[Jake’s POV]

Nia’s medical bag looked less like a medical bag and more like something a paranoid hacker would use to interrogate a nervous satellite. She emptied it across the conference table with frightening efficiency, producing adhesive sensors, a compact scanner, a portable blood pressure cuff, two small vials, and something that looked suspiciously like a stun gun wearing a lab coat. Ethan opened one eye from his chair, saw the equipment, and immediately closed it again like a man choosing peace.

"I want it on record that I did not consent to whatever this is," I said.

Nia slapped a sensor against my wrist. "You consented when you came back from a two-year disappearance looking like an expensive corpse."

"That feels legally questionable."

"Good thing Evelyn is here."

Evelyn Cross stood near the far end of the table, arms folded, watching the whole thing with the calm expression of a woman who had seen federal raids, political corruption, and now a billionaire being bullied into basic healthcare. "For the record," she said, "I support the medical harassment."

"Betrayal," I muttered.

"Care," Claire corrected from the window.

I looked at her.

She did not smile, but the corner of her mouth softened slightly before she turned back toward the city. It was the smallest thing, barely there, but it caught me harder than it should have. Claire had always been composed when the room demanded it. She knew how to make herself into polished glass. But now, after everything, the cracks kept showing in places she probably did not realize.

Nia clipped another sensor to my temple. "Stop staring at people and sit still."

"I wasn’t staring."

"You were emotionally lingering."

"That sounds made up."

"It is a clinical term I invented because you keep doing it."

Ethan coughed out a laugh, then immediately regretted it and pressed a hand against his ribs. Darius stood behind him like a disappointed statue, watching the movement with open disapproval. Cassandra sat beside Nia, swallowed by her oversized grey sweater, her pale blue eyes fixed on the scanner readings as if they might answer a question she was afraid to ask out loud.

The device on the table hummed softly. A thin blue light passed over my wrist, then my neck, then my eyes. Nia watched the readings. Cassandra leaned closer. Neither of them said anything for several seconds, and the silence became too heavy.

"Well?" I asked.

Nia frowned. "Your pulse is elevated."

"I was recently dead."

"You were not dead."

"Missing presumed dramatic."

"Your blood pressure is bad."

"I am in a room full of people discussing internal betrayal, international crime, and my sleep schedule. That seems reasonable."

Nia ignored me and tapped the screen. "No active Oracle handshake. No external response. No predictive data bleed. No background signal. Nothing."

Cassandra’s hands tightened inside her sleeves. "That should not be possible."

"I know," Nia said.

"No, I mean it should not be possible mechanically. Even if the merge degraded, there should be scar tissue in the system architecture. Something. Echoes. Residue. A dead channel. A broken bridge." Cassandra’s voice stayed soft, but the words came faster as her mind caught fire. "This is too clean."

I looked at the scanner screen even though half the data meant nothing to me without Oracle translating it into something useful. "Clean sounds good."

Cassandra shook her head, still not looking directly at me. "Clean means deliberate."

The room went quiet again.

Victoria stopped flipping through her folder. Claire turned from the window. Evelyn’s gaze sharpened. Hale, who had taken a seat near the middle of the table, watched Cassandra with the interest of someone seeing a new type of weapon for the first time.

Nia’s jaw tightened. "We are not making assumptions yet."

"Of course not," Cassandra whispered, shrinking back slightly. "I just... I am saying if something separated Jake from Oracle without leaving noise, then it knew exactly where to cut."

I felt the System sitting behind my eyes like a smug little parasite.

A blue screen appeared.

[Ding!]

[Observation: Target Cassandra Locke is unusually perceptive.]

Suggestion: Do not let the shy one near your secrets.]

I stared at the message.

Then another line appeared.

[Penalty Applied!]

Reason: Host mentally called System a parasite.]

Penalty: Slightly dry mouth for 15 minutes.]

My mouth immediately went dry.

Wonderful.

Nia looked up. "You made the face again."

"I have many faces."

"You have three. Strategy, lying, and pretending you’re not in pain."

Ethan opened one eye. "He also has the one where he pretends he understands art."

"I do understand art," I said.

Claire turned back from the window. "You once called a priceless Renaissance portrait ’sad rich man in hat.’"

"It was accurate."

For a brief second, the room felt lighter. Even Victoria looked like she was fighting the urge to smile. I held onto that moment longer than I should have because it felt human, and human things had become rare enough to feel expensive.

Nia removed the sensor from my temple. "You are not dying immediately."

"That is a glowing review."

"You are exhausted, underfed, chemically stressed, probably concussed at least twice, and your nervous system looks like it spent two years being used as a server rack."

"Poetic."

"I am not finished."

"That is unfortunate."

She leaned over the table, both hands planted in front of me. "You need food. You need sleep. You need full scans. You need to stop making decisions for at least twelve hours."

I looked at Victoria. "Can I stop making decisions for twelve hours?"

Victoria did not hesitate. "No."

I looked back at Nia. "There we are."

Nia pointed at Victoria. "You are also on my list."

Victoria raised one eyebrow. "Get in line."

