Elizabeth looked at him, her eyes searching the stoic landscape of his face for even the slightest tremor of a lie. The air between them felt heavy, saturated with the unspoken weight of the upcoming confrontation.
"That sounds like a plausible explanation," she said, her voice measured, "but 'plausible' is a dangerous word in a room full of predators."
"It is an explanation that the Earthen Authority's fundamental mechanics support," Rex replied, his tone as unyielding as the stone he commanded. "Whether it is the absolute truth or merely a truth that fits the science is a distinction the system doesn't care about."
"That is the argument I will be making."
She fell silent, her gaze never wavering. She maintained that flat, crystalline attention, the kind of focus that didn't just observe but seemed to penetrate the very layers of his skin.
She was looking past the man and into the machinery of his mind.
