Page 111 of Dose

Three low buildings sit behind the sign for a biomedical-storage company near the industrial south end. Refrigerated trucks come and go at regulated intervals. Nothing about the place suggests children live behind the loading bays.

We have been planning this entry for six days.

Ezra is not here.

His final check arrived on time this morning: alive, trackers intact, no direct contact with Marchant. The lead remained active, and he requested one additional observation window. Nikolai approved it because no abort condition had been crossed.

Marcus absorbed Ezra’s remote work. Dominic stayed with the recovery team shadowing him. Seattle could not keep waiting; the next credential rotation begins tomorrow, and Raphael’s medication models become less reliable if the facility moves stock before we enter.

Nikolai gave final authorization at nineteen hundred.

The briefing display confirmed what Cascade’s records had suggested: forty-two children, with capacity and transport prepared for forty-eight. Sixty-one staff on the current rotation. Armed security on both residential levels. Five clinical transports staged. A local reserve outside the perimeter.

Cascade’s persistent access also gave us a name.

Dr. Petra Vale. Director of operations. An early designer of Project Architect’s acquisition and conditioning systems.

“Children first,” Nikolai said. “Medication, records, extraction. If Vale is on site and can be taken without delaying those objectives, we take her alive.”

No one mistook her capture for the mission.

My assignment remained conditional until the final briefing. Damon cleared me for the medical and records group under the same rule as Phoenix: specialist, not tactical operator. I follow the route, I report changes, and if he or Nikolai orders me out, I leave.

Theon disliked every word of it.

He accepted all of them.

We enter at 0217.

Marcus loops the perimeter feeds from the Nexus. The cloned credentials Dominic left us open the first service door. Damon leads the security element toward the staff wing. Lucien and the clinical teams take the residential levels. Raphael and Theon move for the pharmacy and cold stores.

Darius stays with me.

The administrative corridor smells of floor cleaner and refrigerated air. Darius checks each intersection before I cross it, all his usual performance stripped away.

“Two ahead,” Marcus says through the earpiece. “One seated inside the office on your left. One approaching from the far stairwell.”

Darius raises a closed fist.

We wait.

The first guard steps into view. Darius catches him before he can reach his radio and lowers him without letting his head strike the floor. The second guard takes another route after Marcus triggers a false door alarm behind him.

“Clear,” Marcus says.

Darius takes the guard’s badge.

The records room opens on the second attempt, after Marcus cycles a code through the compromised access system and Darius presents the stolen credential. Six days of access work reduce the door to a code and a borrowed badge.

Inside, server racks occupy the climate-controlled rear wall. Old filing cabinets fill the rest of the room. Vale kept physical originals alongside the digital archive, perhaps because paper cannot be reached through a network.

Her nameplate remains on the desk.

The chair is pushed back. A mug beside the keyboard is still warm.

“Recent,” Darius says.

“How recent?”