Cory hated waiting rooms.
They all had the same smell.
Old coffee. Plastic. Paper. Anxiety.
This one was worse.
The federal holding facility looked like every other bureaucratic box Shane's company had started learning to navigate—gray walls, bolted-down chairs, fluorescent lights that hummed just enough to make a man want to grind his teeth. Everything about the place was designed to remind people that they were small, replaceable, and at the mercy of someone behind a desk.
Cory sat in the corner with a cheap magazine open in his lap, pretending to care deeply about an article on ergonomic office seating.
He did not care about ergonomic office seating.
What he cared about was the low-grade thrum of desperation in the room and the constant system scan running behind his eyes.
A mother with a crying child near the vending machines.
Two tired men in work boots speaking Spanish in hushed voices.
A young woman twisting her fingers so hard he thought she might draw blood.
A security guard who looked exhausted but clean.
No celestial signatures. No obvious anchors. No immediate threat.
Still, the place felt wrong.
It was a building full of people waiting to find out whether someone else would define their future.
That was the kind of environment AN loved.
Outside, Silas sat in the new Albright Roofing truck with the engine idling low, one arm hanging out the open window like he was just another guy stuck doing pickup duty.
Inside the system network, he was anything but casual.
He had line of sight on the main entrance, the employee door, and the rear vehicle lot. The truck radio hummed quietly under the classic rock station he'd put on just to make the whole thing feel normal.
Nothing about it was normal.
Cory turned a page in the magazine and kept his expression neutral.
The desk agent finally looked up from the file in front of him.
"Paperwork looks solid, Mr. Albright's HR representative," the man said without much emotion. "Please have a seat. Securing Mr. Fernandez's release might take thirty minutes, maybe an hour. Once he's out, he's in your custody."
He glanced up for the first time.
"You understand the requirement regarding future court appearances?"
Cory nodded too quickly, caught himself, and slowed it down.
"Absolutely. We'll make sure he's at every date."
The agent grunted, stamped something, gathered a thin file, and disappeared through the heavy security door behind the counter.
The door shut with a sound that felt more permanent than a door should.
Cory exhaled and sat back down.
Then he toggled his system scan a little wider.
He let the program strip the room down to patterns.
Motion.
Stress.
Intent.
Energy.
Nothing.
Just bureaucracy.
Over the comms, Silas keyed his mic.
His voice came through low and easy, like he was commenting on traffic.
"Exterior clear, Shane. No movement. Just normal federal flow."
Shane's reply came instantly through the network, calm and focused.
Understood. Cory, keep attention on the back corridor. Any unusual concentration of malice, alert immediately.
Cory almost smiled at the phrase.
"Concentration of malice" felt like something Bjorn or Olaf would say.
Then again, Shane was starting to sound like all of them lately.
Outside, Silas rubbed the steering wheel with one thumb and watched the entrance.
He still wasn't entirely used to this life.
Not the truck. Not the system. Not the fact that a man who had once lived in constant fear of one bad stoplight or one bad cop now had enough structure around him to sit outside a federal facility and participate in a rescue operation for an imprisoned fighter tied to a celestial war.
Life got strange fast under Shane Albright.
But he trusted Shane.
Trusted Saul.
Trusted Cory.
And trust was a hell of a stabilizer.
Then he saw the black sedan.
It rolled into the lot too smoothly.
Too deliberately.
Two men got out wearing suits just slightly too sharp for the building they were entering.
Silas's system alarm pulsed instantly.
Negative signature.
Strong.
Cleanly anchored.
He touched the mic.
"Shane. Cory. I've got two entering. Strong negative signatures. AN anchor confirmed on both."
Inside, Cory's pulse kicked once, hard.
He did not move immediately.
That was the point of the training.
Don't react to the warning.
React to the reality around it.
He picked up the roofing magazine and tilted it higher, pretending to compare office chair models like this was suddenly the most important article in the world.
The two men entered.
They didn't glance at the counter.
Didn't scan the waiting room.
Didn't even pretend to belong there.
They moved straight toward the secured rear door with the confidence of men who expected the rules to bend around them.
Cory watched them through the glossy reflection on the magazine page.
One tall, one broad.
Predatory focus.
No wasted motion.
