The transfer order arrived in Aiden's inbox at 06:12.
It was marked HIGH PRIORITY, stamped with the Department seal, and copied to three levels of command above him. There was no room for argument in the wording.
SUBJECT E‑73 – TRANSFER AUTHORIZED
DESTINATION: CENTRAL EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY – OFFSITE
ESCORT: INTERNAL SECURITY, FIELD OBSERVER – AGENT AIDEN LIOREN
He read it twice, then once more, slower.
Offsite meant out of the city.
Out of the city meant out of reach.
His console pinged again.
ATTACHED: LAB 2‑B SESSION REPORT – DR. VELL
He opened it.
The report was precise, clinical, and almost completely wrong.
"Subject demonstrated exceptionally high output in response to controlled stimuli."
"Initial instability reduced under repeated suppression feedback."
"Subject shows strong potential for long‑term conditioning and asset conversion."
No mention of the way Kael's hands had shaken. No mention of the way he'd shaped the lightning into clean bolts, hit the target dead on, or the fact that he'd kept the power inside the circle while they provoked him.
Aiden scrolled to the bottom.
RECOMMENDATION: Expedite transfer before environmental attachment or external influence compromise subject's conditioning potential.
Environmental attachment. External influence.
He knew exactly which words pointed at him.
He shut the report and stood.
---------
His father's office felt colder than usual.
Director Lioren stood by the window, hands clasped behind his back, the city a quiet grid beneath him. He didn't turn when Aiden entered.
"You read the order," Hadrien said.
"Yes," Aiden replied.
"What do you think?" his father asked.
Aiden chose his words carefully.
"It's fast," he said. "Research has barely begun. There's still more we could learn on‑site."
"On‑site," Hadrien said, "you have access to him. So does Medical. So, potentially, does anyone with just enough clearance and just enough doubt."
He faced Aiden then.
"Offsite," he continued, "only a handful of people will ever be in the room. Fewer variables."
"Fewer witnesses," Aiden said before he could stop himself.
His father's eyes narrowed a fraction.
"This isn't about spectacle," Hadrien said. "It's about control. Subject E‑73 is too powerful to leave near the city's core for long. You saw the data. You know what he can do."
"I also know what he chose not to do," Aiden said. "He redirected his surge away from civilian structures. He took damage instead of letting it spread."
Hadrien's expression didn't change.
"You're letting anomalies in his behavior distract you from the larger picture," he said. "Yes, he can be precise. That makes him more valuable, not safer. Power like his must be studied where accidents cannot topple towers."
He moved to his desk, pulled up a schematic.
"Transfer will take place tomorrow at 09:30," he said. "Route is pre‑cleared. You'll accompany the convoy as field observer. You know his patterns. If he tries anything, you'll see it first."
"Why me?" Aiden asked. "There are agents with more experience."
"Because you were there when we caught him," Hadrien said. "Because you felt his field against your own. Because you are my son, and I need someone I can trust to do what is necessary if control fails."
If control fails.
The unspoken alternative: if Kael tries to escape.
"You hesitate," Hadrien observed.
"I'm considering the risk," Aiden said.
"Consider this as well," his father said. "Once he's gone, you will be able to focus on your real work again. This… distraction will be over."
The word sat heavy between them.
Aiden met his father's gaze.
"What if the 'distraction' is telling us something important about the work?" he asked.
Hadrien's look cooled.
"Be very sure," he said softly, "that you understand which lines you can question, and which you cannot."
Aiden didn't trust himself to answer.
"Prepare your notes for the transfer," Hadrien said. "You're dismissed."
--------
The message arrived an hour later.
No subject line. No sender.
JUST A LOCATION CODE AND A TIME:
L‑3 Stairwell, Service Access
18:00
He stared at it, jaw tight.
Last night's anonymous question—HOW MUCH MORE CAN HE TAKE BEFORE YOU CALL IT TOO FAR?—had already put a crack in his certainty. This new message widened it.
It could be bait from Internal Security, testing his loyalty.
It could be nothing.
