When the last awakened entered the Breach, the camp outside finally loosened.
The governnt had spent hours forcing order into chaos. Agents had checked nas, pushed civilians back, repeated warnings, and kept the line moving. By the ti the last entrant vanished inside, most of them looked half-dead.
So dropped into chairs the second they were allowed to. Others walked off with the blunt relief of people whose shift had ended at the right mont. Only a handful remained around the periter, keeping watch over the unstable light of the Breach.
Richards was one of them.
He stayed near the outer line with his hands in his coat pockets, posture relaxed only on the surface. The Breach still pulsed ahead of him, suspended above the damaged street like a tear in the world that had not yet decided whether it wanted to remain open.
Around him, the camp had fallen into that strange silence that ca after the work was done but before the result arrived.
One agent lit a cigarette beside a stack of equipnt crates. Two others sat near the monitoring station, speaking in low voices. A fresh-faced woman from a new intake unit stood a little too stiffly near the periter, still carrying herself like every movent had to be correct.
Richards noticed her once and then looked back at the Breach.
He had seen enough of these to know calm never ant safety.
Then the Breach moved.
It did not collapse violently. There was no explosion, or warning shout from the monitors. The distortion simply tightened, the fractured light pulling inward as if an invisible hand had grabbed the edges and dragged them together.
Richards’ eyes narrowed.
A second later, the opening vanished.
The space where it had hung was empty.
For one stupid heartbeat, nobody reacted.
Then one of the agents near the monitoring station looked up, saw the empty air, and froze.
His chair scraped hard against the ground as he stood.
"The Breach—!" he shouted, voice cracking. "The Breach closed!"
The camp erupted at once.
People were on their feet before the words had even finished settling. Soone slamd a hand down on the ergency panel. Alarm lights flashed red across the temporary structures, and a harsh warning tone burst through the camp.
Every face turned toward the empty space where the Breach had been.
No one liked what it ant.
Because everyone there knew the rule.
An open Breach could still be reinforced from the outside. More awakened could be sent in if the situation demanded it. Equipnt could follow. Support could follow. A closed Breach changed all of that.
Once it sealed, no one else could enter.
Only those already inside could solve it.
The new woman by the periter stared at the empty air, then turned toward Richards with a frown that was half confusion and half concern.
"This is bad?" she asked.
Richards looked at her, and for a second he honestly could not believe the question.
Then he reminded himself she was new, still clean and young enough to ask things like that without already knowing the answer.
"Yes," he said. "Very bad."
He gestured toward the place where the Breach had vanished.
"If it closes, nobody else goes in. Not us nor reinforcents, not anyone. The only way it opens again is if the problem inside gets solved."
The woman’s expression changed.
"What if it doesn’t?"
Richards let out a slow breath through his nose.
"Then eventually things start coming out."
She stared at him.
"Soul Beasts?"
"Yes. At first, maybe nothing too insane. Depends on the Breach." His jaw tightened slightly. "But if a sealed one festers long enough, the ceiling rises. If sothing Saint rank or above cos out in the middle of a city, then the whole situation stops being local."
The woman’s face lost what little color it still had.
A Saint-rank creature was not the kind of thing a city just handled because it had to. That was the sort of thing that tore districts apart, collapsed transport lines, and left thousands dead before the news even finished spreading.
Arandom City had resources, influence and so strong awakeneds.
That did not an it had enough.
One of the older agents nearby muttered a curse under his breath. Another was already barking into a communicator, demanding a full confirmation from the monitoring systems even though everyone had seen the sa thing with their own eyes.
Richards looked back at the empty air and said the only thing that fit.
"Shit."
The new woman swallowed.
"Can’t any family send soone?" she asked. "Or a faction? There have to be people strong enough."
Richards gave a short laugh with no amusent in it.
"Strong enough, yes."
He glanced at her.
"Willing is a different question."
She frowned. "What do you an?"
’Damn she is so innocent...’
"I an this is exactly the kind of situation where everyone suddenly rembers how valuable their help is." His tone stayed even, but there was contempt under it now. "Big families, rivate forces or top independents. A lot of them will co, sure. But not before attaching a number to it so large it sounds like a joke."
Her brow pulled tighter.
"They’d do that now?"
"They do it especially now."
He looked out over the temporary camp, then toward the distant city skyline beyond it.
"People talk about duty when it costs them nothing. The second real danger appears, they start weighing everything against profit, asuring risk, reward, and how much they can squeeze out of everyone else’s fear."
The woman went quiet.
Richards kept speaking, more to himself now than to her.
"They’ll dress it up with better words, say it’s ergency mobilization or strategic compensation, but it always cos down to the sa thing." His mouth hardened slightly. "Greed."
She lowered her gaze for a mont, then looked back up.
"So all we can do is trust the ones inside?"
Richards did not answer right away.
The alarm still flashed red across the camp. Agents moved faster now, voices overlapping as reports were pushed up the chain. Another team had already started reinforcing the periter, as if the sealed Breach might tear back open and throw sothing into the street without warning.
At last, he said, "Unfortunately, yes."
His voice remained calm, though only because panic had never made any situation better.
"We trust them, and we prepare for the worst. A Breach closing like this ans the difficulty has gone up, and every awakened trapped in there is still only at the first Soul Core."
The woman looked back toward the vanished opening.
"Fuck..."
Richards gave a small nod.
"Yeah. Fuck sums it up."
He reached for the communicator at his belt and checked the available channels.
"I’m going to try external contacts," he said. "Other cities first. If that goes nowhere, I’ll start reaching farther. Maybe one of the major capitals can send soone fast enough."
She blinked. "You think they’ll actually answer?"
"They’ll answer." He clipped the communicator back into place. "Whether they’ll be useful is a different matter."
Then he turned and walked off.
The woman remained where she was, staring after him for a second before looking back toward the empty air with a face that finally matched the situation.
Richards moved past temporary barriers and stacked equipnt, already sorting through nas in his head before he even touched the communicator again.
But his thoughts were not really on the city.
They were on Neo.
That irritated him more than he cared to admit.
The boy was useful. That part had been true from the beginning. Neo had seen Roderic Duplain with his own eyes. He was a thread that might finally lead sowhere real, sowhere solid enough to rip open part of the ss the Duplains had spent years burying.
Richards needed that.
But at so point, it had stopped being only about usefulness.
He had started to care about the kid.
Not in so soft or sentintal way. Neo was sharp, suspicious, and always ready to bite when pushed. Still, Richards respected him. The way he watched everything. The way he refused to bend. The way he carried hunger like a private war against the world.
If Neo died inside that Breach, Richards would lose more than a witness.
He would lose his best lead.
And maybe the only one that had felt real in a very long ti.
He stopped beside a governnt vehicle and looked once toward the place where the Breach had vanished.
’Co out of there, Neo.’
When he opened his eyes again, he was already dialing the first contact.
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