Chapter 74: SUCCESS OR NOTHING

The metal case sat on the communal platform beneath a hanging strip of solar cloth, rain ticking against its surface while half the settlement watched from the surrounding bridges. Someone had scrubbed the mud from the lid, revealing a pale shell without hinges, handles or any obvious way to open it. Sio crouched beside it and pressed two fingers against the smooth edge. The Scar beneath his eye pulled through buried connections joining locks, compartments and something that felt more like a pressure seal than a lid. "Whoever designed this really hated curiosity."

Rhea folded her arms beside him. "That sounds personal." Sio glanced up. "Curiosity is one of my better qualities." Angle stood opposite with his gauntlets hanging low. "That is not how I remember it."

Gumm crawled from Rhea’s shoulder and planted both front limbs on the case. A small eye opened near one tendril, studying the surface with enough seriousness that Sio shifted aside. Gumm tapped the metal twice, chirped, then looked at him as though the answer should have been obvious. "Very helpful," Sio muttered. "There’s a latch under this section, but no route from the outside."

Angle leaned closer. "Can you portal through it?" Sio narrowed his focus until pressure built behind his right eye. "Maybe. If I miss, I pull out something important and we discover whether this screams, explodes or sends Sterling an invoice."

Rhea crouched beside him. Her familiar warm scent slipped through wet wood and medicinal herbs, easing some of the tightness in his shoulders before he noticed. She kept her eyes on the case. "Try not to explode my evidence." Sio focused on the seam. "I was leaning toward invoice."

A portal opened no wider than two fingers against the side. Sio reached through another opening above his palm until cold metal brushed his fingertips. He hooked it, pulled, and something clicked inside. The case separated along a seam none of them had seen, and the remaining humor around the platform disappeared with the sound.

Foam compartments filled the interior. Transparent vials lay in one row, several still dark with dried blood. Beside them were restraints, sterile cutting tools, sealed swabs and narrow cartridges marked with symbols the survivors could not read. The old woman reached toward one vial and stopped. "They carried these."

Rhea’s claws slid free. "For blood?" The burned man stood behind her with his injured arm bound across his chest. "Blood. Fur. Teeth. Anything they could take."

Angle picked up one cartridge by its edge. Beneath the grime sat three interlocking lines enclosed by a thin circle, and his fingers stopped moving. Sio knew the mark too. Every registered Wayfarer office used some version of it across identification cards, official notices and government broadcasts. It belonged to the Wayfarer Organization.

Rhea looked between them. "You know it." Angle returned the cartridge to the foam. "Yeah."

Sio rubbed mud from another piece and uncovered the same insignia. They had spent long enough trying not to attract more attention from the very people whose mark now sat inside equipment taken from Rhea’s dead. Arch was gone, Eclipse still had reasons to hunt them, and Maelor and Cestor were both alive.

The old woman watched his expression. "Who are they?" Sio almost gave her the familiar version: regulators, protectors, researchers, the people meant to deal with Wayfarers too dangerous for ordinary governments. The words sat badly after what lay open between them. "Officially, they’re the people who are supposed to stop things like this."

Rhea lowered her gaze to the blood vials while Angle moved to the platform’s edge and rested one hand against a living trunk. Sio knew what had tightened in him because the same thought had settled in his own head: following this trail meant turning toward an institution with branches in nearly every major kingdom.

The burned survivor laid the cracked translucent strip beside the open case. Something inside the lid reacted. Pale light spread across the material, repairing part of the broken display long enough for text to appear.

FIELD COLLECTION RECORD

SPECIES CLASSIFICATION: NON-HUMAN / BEASTKIN

LIVE RETENTION PRIORITY: ACTIVE

TRANSFER SITE: COLLECTION ANNEX K-17

The remaining lines flickered beneath damaged blocks. Rhea read the section twice. "Live retention." Around her, nobody needed an explanation. The graves outside had never contained everyone.

The old woman sat slowly while one younger survivor covered his mouth. Rhea’s fingers closed around the case hard enough to bend the metal, and Angle looked at Sio across the damaged display. Rhea released it and stood. "Where is K-17?"

