Cain didn't move. Neither did Hunter.
"You have three days," the figure said. "After that, the next extraction won't be rushed. It'll be stabilized. And you won't be able to stop it the way you did today."
They stepped back into shadow.
"Choose where you stand," the voice echoed. "Or others will choose for you."
Then the watchers withdrew.
No shots. No pursuit.
Just absence.
The basin felt larger once they were gone. Emptier.
Hunter exhaled slowly. "That wasn't a bluff."
"No," Cain said. "They already have the next site."
"And they let us walk."
Cain looked toward the darkening skyline, where faint lights flickered back to life in distant sectors.
"They didn't let us," he said. "They positioned us."
Hunter frowned. "Toward what?"
Cain didn't answer right away.
Because for the first time since the Grid fell, he felt it clearly—not just damage, not just loss, but direction. Forces moving with intent, intersecting in ways that would not resolve cleanly.
