Intelligence Command Alpha—Umbrythm's former nerve center—had shed its old dimness for clean light and glass. The holographic wall lifted and layered years of other people's secrets: collection nodes rekeying to our lattice, comms spines rethreaded through Aetherite, personnel files moving from "unknown" to "ours" one careful stripe at a time.
"Vetting is sixty-seven percent complete," Elias reported, shoulders squared under a workload that would have flattened most ministries. "Each candidate gets background verification, psychological screening, and a loyalty interview before any clearance propagates. If a check flags amber, we hold for Reika's team."
"Good," I said. Umbrythm wasn't a corporate acqui-hire. It was a professional class with habits—some useful, some corrosive. Gatekeeping them with the same SOP we'd used for mechanics and schedulers would have been malpractice.