Sio tapped the strip. A partial route map appeared, mostly corrupted, but one surviving line connected the settlement to a collection point northeast of the jungle and then to a facility marked by a coded Wayfarer seal.

Angle watched the route. "You know what happens if we follow that." Rhea met his eyes. "Yes." His jaw tightened. "We stop running away from them and start walking toward them." Rhea looked toward the graves. "If even one person from here is alive, I’m going."

She did not defend herself or ask either of them to come. Angle stepped closer. "And if the place is full of Organization officers?" Rhea answered, "I keep going." He pressed, "If it’s a trap?" Her ears angled back. "I keep going." Angle held her gaze. "If whoever did this is waiting there?" Rhea’s expression went quiet. "Then I stop looking."

Gumm tightened around her shoulders. Angle turned away, heat moving faintly around the seams of his gauntlets before he forced it down. "We barely got out of the Exchange. My father died because we were already in too deep with people stronger than us. Walking into an Organization facility right now is insane."

Sio stayed beside the open case. Angle was right, which was the irritating part. Running had kept Sio alive more than once. Arch had hidden them in safehouses, they had escaped the Baron, the Grand Exchange and Veilhollow, and even the ridge outside had only ended in their favor because Ur and Sa could still reach the threshold.

Sio opened a small portal over his palm and closed it. Veilhollow had forced him to stop searching for the easiest exit and start understanding what paths were actually connected. The thought followed him now for reasons that had nothing to do with caves. "If we keep doing this, we’re going to get really good at running."

Angle looked over. "That’s your argument?" Sio stood. "Still working on it." Rhea’s mouth twitched, which was enough to keep him going.

"Every time something stronger comes after us, we survive and disappear," Sio said. "Then something stronger finds us anyway. Arch didn’t die because we weren’t good enough at hiding. He died because when people like Maelor finally reached us, we weren’t strong enough to decide what happened." Angle’s expression hardened, but Sio kept his eyes on him.

"If we want that to change, we have to stop treating everything stronger than us like something we can only escape from." Angle glanced toward the damaged route. "And your solution is attacking the Wayfarer Organization."

"My solution is finding out whether we can handle one collection annex," Sio said. "That sentence is much smaller." Angle’s mouth tightened. "You improved it." Sio nodded. "Exactly."

Rhea let out a quiet laugh. Sio pointed at the route. "We go small. We learn what they know. We get whoever they took out if they’re still there. If we can’t handle that, we find out before we start pretending we can fight the whole world."

Angle looked at the graves. "And if it goes wrong?" Sio let the question sit without turning it into a speech. "Then we make sure it teaches us something."

"That’s not exactly inspiring." Sio lifted one shoulder. "I haven’t finished the motivational part yet." Rhea laughed again, and Sio found himself smiling with her before Angle cut across them. "You’re both insane, but one annex. That’s it."

Sio held out a hand. "Success or nothing." Angle looked at it. "That might be the stupidest thing you’ve said this week." Sio kept his hand there. "Long week." Angle ignored it and leaned over the map instead, which was close enough.

The survivors spent the next hour pulling everything useful from the recovered equipment. Most records were corrupted, but the route survived along with an old transport schedule showing that Annex K-17 received collections from remote regions rather than operating as a major base. It was not safe, but it was possible.

Before they left, the old woman caught Rhea near the first bridge and pressed a small dark-wood token into her palm, nine narrow marks cut around its edge. "Your mother kept that above the door. I found it after." Rhea closed her fingers around it, and whatever crossed her face disappeared before she turned back.

Sio noticed the nine marks but did not ask. They descended from the settlement under a darkening sky, Gumm moving between Rhea and Sio before settling across her shoulders while Angle carried the recovered route projected faintly from the cracked strip.

The jungle thinned several kilometres later. Through the trees, Sio saw a pale structure built low against the earth, its roof covered in vegetation and solar glass. Three clean transport vehicles waited beneath an overhang, and the familiar Wayfarer symbol sat beside the entrance in dark metal.

Rhea stopped beside him while Angle killed the projection. Sio studied the building and felt several paths moving inside, each connection sharp enough to tell him the annex was awake. They had spent long enough running from that symbol. This time, they were walking toward it.