Page 5 of Prey

Lucien’s expression doesn’t change. “Average.”

Damon takes his position slightly behind and to Darius’s left without appearing to think about it. He’s been doing that for eleven years. I’m not sure he knows he does it anymore.

Marcus drops into the seat beside Ezra. Raphael stays standing near the wall. I take the head of the table, and the room settles into the particular quiet that means everyone is waiting for me.

“We have Weiss,” I say. “He’s in containment. Theon will start when we’re done here.”

Nobody reacts to that. We’re past the point where news like that warrants a reaction.

Ezra opens his laptop. He doesn’t look at the screen when he talks—he never does, because the numbers are already running in his head before they render on the display.

“I’ve been tracking activity patterns across fourteen of the remaining infrastructure nodes.” He turns the screen so the table can see it, though most of us are looking at him instead. “Transaction volumes, personnel movement, communication spikes. Over the last six weeks, the probability of coordinated internal restructuring has moved from thirty-one percent to seventy-eight.” He pauses. “Someone is reorganizing.”

Marcus’s fingers rest flat on the table, and he has that quality he gets sometimes—alert in a way that makes him seem like he’s listening to a frequency the rest of us can’t access.

“I’ve had three separate contacts go quiet in the last month,” Marcus says. “People who’ve fed me solid information for years. No warning. No explanation. Just nothing.” He tilts his head. “And the ones still talking are scared.”

Raphael shifts against the wall. “Two of my clients mentioned tighter security at events they attend regularly. Different cities, different circles, same timing. They didn’t connect it. I did.”

Theon taps his pen against his notepad once. “Someone has been sourcing precursor compounds in quantities that match the Architect’s synthesis protocols. Specifically, the stabilization agents used in the later conditioning phases.” He says. “I recognized the specification signature. It’s not generic. Whoever placed those orders knew exactly what they were asking for.”

The room is quiet for a moment.

Dominic sets his coffee down. He’s been still long enough that I’d almost forgotten he was there.

“I’ve been inside three government organizations over the past two months,” he says. “Different sectors. No obvious connection. All three had budget reallocations in the last quarter that don’t correspond to any legitimate operational need I could identify.” He looks at me. “Someone is being funded.”

The silence after Dominic speaks isn’t the uncomfortable kind. It’s the kind where nine people arrive at the same conclusion all at once.

I look around the table. Ezra’s jaw has tightened slightly on the right side, which means he’s calculating something he doesn’t like the shape of. Marcus has gone very still. Damon’s arms are crossed, and there’s a faint tremor in his forearm that I’d never mention in a thousand years.

“They’re rebuilding,” I say.

Nobody argues.

Darius exhales through his nose. “Reconstituting is more accurate. The original infrastructure never fully collapsed—we’ve been dismantling pieces of it. Someone’s been quietly reassembling what’s left.”

“Or replacing it,” Raphael says.

“New management,” Darius confirms. “Old blueprint.”

Lucien, who hasn’t spoken yet, tips his chair back two inches and studies the ceiling. His breathing is too careful, too deliberate. His ribs are worse than he’s letting on. “So we have a problem,” he says.

“We’ve always had a problem,” Ezra replies. “I can model optimal target sequencing given the new probability weights, but the variables will need?—”

“Later,” Darius says without looking at him. “We’ve been in this room for forty minutes, and Marcus hasn’t sat still for more than six seconds.”

“I’ve been still,” Marcus says.

“Your left hand hasn’t.”

Marcus looks at his left hand. His fingers have been tapping a sequence against the table. He flattens his palm against the surface.

Darius is already standing, moving toward the small kitchen off the corridor.

“Sit,” he says to the room at large. “All of you.”

Lucien lets his chair fall forward and catches the edge of the table with two fingers, a movement that looks casual and costs him more than he’ll admit.