CHAPTER 75: SIX MONTHS BEYOND THE WALL [2]

After delivering the report, the runner bobbed and fled.

Reid turned his head just enough to look at Ethan. "Just to confirm that my hearing is still fine, you heard the words I did?"

"Audit and reassignment review," Ethan repeated. "Which is how they say ’we promised to leave you alone until we didn’t.’"

"I’ll pour you a drink at eleven fifty," Reid said.

"Maybe two," Ethan said.

They shared a look that had too much in it to say out loud.

Then Reid pushed off the rail, clapped Ethan’s shoulder once, and walked away with his dish towel slung over one shoulder like a white flag that meant nothing in a place that didn’t accept surrender.

...

By noon the council chamber was full.

It wasn’t a grand hall, Fort Aegis had no patience left for grand. Rather, it was a reinforced amphitheater carved out of an old hangar.

Tiered seats of bolted steel held a hundred civilians, a dozen officers, and four Awakened in uniform who radiated the kind of stillness that only comes from people who have been told too often that they are weapons.

A world map scavenged from some pre-Rift classroom hung on the far wall, parts of it overpainted with new borders and frequency bands.

Fort Aegis’s comm grid blinked like a constellation.

On it, lines ran from this fortress to icons stamped across the world, each node annotated with dates and call signs.

Each of these nodes were other quarantine zones across the world that they had established communication with over the past six months.

At three of those nodes the ink was thicker and bolder, AFRICA, CHINA, and ENGLAND. The ink was thicker because those 3 major quarantine zones had C Rank leaders, the only confirmed C Rank Awakened in the world.

They were the anchors that the survivors of humanity gathered around.

A man in black stood at the dais with a face like carved stone and a voice like steel. "Fort Aegis acknowledges the widening of the Rift," he started.

"We acknowledge stronger incursion events".

"At first, it was F Rank swarms, then E Rank, then D Class pack leaders, and now C Ranks. The C Rank event thirty one days ago, we acknowledge the fact that our walls held," he paused. "But it came at a cost".

He waited for the murmur that always came, letting the shared memory wash loyalty up over the room’s edges.

"Going forward," he said, "Aegis will expand Awakened requisition".

His words brought silence back to the council hall.

"Civilian-status Awakened may be called to serve in limited capacities," he continued. "Non-combat roles where appropriate, and combat where necessary".

"Also, out-of-zone deployments to allied forts will be considered on a volunteer basis for E+ and above pending clearance".

"The world is becoming more dangerous, and we can no longer afford to have Awakened who refuse to pull their weight". His gaze stopped on a few individuals in the crowd.

Heads turned as eyes found Ethan like compasses finding north.

Well, in six months, even as a civilian, his ability had still managed to draw attention. The look they gave him was the same... asset.

The commandant continued. "The three most stable Quarantine Forts report similar strain. Africa’s Tri-Arc is holding with their C Rank Lord in command, and China’s Long Bastion reports two C Rank neutralizations".

He didn’t say kill. No one said kill anymore when they meant survive.

He continued. "England’s Crown Ring has begun research cooperatives, and Fort Aegis will align".

At that moment, a woman in a quiet gray uniform flanked by two Awakened stepped forward.

On her chest area read [Directorate Liaison] in small, clean letters.

Her smile was sharp. "Talent mapping continues," she said in a pleasant voice. "Due to our collaboration with England’s Crown Ring, we’ve had some headways in our research of the Apocalypse and Awakened abilities".

"And we learned that some abilities climb easier than others. Most of you should have realized it, but it’s now factually confirmed".

"To grow, some abilities require extraordinary opportunity, and our job is to ensure opportunity meets duty as the threat of the monsters keep on growing".

Her eyes passed over Ethan and did not stop. "Fort Aegis is a community, and a community is most itself when its parts work".

Ethan wanted to ask if parts got to choose their machine.

Reid, two rows down didn’t look at him, but Ethan saw the set of his shoulders shift from skepticism into decision.

Travis, on the far aisle in med scrubs, raised one thumb without moving his arm. Jonas was not here; Holt was also not here.

Soon enough, the briefing bled into logistics and schedule grids.

Ethan soon drifted away from the words, and away from the hum that tried to turn men into diagram points.

The Wheel gently pulsed behind his eyes, as if yearning for action.

...

After the council briefing by noon, the fort resumed its usual rhythm as people went to do what they were told.

Ethan soon found Travis in the shade of a loading dock.

The healer sat on a crate, his hair tied back with gauze, his eyes edged by fatigue and the kind of dry humor that keeps men from falling apart.

He looked up as Ethan approached and grinned.

"Have you heard? Last I heard, we’re all heroes now". Travis said with a grin. "Heroes with time sheets."