Darius finally moved from behind Ethan’s chair. "He sleeps tonight."

"I have a charity lunch tomorrow," I said.

"You sleep tonight."

"And if I refuse?"

Darius looked at me with the calm confidence of a man who had already solved the problem through violence. "Then you sleep earlier."

Ethan raised a hand weakly. "I support this plan as long as no one asks me to help carry him."

"You are also sleeping," Darius said.

"I withdraw my support."

The System chimed.

[Ding!]

[Daily Task Reminder!]

Task: Get at least 5 hours of sleep.]

Reward: Reduced eye bags.]

Penalty: Host will look like a divorced substitute teacher.]

I ignored it.

Another message appeared.

[Penalty Applied!]

Reason: Host ignored Daily Task Reminder.]

Penalty: One visible yawn within the next 3 minutes.]

I stared at the screen in disbelief.

Three minutes later, while Victoria began summarizing the next file, I yawned directly in front of General Vance.

Vance’s eyes narrowed.

I covered my mouth. "Strategic oxygen intake."

"No," Vance said. "That was a yawn."

"I disagree."

"You are tired."

"Everyone is tired."

"Not everyone is pretending not to be."

I leaned back, studying him. Vance sat with one hand on the table and the other resting near his thigh. His posture was relaxed, but his eyes remained alert. He had never trusted comfort. Men like him did not sit in chairs. They occupied defensive positions.

"Are you testing me, General?" I asked.

"Yes."

The answer came too quickly to be anything but honest.

Nia looked between us. "Can we not do the dominance thing while my scanner is still on?"

Vance ignored her. "Two years ago, you walked into rooms with the Oracle behind your eyes and made men twice your age feel like children. Now that advantage is gone."

Cassandra flinched slightly at the bluntness.

Vance continued anyway. "I need to know whether the man sitting there is still the one who broke the Cabal, or whether we are protecting a symbol that has already lost its teeth."

The room went cold.

Ethan opened both eyes now.

Darius took one slow step away from the wall.

Claire’s face sharpened.

Victoria said nothing, but the air around her became dangerous.

I looked at Vance for a long moment. Part of me wanted to smile. Part of me wanted to remind him exactly what happened the last time powerful men mistook my quiet for weakness. But the Oracle was gone. No predictive paths. No cold certainty. Just a man across the table testing whether I could still make him blink.

So I did not raise my voice.

I looked at his left hand.

There was a faint pale mark on his ring finger.

"You stopped wearing your wedding ring," I said.

Vance did not move.

"Recent," I continued. "The tan line is still there, but faint. You wore it during the Monaco negotiations two years ago. You were still wearing it after the Cabal fell. You are not wearing it now."

His eyes hardened.

I leaned forward slightly. "Isabella contacted your family."

The silence changed shape.

Vance’s jaw tightened once.

That was enough.

"She did not offer you money," I said. "Money would insult you. She offered distance. Protection. A clean way to move them somewhere I could not reach if you decided I was not coming back."

Nia looked at Vance, stunned.

Hale’s expression became very still.

Evelyn watched him like she was preparing to take notes for an indictment.

Vance did not deny it.

I nodded slowly. "You did not accept."

"Why do you think that?" he asked.

"Because you came here yourself. If you had accepted, you would have sent a subordinate and kept your hands clean."

His mouth became a hard line.

I leaned back. "You wanted to know if I still had teeth. Now you know."

For a moment, nobody spoke.

Then Vance gave the smallest nod.

"Fair enough."

Nia stared at me. "How did you do that without Oracle?"

I looked at her. "People are not that complicated."

"That is absolutely false," Cassandra whispered.

"She is right," Claire said quietly.

I smiled. "Fine. People are complicated. Men are usually less creative when they panic."

Ethan laughed under his breath. "He’s back."

The System flickered.

[Ding!]

[Achievement Unlocked: Made a General Uncomfortable Without Superpowers.]

Reward: None.]

Reason: System found it funny.]

I stared at the last line.

I missed many things about ordinary life.

This was not one of them.

Victoria slid the next folder toward me before the room could settle too comfortably. "Bellamy is only the first visible thread. His wife gives you social access, but we need to understand the pressure behind his vote. If Isabella moved through him, there will be others in the same circle."

Claire tapped her tablet and brought the museum charity profile onto the glass wall. Marianne Bellamy’s photograph appeared, elegant and composed, with dark auburn hair, a pale green dress, and the kind of smile wealthy women used when photographers asked them to look happy beside husbands who bored them. She stood in front of a museum banner with Richard Bellamy at her side. His hand rested on her waist. Her body leaned away by half an inch.

I noticed that without any System help.

Interesting.

"Marianne Bellamy," Claire said. "Forty-two. Married eighteen years. Two children, both in private boarding schools. She chairs three museum committees and sits on the donor board of the Harrington Children’s Trust. No direct corporate title, but she attends nearly every private dinner Richard goes to."

"Relationship status?" Ethan asked.

Claire gave him a look.

"What?" he said. "It feels relevant."

