"That’s the point." I slurped ramen. The broth was perfect, pork bone richness layered over a de pth of flavor that made me briefly consider whether the cafeteria chef had an Aspect specifically designed for noodle preparation. "Dravid doesn’t want you to hit harder. He wants you to think about why you’re hitting at all."

"See, that’s the problem." Caden stole one of Marco’s chips. Marco noticed but chose violence through silence rather than confrontation, which was his way of establishing that the debt would be collected at a later and more inconvenient time. "I’m great at hitting. Thinking about hitting takes all the fun out of hitting."

"You literally turned invisible during the entrance exam and let other people do the hitting for you."

"That’s different. That was strategic invisibility."

"Strategic cowardice," Marco corrected.

"Strategic cowardice is a valid tactical philosophy and I will die on that hill."

"Dying on hills is what happens when your tactical philosophy is cowardice."

The table had its own rhythm by now, conversations overlapping and branching like roots beneath the surface. Felicity asked Rina about her tea. Finn said something to Theo about leverage angles that made Theo reconsider his entire approach to grappling. Percy documented everything without appearing to, his pen moving between bites of chicken with the consistency of a metronome.

I was halfway through my short ribs when my phone buzzed in my pocket. Then buzzed again. Then a third time in rapid succession, which was the universal signal for either an emergency or Sloane having opinions about something.

I pulled it out expecting pink-haired aggression.

Instead, the screen showed a news alert.

BREAKING: INCIDENT AT MERIDIAN TECHNOLOGIES HEADQUARTERS. EMERGENCY SERVICES RESPONDING TO REPORTED ASPECT DISCHARGE IN UPPER FLOORS. BUILDING EVACUATION IN PROGRESS.

My ramen suddenly tasted like nothing.

I knew Meridian Technologies. Everyone in Verano knew Meridian Technologies. They occupied a forty-story glass tower in the financial district, the kind of building that made the skyline look like it was trying too hard. The company sat at the intersection of hero-tech manufacturing and private sector Aspect research, producing everything from costume materials to combat analytics software. Their CEO, a man named Roland Richards, had been profiled in approximately every business publication that existed, usually alongside photos of himself standing in front of increasingly expensive things while wearing increasingly expensive suits.

"Hey." Caden’s voice lost its casual register. He was looking at his own phone, his hazel eyes focused in a way that stripped away the class clown entirely and left something considerably sharper underneath. "You guys seeing this?"

The table went quiet in the specific way that happens when twenty teenagers who are training to respond to emergencies suddenly encounter an actual emergency happening in real time on their phones.

Felicity’s blue eyes widened as she scrolled through the alert. "Meridian Technologies. That’s the hero-tech company in downtown, right? The one that does the costume fabrication contracts?"

"They do a lot more than costumes." Percy’s pen had stopped moving. His navy blue hair caught the overhead light as he leaned forward, his brain already processing at a speed his mouth would need several seconds to catch up with. "Meridian holds eleven active government contracts for Aspect enhancement technology research. Their Applied Sciences division develops sensory amplification equipment used by approximately thirty percent of California’s ranked Heroes. They also maintain a classified research wing on floors thirty-five through forty that does not appear on any publicly available floor plan."

Everyone at the table turned to look at Percy.

"I read their SEC filings last month. They were referenced in the Castillo assignment about agency equipment procurement chains."

"Of course you did." Marco put a chip in his mouth with the resignation of a man who had stopped being surprised by Percy’s information reserves approximately three days into their acquaintance.

My phone buzzed again. The news feed updated with video from a street-level camera, showing the lower portion of Meridian’s glass tower against the clear afternoon sky. Nothing looked damaged from the outside. No smoke, no broken windows, no visible structural compromise. But emergency vehicles were already arriving on scene, their lights painting the surrounding buildings in alternating red and blue, and I could see people streaming out of the ground-floor exits with the controlled urgency of an evacuation drill that nobody believed was actually a drill.

"Aspect discharge in the upper floors." I read the alert again, looking for details that weren’t there. "That could mean anything from a lab accident to someone’s power going haywire during a meeting."

"Or it could mean something worse." Rina’s tail had gone rigid against her leg. She held her sheep mug with both hands, the warmth from the tea apparently failing to reach whatever part of her processed threat assessment.

I watched the video feed for another ten seconds. The building stood intact. Emergency services arrived and established a perimeter. Civilians evacuated in orderly fashion. From the outside, it looked like a minor incident being handled by the appropriate authorities with the appropriate level of response.

But something about the feed nagged at me.

The evacuation was too orderly. Not in the way that suggested good training, but in the way that suggested the people leaving the building already knew exactly what to do when this particular scenario occurred. Like they’d rehearsed for it. Like whatever had happened on those upper floors was something the building’s occupants had considered as a realistic possibility and planned for accordingly.

Companies don’t rehearse for random lab accidents. They rehearse for the scenarios they’re afraid of.

"Lukas." Felicity touched my arm. Her fingers were warm against my skin through the uniform sleeve, and her blue eyes held something that wasn’t quite concern and wasn’t quite curiosity but occupied the space between both where genuinely smart people live when they’re waiting to see what you do before they decide how to react. "You’re doing the thing."

"What thing?"

"The thing where your eyes go flat and you stop blinking and you look like you’re reading something that isn’t there. Percy does it too, except Percy’s version comes with muttering."

"I don’t mutter," Percy said, while muttering.

I put my phone face-down on the table and picked up my chopsticks.

"It’s nothing. Emergency services are handling it."