The commendation ceremony for the wyvern kill happened four days later, in the same hall where I'd first met the general — smaller crowd this time, mostly officers and the handful of soldiers from the eastern outpost who'd survived the week, plus a scattering of aides taking notes for whatever report was going to circulate up the chain about the army's first confirmed apex-class kill. Vanguard Squad stood in a row at the front while General Cole read off a citation that made the whole thing sound a lot more heroic than it had felt at the time — no mention of Ralph nearly losing his footing on the silo ladder, none of Alex's running commentary about style points, just clean, official language about "decisive engagement" and "exceptional coordination under threat conditions."
"For conduct above and beyond standard operational parameters," Cole read, "and for the first confirmed neutralization of an apex-class corrupted entity, this squad is hereby commended for exceptional service." He looked up from the page, something almost warm cracking through his usual formal bearing. "Off the record — good work. All five of you. I've read the after-action report twice, and I still don't entirely believe a five-person squad brought that thing down without a single casualty."
"Style points," Alex murmured, just loud enough for the row of us to hear and nobody else, and Ralph had to bite back a laugh hard enough that his shoulders shook.
The applause that followed felt strange against my skin — a room full of people who'd never seen the wyvern up close clapping for something that had nearly taken Ralph's head off on its second pass, and I found myself scanning the crowd out of habit more than ceremony, cataloguing faces the way I always did in a room full of strangers, weighing who might be worth remembering and who was just noise.
"You're doing the thing," Ian said quietly, beside me, not looking away from Cole as he moved on to the next line of the citation.
"What thing?"
"The thing where you case a room like you're planning an exit route instead of accepting a compliment." A faint, knowing smile. "You did it during the debrief after the convoy ambush too. I noticed."
"Old habit," I said, which was becoming a more honest answer than I liked, the same phrase I'd given Ralph over breakfast two mornings ago.
"Everyone's got one." Ian's eyes tracked briefly toward the back of the hall, where officers I didn't recognize were filtering in through the main doors, drawn by the ceremony's noise. "Try to enjoy this part while it lasts, though. We don't get many."
He was right, and I meant to take the advice — right up until the ceremony broke and people started mingling, and I caught sight of a familiar face threading through the crowd near the back of the room, moving with a confidence that didn't match the person I remembered.
"Bruce," I said, the second the ceremony broke and people started mingling, crossing the hall faster than probably looked casual.
He turned, and for a second I barely recognized him — cleaner uniform, a new set of stripes on his shoulder, a confidence in how he carried himself that hadn't been there the day Angela and Daniela died in front of us, back when he'd looked like a man who'd forgotten how to stand up straight. "Corporal. Guess congratulations are in order. Again."
"You got transferred here?"
"Two weeks ago. Command decided I did well enough after — " he paused, the old grief flickering across his face before he pushed past it, jaw tightening for just a moment, " — after the warehouse, that they wanted me somewhere I could actually use it. Enhancement specialist, apparently, is a rare enough affinity that they didn't want to waste it babysitting a training camp full of recruits who don't need field medicine yet."
"That's good. Really." And I meant it — Bruce deserved better than fading into a footnote after everything he'd survived, after carrying Angela's death and Daniela's death in a way I still wasn't sure he'd fully set down. "You settling in okay?"
"Better than I expected." He hesitated, glancing around the hall like he was checking who might be close enough to overhear, then added, quieter, "I heard about the wyvern. Command's saying it's the first confirmed sighting of anything like it. People are nervous. There's already talk of it happening near other outposts too, smaller sightings nobody's confirmed yet."
"They should be nervous." I thought about the crystal still sitting in my footlocker, the color I hadn't been able to name, that strange double-shaded glow like two colors refusing to settle into one. "Something's changing out there. Faster than anyone expected. Dustin thinks whatever's organizing the zombie packs is doing the same thing to whatever wildlife survived. Evolving it on purpose."
Bruce nodded slowly, and I could tell he wanted to say more, his mouth opening around the start of a sentence he didn't finish, but a voice cut across the hall before he got the chance.
"Corporal Johnathan. A word, if you have a moment."
I turned to find a man I didn't recognize approaching — mid-thirties, lean, a major's insignia on his collar and a smile that didn't reach anywhere near his eyes. Something about the way he said my name, flat and clipped, put my guard up before he'd said anything else, some instinct honed over three years of learning exactly which adults in a uniform meant you well and which ones were doing math behind their smile.
"Major Voss," he said, extending a hand I shook out of reflex more than politeness, his grip a fraction too firm, held a fraction too long. "I run internal review for General Cole's command. Impressive work with the wyvern. Impressive work in general, honestly — you've made corporal faster than almost anyone in this army's history. I looked up the numbers before I came over. Nobody else is close."