"It is relevant," Hale said, amused. "Just poorly phrased."

Claire continued. "Publicly stable. Privately strained, based on separate travel schedules and a lack of joint appearances outside required events."

Victoria added, "Richard has been seen with a younger consultant from the European audit firm he pushed onto our books."

"There it is," Ethan muttered.

Nia leaned back in her chair. "So the husband is compromised, cheating, and possibly stupid."

"Possibly?" Darius asked.

"Trying to be generous."

Cassandra looked at Marianne’s photo, her sleeves covering most of her hands. "She looks lonely."

Everyone turned to her again.

She immediately looked down. "Sorry."

"No," I said. "You’re right."

The System chimed.

[Mission Reminder!]

Mission: Open the Door

Objective: Initiate meaningful contact with Marianne Bellamy.]

Reward: Intelligence Fragment.]

Penalty: Host will stutter during introductions for 12 hours.]

Additional Penalty Warning: If Host uses the phrase ’strategic social access’ during conversation, System will apply temporary bad breath.]

I almost choked.

Claire noticed. "Jake?"

"I need water."

Nia pushed a bottle toward me. "Dry mouth?"

"Something like that."

Victoria studied me for a moment too long, then continued. "The charity lunch is tomorrow at one. Harrington Museum. Private donor event. No press inside, light security, mostly old money wives, art patrons, nonprofit chairs, and corporate spouses."

"Perfect," I said.

Evelyn frowned. "That room is not harmless."

"I know."

"No, you don’t. Those women will not carry guns or sign contracts in public. They will ruin reputations over salad and move millions through foundations before dessert."

I looked at her. "Director Cross, are you warning me or giving me a sales pitch?"

"I am telling you not to underestimate them."

"I won’t."

Hale smiled faintly. "He never has. That was always the problem."

Claire’s eyes flicked toward Hale, then back to the screen. "You will need an invitation."

Victoria said, "Already handled. Vanguard still sponsors the restoration wing."

Nia frowned. "You are sending him into a donor lunch less than twenty-four hours after he came back from exile."

Darius said, "After sleep."

"After medical scans," Nia snapped.

"After both," Claire said.

Everyone looked at her.

Her voice was calm, but there was steel beneath it. "He goes tomorrow. That gives us one day to prepare, and it gives him one night to sleep. Nia gets her baseline scans. Darius gets food into him. Victoria prepares the cover. I will brief him on Marianne’s circle."

I looked at her.

Claire did not look away.

There was something different in the way she spoke now. Before all of this, Claire used to manage chaos from behind a screen, turning panic into schedules, logistics, and clean executive decisions. Now she sounded like someone who had dragged herself through smoke and gunfire and decided she would not ask permission to protect what mattered.

"Very commanding," I said.

"Someone has to be."

Ethan opened one eye. "I vote Claire runs everything until Jake stops looking like a haunted fashion model."

"Denied," I said.

"Can we vote?"

"No."

The System chimed.

[Penalty Applied!]

Reason: Host rejected democratic process.]

Penalty: Right sock will slowly slide down for 30 minutes.]

I felt my right sock begin to betray me.

My life had become absurd.

Victoria gathered the files. "Then we prepare. Marianne is the first door. If she gives us Bellamy’s private calendar, we can identify which dinners shifted after Isabella disappeared."

"And if she gives us nothing?" Evelyn asked.

I looked at Marianne’s photograph again.

The smile was perfect. Too perfect. The eyes were tired.

"Then I buy a museum wing and become very interested in art."

Claire sighed. "Please don’t."

"Why not?"

"Because the last time you became interested in art, you accidentally insulted a Renaissance portrait in front of three trustees."

"It was a sad rich man in a hat."

"It was a Titian."

"It was still sad."

Cassandra made a small sound into her sleeve.

I looked at her. "Was that a laugh?"

She immediately looked down. "No."

"It was."

"It was not."

Nia patted her shoulder. "It was. Growth."

For the first time since I had entered Apex Tower, I felt the room settle around me. Not safely. Not completely. But enough. The people who stayed were still here. Bruised, angry, suspicious, exhausted, and armed in different ways, but here.

The throne had not been empty.

It had been guarded.

That mattered more than I knew how to say.

I stood slowly, ignoring the way my cursed sock had slipped halfway down my heel.

"Tonight, we rest," I said. "Tomorrow, we start with Marianne Bellamy. Quietly. No blood. No threats. No Feral King."

Vance studied me. "And if Isabella moves first?"

I looked toward the windows, where Manhattan glittered beneath the gray afternoon sky.

"Then we let her think she understands the board."

The System appeared one more time.

[Ding!]

[Chapter Objective Updated!]

Survive dinner, sleep, and one charity lunch without embarrassing yourself.]

Reward: Intelligence Fragment.]

Penalty: To be determined.]

I stared at the final line.

To be determined.

That was never good.

I picked up the folder with Marianne Bellamy’s face on it and tucked it under my arm.

"Back to basics," I muttered.

Claire heard me.

"What?"

I gave her a small smile.

"Nothing. Just remembering how this started."