I’m on an operation. Does the family coverage begin when I sign, or after the first completed job?”
Bram checked the definitions. “The family plan requires a separate enrollment. This consultation packet doesn’t include the effective date.”
“Can you ask the benefits representative?”
“Yes.” Bram wrote the question and handed Kellan a numbered copy. “Bring this tomorrow so you don’t have to repeat it.”
Kellan inspected the number. “Does this commit me to the consultation?”
“No. It holds a place. You can give it to the desk if you decide not to attend.”
Sera found a clause on equipment return. “If the radio fails in the field, does the team leader decide whether we withdraw it?”
“The leader decides the operation. The equipment officer determines whether the unit can be repaired or replaced.”
“What if the unit fails while I’m warning the team?”
“Use the backup signal in the operation plan.”
“And if the plan doesn’t include one?”
Bram looked at the page, then added the question to his list. “It should. I can’t amend a specific plan before it’s written.”
Sera told him about the radio demonstration and the failure behind the cabinet. Bram asked which model. She gave him the model number from her notes. He wrote it down without promising to remove it from use.
Tessa asked about medical supplies. The Aegis kit included items the independent clinic could not store without additional equipment. “Who checks the cold chain?” she asked.
“The receiving clinician and the supply officer.”
“Can the clinician reject a shipment if the temperature record is missing?”
“Yes, under the medical policy. I can show you the relevant section.”
He found it in a separate booklet. Tessa read the paragraph and asked whether the same rule applied to donations to outside clinics. Bram said he did not know; the donation program was managed by another office. He added the office contact to the question sheet.
Eli watched him write. Bram’s handwriting was compact and slanted, unlike the forms Sera had photographed at the warehouse. That observation meant little: a person could dictate a form or never touch it. Still, the act of seeing something that did not fit his suspicion made him slow down.
“Do you work at the warehouse?” Eli asked.
Bram’s pen paused. “Which warehouse?”
“The shared loading site where the recent rescue happened.”
“I’ve handled security assignments for several sites. I wasn’t there during the rescue.”
“Were you responsible for the threat ratings?”
“Security assignments don’t normally set them. I can’t discuss a particular incident without the file.”
Sera asked whether the contract list was public. Bram said the registry published the current contractor contacts, though the detailed assignments were not necessarily public. He gave her the desk number where a request could be made.
A crash interrupted them. The training dummy at the equipment display had swung into a stack of sample helmets. One rolled across the floor and struck the leg of the consultation table. An applicant stumbled trying to catch it.
Bram stood, but Tessa was closer. She helped the applicant sit and checked whether she had struck her head. The woman said her ankle had turned but she could put weight on it. Kellan moved the helmets out of the walkway while the attendant shut down the demonstration.
“Does your safety policy cover this?” the applicant asked Bram.
“Report it to the event desk,” he said. “They have the incident form and can arrange an assessment.”
“Will it count against my application?”
“I don’t know. The assessment clinician makes fitness decisions. An incident report isn’t itself a rejection.”
The applicant looked at Tessa. “Would you come with me?”
“I can walk with you to the desk. They need to examine you themselves.”
Bram cleared a path through the chairs. Eli watched him hold the door for them, then return to the table. The action did not match the figure who had blocked the old passage; it did not disprove that memory either. Bram sat down and found his place in the booklet without looking at Eli.
“Your question about deductions,” he said. “The schedule lists transport, equipment, and administration. It doesn’t give a cap for all categories.”
“Can administration exceed the recovery?” Eli asked.
“The contract says a negative balance may be carried forward. The finance office would need to explain how it calculates that.”
Kellan leaned forward. “So a successful recovery could still leave a worker owing the guild?”
“Under some circumstances, yes.”
“Write that question for tomorrow too.”
Bram did. He did not try to turn the clause into a guarantee of profit. Eli found that more unsettling than a polished sales pitch; the man could acknowledge a bad term and still present the contract as an opportunity.
Tessa returned after the event desk had arranged an assessment for the applicant. She reported that the woman had chosen not to continue the equipment demonstration until her ankle was checked. Bram added the incident number to the file for the hall supervisor.
Sera asked whether an independent scout could attend Aegis training without signing an exclusive contract. Bram consulted a price sheet. There were paid sessions open to registered applicants, but the advertised rate covered only the basic course; equipment rental and a practical assessment cost extra.
“Can I use my own radio?”
“If it meets the course specifications.”
“May I see those?”
He handed her the sheet. She compared its signal range and battery requirement with the set she had reserved. The set met the stated minimum, but the sheet did not address the concrete obstruction that had caused the cheaper radio to fail. She marked the issue for a practical test.
