Grant had learned, over decades of service, that the military never erased information.
It buried it.
The first denial came politely.
Access outside your purview.
The second came colder.
Need-to-know restriction applied.
By the third, Grant knew he was close.
Silence was the tell.
He followed paperwork.
Not orders.
Transfers without destinations.
Budgets that moved sideways instead of down.
Facilities listed as maintenance sinks with no personnel assigned.
One name kept reappearing in the margins.
Joint Evaluation Detachment
No insignia.
No history.
No endpoint.
Grant called in a favor he hadn't used in ten years.
A logistics officer who owed him his career.
"I just need a location code," Grant said.
A long pause.
"You don't want that," the officer replied.
"I already do."
Another pause.
Then, quietly: "If you ask again, I'll have to report you."
Grant hung up.
That was answer enough.
He didn't stop.
He rerouted.
Civilian contractors.
Environmental permits.
Power draw anomalies.
Deep underground facilities drank electricity differently.
One site stood out.
No name.
Just consumption.
Meanwhile, Li Chen noticed something else.
The tests had stopped escalating.
Questions repeated.
Environments stabilized.
The box was no longer probing.
It was listening.
A new voice spoke to him.
Not the analysts.
Not the observers.
Someone higher.
"We know you're aware of the situation," the voice said.
"Yes," Li Chen replied.
"We want cooperation."
Li Chen tilted his head slightly.
"You already have it," he said. "You don't have trust."
Silence.
Grant drove at night.
No escort.
No authorization.
Just instinct and coordinates pieced together from absence.
The road ended at a place that didn't exist.
Concrete rising from earth like an afterthought.
Inside the facility, alarms did not sound.
Instead, conversations stopped.
"He found us," someone whispered.
The System updated.
[SYSTEM PHASE II — ALERT]
[External actor approaching influence perimeter]
[Classification: TRUSTED VARIABLE]
Li Chen's eyes opened.
Grant.
For the first time since containment began, Li Chen smiled.
Not because rescue had arrived.
But because the system had just acknowledged something important.
Not all variables were threats.
And some threads—
—were meant to be followed.