CHAPTER 420: YOU’RE PULLING TOO MANY THREADS AT ONCE

The building breathed around him, a steady hum that sounded almost like a tired person talking in their sleep, and he refused to let it lull him into that same softness, so he called the room to heel instead, pulled the lights down to a practical glow, and opened a private channel that didn’t exist on any org chart unless your name sat in a ledger older than the Association itself.

The glass above his desk flickered once or twice, then settled, and three indistinct figures took their places in the air—no polished faces, no crests, just silhouettes with patience in their posture; the holo was built to honor voices and timing, not presentation.

"Director," the first voice said—old, careful, choosing weight over volume the way a carpenter chooses a brace over a flourish. "You should be in bed."

"After the gate," he said, because it wasn’t an excuse and it wasn’t bravado; it was the plan, and he meant to stick to it.

A second voice came smoother, like a river that learned to go around rocks instead of arguing with them.

"You’re pulling too many threads at once," she said. "We can feel it through the walls. The city will feel it by noon if you keep tugging."

"The city will feel fire if I don’t," he said, steady as a level. "Restraint gave them space to root and rehearse. We can argue how hard to pull. Not whether to pull."

The last voice arrived softer than the others, but it set the room straighter, the way a hand on a tense shoulder sometimes does more than a shout.

"We’re not against the work," she said. "We remember the last time better than anyone. We’re reminding you that the pull breaks boards if you yank from the wrong angle."

He took that without bristling. "Then stand with me on the right one," he said. "We lure, we catch, we keep it clean. No speeches. No banners. No civilians."

He slid a palm across the table, and a map that wasn’t the public ring rose—something quieter and uglier, a working draft that lived under the floorboards.

Five embers lit across it, not bright, just hungry, and the legend didn’t pretend they were real caches

They were stage-dressed rooms worth stealing on paper, planted where no apartment faced a blast radius and no street vendor would be rolling a cart at dawn, wired to throw a net that didn’t explode, and staffed by people who could become air if the ground groaned wrong.

"We let them think they found doors someone lazy forgot to lock," he said. "They’ll overreach.

They always do when a room feels empty and the prize sits where it can be carried. We make sure the door opens inward, not out."

He walked them through the boring corridors under each floor: the frozen permits that would close the right streets without sirens and without the city thinking anything but maintenance was happening.

The quiet call trees that could move ambulances like chess pieces without telling anyone why those drivers were suddenly in those corners; the unnamed proctors who’d never sat on a roster and wouldn’t now

The lighthouses set to blink at frequencies only old sailors and older wards still recognized.

"No one’s kitchen window is inside the circle," he said. "No bus stop with children, no night clinic left short.

The nearest care stations are already staffed, and it is as if a drill is on the schedule. They expect nothing, which is why they’ll do everything right."

The first elder grunted approval like a thumb testing a joint that didn’t squeak. The second made a sound that could have been doubt or relief.

The third simply said, "Good," and let the word sit there until it felt like a clean nail driven straight.

"If it works," the careful voice said, "the ancient loses hands without knowing which knives took them. If it fails, the ripple will be loud. Your head will be brought to the table."

"My head can sit there for a day," he said. "If the city keeps eating breakfast, I can stand the view."

Something like a long breath moved through the channel, elders murmuring the way old friends do when they’re checking each other’s bones for cracks.

When they came back, the answer was exactly what he’d asked for and exactly what he’d expected.

"Do it," said the first.

"Make the bait too tempting," said the second. "You know their pride. They can’t resist proof they’re smarter than the people keeping the lights on."

"And if other clans sniff the wind and come hunting too," the soft one said, still straightening the room with tone alone, "we’ll quiet them. Not for your sake. For the void’s."

He nodded once, full and unposed. "I won’t ask you to catch what’s mine," he said. "If the roof groans, put your shoulders to the beam. Nothing more."

The feed thinned, but one more voice slid in at the seam, not tied to a face he could name, just to the way air makes space when a storm stands up outside a barn.

"The Sacred Cowkin are watching," the voice said. Not a warning. A weather report. He made no reply; you don’t negotiate with rain.

The holo folded like fabric and was gone.

The office belonged to its hum again. He stood with his palm against the glass and saw himself doubled—half lit by the scatter from the city, half held by the window’s darker edge—and the split didn’t bother him, because it matched the hour and the work: half mercy, half iron; half plan, half patience.

He knew who would be caught in the next hours, whether they wanted it or not, and he let that settle in the ribs where vows live, and he didn’t try to move it away.

He opened the list that had never been printed. He took two names off and put one back on, then stopped and did nothing for the length of a slow count because he had learned to let hunger and anger raise their hands and then tell them to sit down.

When the count ended, he still liked the shape of the choice.