The desk clerk frowned but didn't challenge them.
Either they had the right kind of credentials…
…or the wrong kind of influence.
The rear door opened.
They disappeared inside.
Cory pressed two fingers lightly against the magazine edge and kept his breathing steady.
Shane went quiet on the link.
That meant he was processing.
That usually meant he already had three backup plans and was deciding which one would cost the least.
Three long minutes passed.
They felt like thirty.
Then the rear door opened again.
The desk agent stepped out first, looking mildly annoyed in that overworked bureaucratic way that suggested paperwork had gone sideways and then been forced back into compliance.
Behind him came Hugo Fernandez.
Formerly ElToro.
He looked nothing like the man who had entered a fight under AN's influence.
The prison hold had stripped him down to the basics.
He looked leaner. More tired. Older around the eyes. Like someone who had learned in a very short span of time that power borrowed from monsters always came with a bill.
He wasn't cuffed.
That was good.
But the tension rolling off him was enough to choke a room.
He held a clear plastic bag with his possessions in one hand and kept his shoulders tight as if he expected someone to tell him the release was a mistake.
Cory stood smoothly and approached.
"Mr. Fernandez?"
Hugo looked at him cautiously.
"I'm Cory," he said, keeping his tone low and friendly. "Albright Roofing. Olaf asked us to come get you."
That name hit.
The tension in Hugo's face cracked.
Not completely.
But enough.
Enough for hope to get a foothold.
At the counter, the federal clerk completed the handoff and slid over the final papers.
"Don't miss your court dates," he said without looking up.
"Wouldn't dream of it," Cory replied.
He put one hand lightly on Hugo's arm and started steering him toward the exit.
Then the rear office door opened again.
The two AN-tied agents came back out.
The taller one stopped dead when he saw Hugo moving toward the lobby doors.
He turned sharply to the desk clerk.
"Was that ElToro?"
The clerk looked up, confused by the intensity.
"Yes," he said. "His paperwork was in order. He's been released."
The two men exchanged a look so sharp it might as well have been a knife.
Then they started moving.
Fast.
The desk clerk watched them go and muttered under his breath, "Guess they wanted his autograph."
Cory didn't laugh.
He tightened his grip on Hugo's arm.
"Move," he said quietly.
Hugo looked at him, instantly reading the seriousness.
"What's wrong?"
"The last two guys work for AN."
That was enough.
They pushed through the front doors.
Outside, the truck was already running.
Silas had shifted it into gear before Cory even hit the curb.
The back door swung open.
Hugo climbed in.
Cory took the passenger seat.
Silas slammed the truck into reverse.
The black sedan came alive immediately behind them.
Silas keyed the mic.
"We have company, Shane. Two confirmed following."
No panic came back over the system link.
Just calm.
Pull over in a populated area, Shane said. Immediately. Make it visible.
Cory understood at once.
They weren't going to win this in a chase.
They were going to win it in public.
Silas scanned the road ahead and spotted the opportunity.
A sprawling Italian-American restaurant with a packed lunch crowd and a huge outdoor veranda full of diners.
He cut the wheel and threw the truck into the lot.
The black sedan had no choice but to follow and stop behind them, directly in the sightline of a few dozen civilians holding forks and iced tea.
Silas killed the engine.
"Showtime," he muttered.
They all got out.
Cory first.
Then Silas.
Then Hugo from the back, looking confused but willing to follow their lead.
The AN agents came out of their sedan instantly.
No sirens.
No overt weapons.
But the threat was clear enough in the way they moved.
The lead agent stepped forward.
Cory raised his hands slightly in that aggrieved-citizen way that said what exactly seems to be the problem here?
"What's the issue, officers?" Cory asked loudly enough for nearby diners to hear.
The agents stopped.
That was the public pressure working.
They could not just snatch Hugo now.
Not cleanly.
Not without questions.
And questions were expensive.
The moment stretched.
Then Silas felt it before he saw it.
A strange pressure in the truck cab.
A folding of space.
Inside the truck—
Shane appeared.
No flash.
No dramatic sound.
He was simply there.
One second empty seat.
Next second Shane Albright in the driver's seat.
Cory's eyes didn't move toward him.
That was training too.
Shane spoke quietly from inside the cab.
