Kaiden Grey stood at the railing of the observation deck and watched the first five hundred go, the chant of "DEFINITELY-NOT-YUNA!" fading down the corridor toward the break rooms until the double doors cut it off mid-syllable.
The hall they left behind looked like a small war had been hosted in it. Politely. Claw furrows ran the padded floor in tidy parallel lines, a starburst crater marked the spot where Calypso had stepped off the deck, and dark wet patches were all that remained of one assassin's ice.
The last healers swept the floor for stragglers, and near the far wall a man was explaining to his colleague that he had not been folded, he had been stacked, and that the distinction mattered to him.
A facility administrator in Association gray walked the longest furrow from end to end, counting his steps and tapping at his tablet, calm, because none of this was coming out of his budget. The junior aide trailing him had no such calm.