Or it could be exactly what it looked like: someone who knew too much about Kael, asking him to choose a side before the transport doors closed forever.
At 17:59, Aiden opened the door to the service stairwell.
-------
The L‑3 stairwell smelled like dust and old metal.
The main lights were dim here, one panel flickering lazily. No cameras that he could see but that meant nothing. In this building, the walls had ears.
A woman stepped out from the shadow of the landing.
Short hair. Plain clothes. Face he recognized only from security footage and a brief glimpse in the tunnels: the woman who'd led the underground group, the one they hadn't managed to catch.
"Nice of you to be on time," she said.
Aiden kept his stance neutral, hands visible.
"You're trespassing in a government building," he said. "You should know what the penalty is for that."
"Arrest, interrogation, possibly a permanent collar." She smiled without humor. "Thanks, I read the brochure."
"You sent the messages," Aiden said.
"Hard not to," she replied. "You practically glow with doubt. We pick up on that."
His heart beat faster.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Someone who owes Kael more than a funeral," she said. "You can call me Lysa."
He didn't know if that was her real name, and it didn't matter.
"You came all the way in here to tell me that?" Aiden asked.
"I came," Lysa said, "because we heard they're moving him."
Aiden said nothing.
"That 'Experimental Facility' they're so proud of?" she went on. "Nobody comes back from there the same. If they come back at all."
"You don't know that," Aiden said.
"I've seen the before and after," Lysa replied. "That's enough."
She stepped down one stair, closer to him.
"You've been visiting him," she said. "You've seen what they're doing already. Do you really think transfer means 'better conditions'?"
"No," Aiden said quietly.
"Good," Lysa said. "We're not wasting our time, then."
He studied her.
"How did you get this far in?" he asked.
"Same way you bypassed the elevator limits," she said. "A little magic. A little timing. A few blind spots in a system that thinks it's perfect."
"You're Deviant," he said.
"Downstairs, they call that a crime," she said. "Up here, you call it an asset if we wear the right uniform."
She waved that away.
"Doesn't matter," she said. "What matters is this: we can get him out during the transfer. But not without help from someone who knows the route."
"You want me to hand you Department logistics," Aiden said.
"I want you to keep him from disappearing into a lab until he forgets his own name," Lysa said. "If you'd rather pretend you never met him, walk away now. I won't stop you."
She let the words hang there.
"And if I don't walk away?" Aiden asked.
"Then we work with what we have," she said. "We know the time. We know the destination. What we don't know is the exact path between Loading Bay C and the outer gates. Security drones, shield checkpoints, dead zones. That's where you come in."
He thought of Kael standing in the circle, lightning running along invisible walls.
"If I alter the route," Aiden said, "every step will be logged. I'll be blamed the second something goes wrong."
"Yes," Lysa said simply.
"You're asking me to throw away my career," he said. "My position. My safety."
"I'm asking you," she said, "which you value more: that career, or the boy they strapped to a table and called 'useful.'"
Her gaze didn't waver.
"You think saving one Deviant will fix everything?" Aiden asked.
"No," she said. "I think saving one person is better than letting him vanish because we were scared to try."
Silence settled in the stairwell.
Aiden could feel his heartbeat in his throat.
"Can you guarantee no civilians will be hurt?" he asked.
"That's our line," Lysa said. "No civilians. No bystanders. We hit the convoy, not the crowd. You have my word."
Words didn't mean much in the face of a Department report. But they meant something here, between two people standing where they shouldn't be.
Aiden exhaled slowly.
"I can't give you official files," he said. "They're tracked. But I can… adjust the route. Reroute us through a maintenance corridor that shouldn't be in the standard path."
"Blind spot?" Lysa asked.
"For about thirty seconds," Aiden said. "Maybe less."
Her mouth curved.
"Thirty seconds is a lot, if you know how to use them," she said.
She stepped back into the shadows.
"Tomorrow," she said. "09:30. If you do nothing, he disappears. If you do something…" She shrugged. "We'll both see what you're really made of."
She started up the stairs.
"Lysa," Aiden said.
She looked back.
"If this fails," he said, "they won't just come after you."
