I knocked once on the half-open door.

"Come in," Bala said.

I stepped inside with Sherry close behind me. The office was warm, almost stuffy, the heavy oak desk anchoring the center like a dark island. Bala sat behind it with the composed stillness of a man who had been waiting—back straight, hands resting loosely on the wood.

Opposite him sat Doctor Reed in his wheelchair, thin frame hunched slightly forward, glasses perched on his nose. The voice from the corridor. And in one of the visitor chairs, legs elegantly crossed, fitted leggings and a tailored jacket, sat Mary Stam.

She didn’t look up when we entered.

"Is she—?" Bala asked, his eyes tracking Sherry as we moved toward the empty seats.

"She’s clean," I said, lowering myself into a chair, the leather creaking under my weight.

"Abram, you understand this is confidential," Bala said, voice even.

"It’s okay, Bram." Sherry’s fingers brushed my arm, light but steady. "He’s right."

"No, no, sit." Doctor Reed’s wheelchair whirred as it turned toward us, one trembling hand gesturing weakly. "She’s clean," he told Bala directly, not me. "Trust me." The chair rotated back with a soft mechanical hum.

Sherry sat.

"We have nothing to lose right now," Reed said, his voice thin but resolute. "Please. Go on." He waved toward Bala.

"I’ve called the people I trust," Bala began, "and I trust you all know that as I’m speaking, this building is surrounded by the Guardians of the walls."

"The Guardians?" Sherry’s voice carried real confusion. She shifted forward slightly. Mary Stam’s eyes slid sideways without moving her head.

"Yes," Bala said, still calm.

"Then why don’t we just negotiate with them?" Sherry asked, brow furrowed.

Bala let out a small, dry laugh. Not unkind. "She’s clean," he murmured quietly to Reed, then turned back to Sherry. "You’re a doll. We’re not fighting the Guardians. The Guardians are tools. We’re fighting the families behind them."

He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. The room fell silent, the weight of his words pressing down.

"I want to make sure we all understand something," Bala continued. "Doctor Reed did not found CGI. There was a government running these walls before us, and it was overthrown by families who then planted CGI in its place. An agreement was reached. CGI would operate as their puppets. Reed and I didn’t sign that agreement. We came in after it was already running."

I’d heard fragments of this before. Sherry leaned slightly toward me, absorbing every word, her breathing shallow.

"I don’t have time to lay out every detail," Bala went on, "but the short of it is that everything about this arrangement was against humanity. Some of these families demanded people. Not for labor. For blood. And eventually, Reed and I decided enough was enough. The walls are a lie."

"What?" The word slipped from Sherry before she could stop it, sharp in the quiet room.

"Yes," Bala said simply. "They are. They want us removed because we know there’s life outside these walls. That knowledge alone makes us a threat."

"So what’s the plan?" I asked, my voice low.

Mary Stam had remained completely silent the entire time, legs still crossed, one finger slowly tapping the arm of her chair. They had clearly already covered ground before we arrived.

"We had a plan," Bala said.

Had. Past tense. The word landed heavy. I caught it.

"Doctor Reed wanted us to bring the ability users here and show them the specimen. Open their eyes. We can’t move against these families without numbers behind us."

I thought back to the party—the sudden alert cutting through the speakers, the lockdown, the Guardian convoy we’d passed roaring back toward the compound. CGI had tried to pull the ability users in. Something had stopped it cold.

"We haven’t received anyone," Bala said. "Something cut it off before it could happen."

"So what’s the plan now?" Mary Stam asked. Her first words, cool and precise.

"The plan," Bala said, leaning back slightly, "is why I called for Abram."

Every set of eyes in the room turned to me at once.

Of course it is, I thought. It always comes back to me.

"I still want the world to know," Bala said, his voice gaining strength. "We’re going to broadcast the specimen live into every city. We’re going to show people that there’s hope outside these walls."

Where exactly do I fit into that.

Bala stood, the chair scraping back. He opened a drawer in his desk and rummaged through it before pulling out a small black device.

"A camera," he said, carrying it around the desk toward us, his gaze fixed on me. "I want you and Mrs. Stam to go down to the glass lab. Get me footage of the specimen." He handed the device to Mary. "Do what you did the last time I brought you there, Abram. Mary records. The walls see that life exists beyond them." He turned back toward his seat. "All doors are open to you."

I sat with it for a beat. Last time, I had pressed my palm to the glass and the girl inside had crossed to meet me. Her fingers had found mine through the barrier, her eyes communicating something I still hadn’t fully worked out.

He wants me to do that again. On every screen in every city.

"It’ll display across all screens simultaneously," Bala added. "All cities."

Like Riya’s speech. The one I’d watched from the car—the crowd freezing in the street, every face turned upward.

"Can you do it?" Bala asked. Not an order. A genuine question.

"Yes," I said.

"I genuinely like this," Mary said, sounding surprised by her own words. She glanced at Sherry beside me, who sat in a room with no assigned role and was making the most of it anyway. Something shifted in Mary’s expression. "Sir," she said to Bala, "why not let Abram go with Sherry instead. The girl should have a part in this."

Bala’s eyes moved between us. A flicker of reluctance crossed his face, brief but visible.

"It’s your call," he said finally, turning to Sherry. "Mrs. Vayne. Are you willing?"

"Yes, sir." She straightened in her seat, spine lifting.

"Then go," Bala said. "We don’t have time to spare."

Mary passed the camera to Sherry with a smile that was more generous than I expected from her. Sherry took it, fingers closing firmly around the device, and we stood.

"Abram." Doctor Reed’s wheelchair whirred as it turned toward us, his hands steadier now. His voice carried a weight that had nothing to do with medicine. "What you’re about to do isn’t small. It marks the beginning of something new. All of us in this room are counting on you both."

I held his eyes for a long moment. An old man in a wheelchair. A government that had been running as someone else’s puppet for years. And a girl in a glass room below us who had once pressed her fingers to mine like she recognized me.

"I remember the way," I said.

The specimen we’d carried out of the Fallen City in the boot of an armored car had become the thing Bala was betting everything on.

Sherry and I walked out.

Downstairs waited the only person inside these walls who had never belonged here.