The sixty-day review closes on a Tuesday.
No fanfare. Caleb files the final operational report with the council secretary at nine in the morning. The data is what it is: eighteen documented engagements, mark-work performance metrics, the traitor identification, the infrastructure outcomes, the infiltration response. Clean numbers and their implications, laid out in twelve pages that say, in the language of formal documentation, that the experiment worked.
Damon sends me the filed copy with a note that says: *Final session at three.*
I wear what Mara found for me — something structured and dark, the kind of professional that says *I work here* rather than *I survived to be here.* She checks it before I go and adjusts the collar twice without asking permission.
"You look like you belong