"I know," she said. "They already do."
Then she was gone.
-------
He shouldn't have gone to Sublevel Three that night.
He knew that. Mara's warning still echoed in his ears. But the transfer was in less than twelve hours, and if he was going to do the stupidest, most human thing of his life, he needed to look Kael in the eye first.
The guard at Holding checked his ID, hesitated, then waved him through.
"Last observation before the big move?" the guard asked.
"Something like that," Aiden said.
He stopped outside Kael's cell.
The light inside was low. Kael sat on the floor with his back against the bed, knees up, arms draped over them. He looked up when Aiden's shadow crossed the window.
"You really like this corridor," Kael said.
"Maybe I enjoy the décor," Aiden replied.
The guard snorted and wandered a little further down, pretending not to listen.
Aiden stepped closer to the glass.
"They're moving you tomorrow," he said.
Kael's expression didn't change much, but his fingers tightened on his sleeves.
"Offsite lab," he said. "Heard the word 'facility' floating around. Sounds fancy."
"It won't be better than this," Aiden said.
"I didn't think it would," Kael replied.
They stared at each other through the narrow pane.
"I can't tell you everything," Aiden said quietly. "But there may be… a moment. During the transfer."
Kael's eyes sharpened.
"A moment for what?" he asked.
"For you to run," Aiden said. "If it works."
"If it doesn't?" Kael asked.
"Then I was wrong," Aiden said. "And it will be over very quickly."
Kael huffed a thin laugh.
"You're terrible at reassurance," he said. "You know that?"
"I'm not trying to reassure you," Aiden said. "I'm asking you to be ready."
Kael was silent for a long second.
"You're sure you want to be the one to do this?" he asked. "Agents don't usually volunteer to sabotage their own convoys."
"I'm not sure of anything," Aiden said. "Except that if I do nothing, I'll have to live with where they send you."
"And if you do something," Kael said, "you might not get to live long."
"Maybe," Aiden said.
Kael leaned his head back against the wall, looking up at the ceiling.
"You know," he said, "most stories I heard about agents ended with 'and then they dragged him away.' Not 'and then one of them came back with bad ideas.'"
"Bad ideas?" Aiden repeated.
"The kind that might work," Kael said.
He looked back at Aiden.
"All right," he said softly. "I'll be ready. Just tell me one thing."
"What?" Aiden asked.
"Are you doing this because you think I can help your city," Kael said, "or because you don't want to watch me disappear?"
Aiden opened his mouth, closed it again.
Both.
"I don't know how to separate those anymore," he said.
Kael's mouth curved, somewhere between a smile and a wince.
"Honest," he said. "Dangerous habit around here."
A footsteps sounded at the far end of the corridor. Shift change.
Aiden stepped back.
"Tomorrow," he said.
"Tomorrow," Kael echoed.
As Aiden walked away, he heard the faint sound of Kael's voice, too low for the guard to catch.
"Don't be late, Agent."
-------
Back in his apartment, the city lights blurred beyond the glass.
Aiden sat at his console and opened a blank file.
He typed the official transfer route first—clean, efficient, exactly as laid out in the order: from Holding to Loading Bay C, out through Gate 2, onto the main secured road.
Then he created a second version.
In this one, a brief "maintenance detour" took the convoy through a side corridor where the shield coverage lagged by a few crucial seconds. A place where Lysa's people might be waiting.
He stared at the two files.
On one screen, obedience.
On the other, treason.
He sent the altered route to Logistics with a brief note:
ADJUSTED PATH – MINIMIZES CIVILIAN EXPOSURE POINTS.
It wasn't a lie.
Just not the whole truth.
When the confirmation pinged back, his hands were trembling.
In the dark surface of the console, his reflection looked unfamiliar—eyes too bright, jaw too tight.
"If I cross this line," he murmured to the empty room, "what am I to them?"
Agent.
Deviant.
Traitor.
Something in‑between.
He didn't know yet.
He only knew that tomorrow, for a few seconds, the city's grip would loosen.
And what he chose to do in that gap would decide who he was from that moment on.