Kellan asked whether the training fee could be refunded if the course was canceled. Bram found the cancellation clause and showed it to him. It allowed a refund if Aegis canceled, but not if an applicant withdrew after the stated date. Kellan copied the date into his notebook beside Theo’s appointment.
Tessa leaned toward Eli. “You don’t have to answer every question today.”
“I know. I’m trying to remember the page I’m looking at.”
She pointed to the exclusive clause. “Then start there.”
A message sounded on Bram’s phone. He glanced at the screen, and the color left his face. He closed it quickly, but not before Eli saw his hand tighten around the edge of the folder.
“Is something wrong?” Tessa asked.
“Nothing concerning this consultation.”
Bram resumed the explanation. He gave them a meeting date for the benefits representative, then stopped and corrected it. The first date had already passed.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “The twenty-third. I apologize.”
Kellan wrote the corrected date. Sera watched Bram’s face, then returned to the policy. Eli wanted to ask whether his family was in danger. The thought arrived with the shape of an explanation: perhaps someone had threatened Bram, perhaps the pressure he remembered had begun here. But he had seen only a message and a reaction.
“You can take the papers,” Bram said. “There’s no obligation to sign today.”
Eli kept his voice level. “I won’t sign an exclusive recovery clause.”
“Then you shouldn’t sign this version. If you want to propose changes, bring them to the consultation.”
Bram did not threaten him. He gathered the unused forms and thanked them for their time. Before they left, he handed Sera the contact number for the public records desk and Kellan the numbered benefits question. He asked Tessa whether the injured applicant had reached the event clinician. She confirmed that the desk had arranged an assessment, without sharing the woman’s medical details. Bram wrote the incident number in the hall log.
Eli watched the pen move. He had come expecting a confrontation; instead he was leaving with a contract he would not sign, a list of questions Bram had not answered, and a number that might lead to a record. The incompleteness frustrated him, but it gave the team a next step. He kept the question sheet with the contract, where Kellan could find it before the consultation. The next applicant stepped forward before Eli could decide whether to ask another question.
They stepped away from the table to let the next applicant sit. A woman at the equipment display had trouble fastening her borrowed harness with one hand. Bram asked the attendant to assist, then checked his phone again. He did not show the screen to anyone.
The team reached the hall doors before Eli realized he had kept looking back. Tessa waited while he put the contract pages into their folder.
“You didn’t accuse him,” she said.
“I wanted to.”
“You asked about the warehouse.”
“He said he handled security at several sites and wasn’t there during the rescue.”
“That’s an answer we can check.”
Outside the hall, Kellan compared the benefits page with their working agreement. “The coverage could be better than ours. The payment date is still missing.”
“Would you take it?” Eli asked.
“I’d take it home and read it. I wouldn’t sign the exclusive clause as written.”
Sera folded the scout policy. “The pause rule is narrower than ours. A leader can hear a warning and still order the route.”
Tessa looked at Eli. “What did you see when Bram read the message?”
“He looked frightened. He gave us the wrong date afterward.”
“What did you think it meant?”
“That someone might be threatening his family. I have no evidence for that.”
Kellan stopped walking. “Why would you think that?”
Eli felt the boundary of the story he had not shared. “Because of what I remember about him. It’s a possibility I imagined, not something I know.”
Kellan studied him, then put the insurance page away. “If it affects a job we take, tell us before we commit.”
“I will.”
A street vendor was selling hot bread beside the registry. Kellan bought one loaf and divided it between the four of them. He checked the time before eating; Theo’s driver had sent a message that the appointment was running late.
“Do you need to go?” Tessa asked.
“He says he’s all right. I’ll meet them at the pharmacy.”
Sera asked whether the Aegis family plan would cover Theo’s current treatment if Kellan joined. The clause was not clear. Kellan folded the question sheet and put it beside the provider’s bill.
“I’m going to the benefits consultation,” he said. “Not to sign. To get an answer.”
Eli felt the old resistance. He wanted to tell Kellan that no answer from Aegis could be trusted. Kellan had already read the exclusive clause and asked about payment. He did not need Eli to take the paper out of his hands.
“Tell them you want the effective date in writing,” Eli said.
“I will.”
Sera had found the event’s public list of contractors on her phone. She searched Bram’s name and showed the result to the others. An Aegis security contract listed him as a contact for the warehouse employer during a period that overlapped the disputed rating.
“He was connected to security,” she said. “The listing doesn’t say he saw the rating or ordered a change.”
Eli took the phone. Bram’s name sat beside the warehouse company’s name and a contract period. It was the first present-day link he had seen between the man from the raid and the place where Garin had died.
“We should ask him,” he said.
“We can ask for records first,” Kellan replied. “Jalen testified. We need to know whether a request could expose more about him than he agreed to share.”
Eli handed the phone back. The contract was a lead, not an answer. He could feel how badly he wanted the two to be the same.