"I've had good teams," I said carefully, keeping my voice level, pleasant, the exact tone I'd practiced for months without ever quite admitting to myself that I was practicing it.
"Modest. I like that." His smile didn't shift, but something behind his eyes did — a flicker of calculation I recognized because I did the same thing myself, all the time, without letting it show, cataloguing a person's tells the way he was clearly cataloguing mine. "Tell me, Corporal — 'short-range teleportation.' That's an unusual affinity. We don't have a lot of documented cases to compare it to. Most spatial-adjacent abilities we've logged move slower, need a run-up, something visible before the effect. Yours seems to happen instantaneously, from what's in your file. Would you be willing to sit down with our evaluation team sometime? Purely for research purposes. Understanding exotic abilities helps us plan better for the war effort — resource allocation, tactical deployment, that sort of thing."
Every instinct I had went cold and still at once, the ceremony's warmth draining out of the moment like someone had opened a door to winter.
"I'd have to check with Colonel Reyes about my schedule," I said, keeping my voice even, unhurried. "We've been running back-to-back deployments. Barely had time to breathe between the convoy op and the wyvern."
"Of course, of course. No rush." Voss's smile widened slightly, and it felt less like reassurance and more like a door being left deliberately open, waiting for me to walk through it on my own. "It's just — a man who climbs this fast, this young, tends to attract attention. Some of it friendly." He glanced, briefly, meaningfully, toward Bruce, standing a few feet away with an expression carefully arranged into neutral. "Some of it less so. I'd hate for anyone to start asking questions I couldn't answer on your behalf, Corporal. Better it comes from someone who already has your interests in mind."
"I appreciate the concern," I said, and meant absolutely none of it.
"I'm sure you do." He gave a short nod, glanced once at Bruce like he was filing his face away for later use, and turned to go, already scanning the room for whoever else warranted his attention next. "Congratulations again on the wyvern, Corporal. I have a feeling we'll be talking again soon."
I watched him disappear into the crowd, weaving between officers with the easy, practiced motion of a man who'd spent a career learning exactly how to be remembered by the right people and forgotten by everyone else, and the good mood the ceremony had built up drained out of me like someone had pulled a plug.
"Who was that?" Bruce asked, stepping closer, voice dropped low.
"Trouble," I said. "I just haven't figured out what kind yet."
"You want me to ask around? I've still got a few contacts from the old base, people who might know his reputation."
I thought about it for a second longer than I meant to. Every instinct told me to say no, to keep this contained, to keep the number of people who knew I was worried at all as small as possible. But Bruce had carried me out of a warehouse basement with a hole in his side and a tier four's claw marks across his ribs, and some debts didn't get repaid by pretending you didn't need help.
"Quietly," I said finally. "If you hear anything, tell me first. Not command, not anyone else. Just me."
"Understood." He clapped me once on the shoulder, the old easy warmth of it almost enough to push the chill of Voss's smile out of my chest. "For what it's worth — whatever he's fishing for, Johnathan, I've got your back. Same as always."
"I know." And for the first time since Voss had walked away, something in me loosened, just slightly. "Thanks, Bruce."
The rest of the ceremony passed in a blur of handshakes and congratulations I only half-registered, my mind still turning over Voss's questions long after most of the hall had emptied out for the night.
Ian found me still standing near the refreshment table, untouched cup of something lukewarm in my hand, staring at the doorway Voss had disappeared through a good ten minutes ago.
"You look like someone told you the wyvern had a sibling," he said, dropping into the seat beside mine.
"Worse. A major from internal review wants to sit me down for a 'research' interview about my ability." I finally set the cup down, appetite for the small talk gone entirely. "Said it casually. Wasn't casual."
Ian's easy expression sharpened into something more careful. "Voss. Lean guy, smile that doesn't move right?"
"You know him?"
"Know of him. He ran an internal review on a squad two units over from where I trained, before I got pulled into this. Guy's got a reputation — thorough, patient, doesn't let go of a thread once he's pulled it." Ian's jaw worked for a second. "For what it's worth, that kind of attention usually means someone above him wants answers about something specific. He doesn't usually go fishing on his own initiative."
"That's not exactly reassuring."
"Wasn't meant to be." He clapped a hand on my shoulder, gentler than the gesture usually was from him. "Just — watch yourself around him. Whatever you're not telling the rest of us, Johnathan, I'm not asking. Everyone's got things they keep close. But a man like Voss makes a career out of finding them anyway."
I didn't have an answer for that, so I didn't try to give one, and Ian, to his credit, didn't push for one either. We sat together a while longer in the emptying hall, the noise of the ceremony fading into the ordinary hum of a base settling in for the night, and I let myself wonder, not for the first time, exactly how much longer the careful architecture of my secrets was going to hold before someone like Voss found the crack that brought the whole thing down.