"Tell them the paperwork is on the seat."
Cory relayed it immediately.
"The paperwork's on the seat if you want to check it."
The lead agent hesitated, then stepped toward the truck, clearly intending to get his hands on the file and either damage it, swap it, or invent a reason to void it.
The instant his hand crossed into the cab—
Shane acted.
His system flared.
COPY ACTIVATED
A faint internal snap clicked into place as the skill linked him to the man's immediate tactile memory and conscious processing.
At the same time Shane pushed a subtle command into the copied stream.
Not enough to dominate.
Just enough to tilt.
Stand down. I confirmed with Thorne. Paperwork is clean. Move along.
Outside, the second agent blinked.
The thought hit him like a delayed memory.
His partner had already checked with Thorne.
Everything was clean.
Stand down.
The lead agent jerked back slightly from the cab, suddenly looking less certain.
His partner frowned.
"What did he say?"
The first agent stared at him.
"…Thorne confirmed it. Paperwork is clean."
The second agent's face twisted.
"That's not what—"
His radio crackled.
Both men froze.
Their supervisor's voice cut across the lot.
"Agents, abort immediate pursuit. Repeat, do not detain that vehicle. No harassment. No escalation. That is a direct order. Do you copy?"
The two men stared at each other.
The lead agent looked like he'd just realized his own thoughts were no longer reliable.
The second looked furious.
But both of them were boxed in.
Thorne on one side.
Command on the other.
Public witnesses all around.
Cory didn't waste the opening.
"Get in," he snapped.
Hugo dove into the back.
Cory took the passenger seat.
Silas got them moving before the doors had fully shut.
They peeled out of the lot and merged hard into traffic.
No sedan followed.
Not immediately.
Inside the truck, Hugo looked between them, then toward the front seat.
His eyes widened.
"Who was that?"
Cory twisted around slightly.
"Who?"
"The man in the truck."
Cory and Silas exchanged a glance.
Then Cory said, "A friend."
Hugo stared.
"He appeared."
Silas kept his eyes on the road.
"Yeah."
Hugo looked from one to the other.
"You say that like it's normal."
Silas barked out a laugh.
"It stopped being normal a while ago."
The truck cab stayed tense for another minute before Shane's voice came over the system link.
Federal chain is shifting. Olaf's influence is working higher up than expected. Keep moving. Bring Hugo to the compound.
Cory nodded to himself.
"Understood."
Hugo sat back and tried to process what had just happened.
"The two agents," he said after a moment. "They were trying to take me?"
"Yes," Cory said.
"Why?"
Cory looked over his shoulder at him.
"Because you failed someone who does not like failure."
Hugo's jaw tightened.
Silas finally spoke.
"That someone had plans for you after the fight. You losing made you disposable."
Hugo looked down at the plastic bag in his lap.
"They wanted me broken."
Cory nodded once.
"Yes."
The man went quiet for a while after that.
When he spoke again, his voice was rougher.
"I thought it was just corruption," he said. "A crooked officer. A dirty manager. Somebody making an example out of me."
Silas shook his head.
"No."
"It's bigger than that."
Hugo laughed once, bitterly.
"Clearly."
He leaned his head back against the seat.
Then looked forward again.
"Why help me?"
That one sat in the cab for a few seconds.
Finally Cory answered.
"Because Olaf asked."
Silas added, "And because Shane doesn't like leaving people where AN can use them."
Hugo absorbed that.
Then nodded slowly.
By the time they reached the relative safety of Olaf's training compound, he looked different.
Not healed.
Not relaxed.
But realigned.
The panic had narrowed into something colder and more useful.
Gratitude.
Anger.
Purpose.
They pulled in.
Cory got out first, scanning.
Silas parked and killed the engine.
Hugo followed them out and stood for a moment staring at the facility like he wasn't entirely sure freedom was real yet.
Cory clapped him once on the shoulder.
"You're here."
Silas met Hugo's eyes in the rearview mirror before stepping out.
"Small victories," he said.
Hugo nodded.
Small victories.
Against an invisible enemy.
But victories all the same.
And for now—
They had him.
********************
"If you enjoyed Shane's journey, please drop a Power Stone! It helps the Common Sense Party grow!"