"Nobody moves. Nobody breathes loud. Nobody."Okafor's whisper carried just far enough to reach every ear in the group and no further, a trick Wes filed away even in the middle of his own racing pulse, the exact volume of a man who'd learned the hard way how far a whisper could travel when it mattered.The Warden's scattered eyes swept the garage in slow, deliberate arcs, dozens of small dark points catching what little light there was and giving nothing back. It hadn't moved toward them yet. It was listening, Wes realized, or something close enough to listening that the difference didn't matter, patient in a way nothing that size should have been able to afford to be.Milo had gone rigid against Rosa's side, both hands pressed over his own mouth like he didn't trust himself not to make a sound, and Rosa had an arm wrapped tight around him, her own breathing shallow and controlled, counting silently, Wes could tell, the same trick he used himself on bad calls when his hands wanted to

"Milo. Milo, look at me."Rosa had him by both shoulders, the boy's eyes glassy and unfocused, a thin line of blood tracking down from somewhere in his hairline where a chunk of falling concrete had caught him on the way down. Around them, the section of garage floor that hadn't collapsed had tilted at a steep angle, everything sliding slow toward a new gap that hadn't existed a minute ago."He's not responding right," Rosa said, voice tight. "Okafor, he's not responding right."Okafor was already moving, checking the boy's pupils with the same clinical speed Wes might have used, though his hands shook slightly in a way Rosa hadn't seen from him yet, not once, not through any of the day's horrors. "Concussion, most likely. Maybe worse." He pressed two fingers gently along Milo's skull, feeling for anything that gave the wrong way under the pressure. "We need somewhere stable. Now.""There's nowhere stable. The whole floor's coming apart.""Then we make somewhere." Okafor scooped Milo

"Talk."Wes kept his voice flat, arms crossed, positioning himself between Cain and the rest of the group without making a show of it. Frank leaned against the subway car's bent doorframe, still catching his breath from the run, and Priya stood close beside him, notebook already out, pen ready, treating the conversation like data to be logged rather than a threat to be feared."Simple enough." Cain settled onto an overturned seat like he was in a boardroom instead of a wrecked subway car three layers under a dead city. "The Circle keeps a running tally. Every cycle, the System expects contribution from every group operating within its zones, whether that group realizes it's being asked or not. Groups who don't contribute get corrected. You've already met one version of what correction looks like, I'd guess, given the state you all arrived in.""The Warden," Okafor said, quiet."Among other things, yes." Cain nodded, unbothered by the confirmation. "Groups who do contribute get warned