The gate upgrade went up first thing in the morning, and Michael stood in the lobby watching it reinforce itself with the particular satisfaction of someone checking something important off a list.
The original gate had been solid, but the upgrade added an outer layer, sensor-integrated, that would register anything pressing against it from outside and relay it directly to the perimeter panel upstairs.
Something could be at the gate for ten minutes, and he would know about it before it became a problem.
He had also added the pulse relay extension overnight, buying the components from the shop at two in the morning when he couldn't sleep, and installing it quietly so as not to wake anyone.
The Territory range had jumped from six blocks to nine, and the picture it gave him of the surrounding area was considerably more detailed than before.
Which was how he knew about the cluster.
Eight blocks southeast, just at the edge of the extended pulse range, there was a concentration of signatures that had been there since he first extended the range and hadn't moved.
They were not wandering in a directionless movement the standard Rotters moved, not the slow and heavy patience of they always showed on floor 3. This was a stationary cluster, dense enough that counting individual signatures was difficult, just a mass of them sitting in one place like something was holding them there.
He didn't know what that meant yet.
He filed it and kept building.
Tier 2 completed at around midday, and the notification came with a pulse of blue light that washed briefly through the apartment and made Shin look up from the book she'd found in 603, and Maya come out of the kitchen to see what had happened.
[Base Tier 2 — Outpost: Complete.]
[Tier 3 unlocked — Settlement.]
[New blueprints available: Clinic, Expanded Barracks, Perimeter Wall, Advanced Greenhouse, Training Room.]
[Territory Pulse upgraded — Active deterrent range unlocked.]
He stood in the middle of the living room and read through the new blueprint list, feeling the quiet satisfaction of something he had been working toward actually arriving.
[Training room]
He looked at that one for a moment. A system-built training space with equipment and a floor rating that could support full combat practice.
He thought about how weak and less athletic he was compared it to Sera, and the gap between them was still significant enough to be embarrassing.
He bought the clinic materials first, because Dr. Kang had been patient long enough, and placed the blueprint in the second bedroom extension and watched it assemble itself into something that actually looked like a medical space.
A proper examination surface, supply storage, equipment hooks, a small sink with running water from the collection system.
Dr. Kang appeared in the doorway behind him and was quiet for a long moment.
"This is good," she said, which from Dr. Kang was approximately equivalent to anyone else being overwhelmed.
"List anything else you need for it," he said.
She was already moving inside and opening cabinets before he finished the sentence.
Sera found him on the watchtower in the afternoon, running the extended pulse sweep, and stood beside him, looking out at the city the way she always did—taking it in like information.
"We're going tomorrow right," she said.
"Yeah," he confirmed.
She looked north toward the hospital. It was three blocks and the route seemed clear with nothing significant between them and the entrance.
He had been mapping it all day, watching the Rotter movement patterns on the extended range, identifying which blocks had consistent traffic and which were reliably empty at certain times.
"Best window is early morning," he said. "Around six. The Rotter movement on the second block thins out around then. They drift south overnight and don't come back up until mid-morning."
"How long do we have before they drift back?"
"Two hours comfortably. Maybe three if we push it."
"We won't need three hours," she said with a hint of confidence in her voice like she had already planned everything in her head.
He looked at her. "You've been planning this."
"Since Maya brought it up the first time." She glanced at him sideways. "Someone had to."
He looked back out at the city. "Shin's leg is better."
"I know."
"She wants to come."
"I know that too." Sera was quiet for a moment. "She's more capable than she looks. She's been training in the mornings."
Michael looked at her. "Training?"
"In the cleared apartment two doors down. Early, before everyone's up." Sera met his eyes briefly. "She didn't want to make a thing of it."
He thought about it for a second, maybe it wasn't a bad idea after all.
"Three of us, then," he said.
Sera nodded like she'd been expecting that answer.
He pulled up the squad configuration in the Blueprint Interface, a Tier 2 unlock he hadn't used yet that let him designate active team members for a raid and applied shared pulse tracking to the group, so everyone could feel the basic shape of what was around them.
[Squad configured: Michael, Sera, Shin.]
[Shared pulse tracking active.]
[Raid objective: General Hospital — North. Medical supply extraction.]
[Ding! Raid Quest — The Hospital. Estimated threat level: Moderate-High. Recommended preparation: Complete. Proceed when ready.]
Moderate-high. He looked at that for a second.
"What does your face mean?" Sera said.
"Nothing," he said. "We're ready."
She looked at him an expression that meant she knew that wasn't the whole answer and had decided to accept it anyway. Then she looked back out at the city.
"Get some sleep tonight," she said.
He opened his mouth.
"I heard you with the components last night," she said without looking at him. "The shop materializing things makes a sound."
He closed his mouth.
"Sleep," she said again, and went back down through the hatch. He stood on the watchtower alone and stayed up there for another hour.
Then he went down and slept.
Maya was waiting for him at the bottom of the hatch ladder.
He nearly stepped on her.
"I want to come," she said, before he had fully gotten both feet on the floor.
"Maya."
"I know what you said. I know it's you, Sera, and Shin." She crossed her arms. "I'm saying I want to come, and I think you should reconsider."
He looked at her. She looked back at him, and in the dim light of the hallway, her expression wasn't the face she wore when she was pushing for something. It was almost like she was begging him.
"I found the hospital," she said. "From the watchtower. I'm the one who pushed for it." She paused. "I just want to be there."
Michael looked at her for a long moment.
"You'll stay with Shin," he said. "You and Shin take the ground floor while Sera and I go up. You don't go further than the ground floor without me. If you see anything bigger than a standard Rotter, you fall back to the entrance and you signal."
Maya stared at him. "That's a yes."
"That's a conditional yes with rules attached."
She uncrossed her arms, and the expression on her face did the thing it sometimes did where something genuine got through before she could stop it. "Thank you."
"Don't make me regret it."
"I won't." She turned and went toward the barracks, then stopped and looked back at him. "Get some sleep."
"Sera already told me that."
"Then maybe listen," she said, and went to bed.
He stood in the hallway for a second, then pulled up the squad configuration and updated it.
[Squad configured: Michael, Sera, Shin, Maya.]
[Ding! Squad updated. Raid commences at 0600.]
He went to sleep.