"You’re famous," Ethan said. "People whisper your name like a spell in the streets, they call you urge Hands."

Travis scoffed. "They whisper because I make them eat soup".

Ethan chuckled, then he asked. "You okay?"

Travis looked at his palms. He flexed his fingers that had poured light into too many open places.

"I’m good," he said, and for once he didn’t wrap the truth in sarcasm. "Well, I’m tired, scared, but I think I’m ready".

"I got my ability for a reason, and seeing the state of the quarantine zone and the fate of the civilians, I think the least I can do is use my ability to help".

He blinked at Ethan. "You’ve been quiet, quieter than before".

Ethan lifted a shoulder. "Well, my Wheel’s breathing in my ear, and the fort’s breathing down my neck".

"I’m just trying not to exhale anything important."

Travis nodded. "We’re all pretending we belong to something we chose."

He hopped off the crate and nudged Ethan with an elbow. "Come by tonight. Reid’s pouring contraband ale".

"Well, almost-ale," he chuckled. "I’ll heckle him into adding spices."

"Spices are contraband too," Ethan said.

"Exactly," Travis said, and walked away, already listing patients aloud under his breath.

Watching him leave, Ethan shook his head.

...

Evening found the tavern humming soft.

Reid had carved a corner of the human district into his own. There were scrubbed tables, mismatched stools, and a brass bell over the door salvaged from a ship no one believed had ever sailed.

The air smelled like yeast and stories.

Civilians and off-shift soldiers sat shoulder to shoulder because stools don’t care about ranks as they wind down from the long day.

Holt stood at the end of the bar with a bowl of stew.

Jonas wasn’t here; the wall had him until midnight.

Entering the tavern, Ethan let the door swing shut behind him and felt for a moment the illusion of safety that good rooms create.

Reid slid a tin mug across the wood without asking. "On the house," he said.

Ethan grinned. "Everything’s on the house, what do you mean?"

Reid laughed.

"Rumor says audits will start with E+," Reid said, polishing a glass he didn’t need to polish.

"I’m E+," Ethan said.

"I noticed," Reid nodded.

They drank, and the tavern’s murmur filled the spaces silence would have sharpened into weapons.

Outside, Fort Aegis breathed a heavy breath.

Somewhere on the far side of the wall, the dark monsters beyond assembled themselves into a question that no one in the room could answer.

Holt spoke without looking up. "I don’t know if you guys have heard, but tracks at the northern flats changed last week. The prints are like ribs; something is dragging a cage behind it or wearing one".

"Rank?" Reid asked.

"No one knows," Holt shrugged.

Ethan stared into his mug until his reflection blurred into a man he did not entirely recognize. He had longer brown hair now, with darker black eyes, and an ache in the set of his mouth that hadn’t been there in the city.

He set the mug down. "If the wall calls," he said, "I’ll go. These days, it feels like even Fort Aegis will fall any day".

Reid didn’t nod, he just listened.

Somewhere far above on the black shoulder of the headquarters tower, a light in a narrow window blinked, and the sense of being watched settled on Ethan’s skin like a fine dust.

Observation had begun months ago. He’d noticed it, but he pretended not to have noticed. Tonight though, it felt closer.

He pushed his stool back and stood. "I’m going to walk," he said.

"Don’t talk to any walls," Reid said.

"Got it," Ethan waved a hand dismissively.

Evening in Fort Aegis was pretty mundane, with lamps guttering to life along catwalks, distant orders echoing under girders, and the low thunder of generators.

He walked until the sound of people thinned and the sound of the wall itself seeped through as metal contracted by night chill, with guns whispering on silent rails, the big machines humming power into the parapets.

He put a hand to the cold concrete, closed his eyes, and simply relaxed.

He let all the sounds fade into the background, feeling the calm of the evening.

When he opened his eyes, they were clearer and calmer.

He sighed in satisfaction.

Tomorrow would bring audits and reassignment letters and the slow grind of a machine that hated waste and loved obedience.

It would bring messages from allied forts. If he was to guess, it would also bring a new rumor about Kara. It would bring the dark pressing hands and teeth against the walls and asking... how long will Fort Aegis hold?

Ethan breathed with the fort, slower and heavier, learning the rhythm so he could break it when he needed to.

They had reached the wall to survive.

Now they would have to survive inside the wall.

He turned away from the parapet’s shadow and walked back into the lit streets of Fort Aegis, where a tavern smelled like bread, and a healer laughed at his own exhaustion, and where a tracker read alphabets the earth hadn’t known six months ago, and a soldier poured thin beer with steady hands.

Behind his eyes, the Wheel brightened, curious and watchful, like a coin spinning on a table no one could flip forever.

Outside, the night held its breath. Inside, the fortress exhaled.

The second road had begun... the survival of Fort Aegis.