Hans tapped lightly on the table.

"Agent Courbet, you should rest from your duties for now."

Genevieve’s eyes narrowed.

Hans smiled faintly.

"Counter-smuggling operations are hard work. Especially when the cargo involves HELIX material."

"I did not expect the files to be useful." Genevieve smiled faintly.

"I did not expect another SAS cell to be operating this close to my base either," Hans replied.

"Then we both learned something."

"Indeed."

Genevieve’s fingers rested calmly over her lap, but her thoughts shifted through several possibilities at once.

The files had been recovered.

The question was how much they had read, how much they understood, and how much Johannes had explained.

"May I ask which files?" she asked, feigning innocence.

Hans looked at her.

Genevieve met his gaze without looking away.

A small smile appeared on his face.

"You want to know how much I know."

"I want to know how much you think you know."

Tyrus opened one eye again. Are they speaking in riddles now?

His tongue almost twisted just hearing it.

Johannes remained silent.

Hans tapped the table once more.

"Not as much as you think. HELIX material is not ordinary contraband. For Ashington to be wary of smuggling—"

"You want my full report?" Genevieve turned to Johannes. "I thought Agent Johannes would have spoken of many things."

"They were tracking personalities possibly involved in very sensitive matters," Hans corrected. "But you, you were tracking something else. I’m more interested about HELIX and the smuggling network surrounding it. Who plays the higher cards? Who runs the big and small operations?"

Genevieve remained silent, calculating in her mind.

Hans watched her expression without pressing. The more she measured the answer, the clearer it became that this discussion would not open easily today.

Cell 7 was not valuable because they had guns or strength. Hans had guns. And as for an Elemental superhuman, he could gain one from the System later.

Rather, they were valuable because they had watched Grefort before the collapse.

The Radar only told him what was currently there. Cell 7 could tell him what used to be there, what changed, and how it all worked.

"You are asking for Cell 7’s operational files."

"I am asking what your operation was built around."

"That is not a small difference."

"No," Hans agreed. "It is not."

Genevieve frowned.

"The files you recovered from the observation post should already tell you the general direction. Unauthorized HELIX material was being moved through Grefort. Some of it passed through old military channels. Some through medical procurement routes. Some through private hands."

"Private hands," Hans repeated.

"Old-blood intermediaries. Corporate shells. Black-market logistics. Former government contractors." Genevieve paused. "And people who should not have known enough to be involved."

Hans’s eyes narrowed slightly.

"Old-blood intermediaries, are you sure about that?"

A faint chuckle escaped him, but there was no warmth in it.

Did she forget that Tyrus had just spoken about the Register?

With a snort, he continued. "HELIX produced results in the form of pills. And pills result to the formulation of superhuman candidates. Families with enough history, money, and arrogance would never ignore something like that. If old-blood families were involved, then passing cargo from one safehouse to another for their descendants does not sound unusual."

He tapped his temple twice. "If anything, that is to be expected. So why call it unauthorized? Are you testing whether I would miss that?"

The room settled.

Genevieve exhaled softly and looked away from Hans for half a second.

"There are only two reasons for SAS to call it unauthorized," she said. "Either the cargo was not supposed to leave official custody, or the person receiving it was not supposed to receive it."

Her eyes almost twitched. Now that Hans had said it aloud, the word unauthorized no longer felt reliable.

Old-bloods were called old-bloods because history had already turned into power. Not only manpower, but money, influence, and political weight.

Golden Eagle did have a point.

Old-blood families did not need to hire random smugglers if they already owned companies, clinics, warehouses, and transport routes. Moving HELIX material through their own assets would be cleaner than relying on private fools who could be bought, followed, or tortured.

The issue was never whether old-bloods wanted HELIX.

Every family with enough greed, fear, or ambition would want it.

The issue was who had the right to touch the material first. Some random nobody would never have the opportunity to do so.

However, these matters were sensitive indeed.

Under Geneveive’s eyes, Golden Eagle remained a mysterious entity. She could not possibly hand over all of the information that Cell 7 gathered.

The risk that he was a possible spy from foreign countries couldn’t be ignored.

She was about to speak up when Hans suddenly waved his hands.

"You’re boring to talk to when it comes to your work," he chuckled. "Let’s talk about your post-apocalypse activity instead."

Genevieve’s heart tightened.

Did Golden Eagle let go of the topic that easily?

No.

He was still interested. He was simply pretending the hook had not caught anything.

I won’t be fooled like that!

She swore inwardly. Yet to her disappointment, Hans continued the act, tapping one finger against the table.

"After the collapse, Grefort City changed. Your so-called targets may have died, or turned into something worse. A field cell would have every reason to abandon a compromised city unless... something forced them to stay."

The world had collapsed into infection, superhumans, broken command chains, and territories that no longer obeyed maps and boundaries.

Experience from two lives had taught him one thing: when an organization refused to abandon a dangerous place, it was rarely because of paperwork.

Cell 7 remaining in place was not the only strange part. They had reasons to leave; what mattered was what outweighed those reasons.

Added to that was the dead hive trace near their routes. If Cell 7 had at least one Perceptual HELIX superhuman, the hive’s presence should have been long known.

And if it was known, there should have been signs of conflict, containment, or deliberate avoidance. If they did not know—that train of thought was almost impossible.

These were agents trained to track trails. How can they ignore something so obvious near their area?

With those pieces together, Hans was less interested in doubting Cell 7’s intentions than in finding out what their old operation had brushed against without naming it.

He looked back at Genevieve.

"So let me ask something easier. Why did Cell 7 stay?"

The question was simple.

After a moment of silence, Genevieve opened her mouth.

"Because we encountered an unknown dangerous entity."

"Oh?"

Hans and Tyrus’s interest was immediately piqued.

"Agent Vivian and Agent Jannik encountered a strange rock that fell a few hundred meters from our route," Genevieve continued. "The closer they moved, the worse the hallucinations became. They had to retreat before either of them lost control."

Hans felt his attention sharpen too quickly. This is what I was looking for.

However, the System’s interference kept the reaction buried in his thoughts.

"And you didn’t leave after that encounter?"

Genevieve scanned his face and found almost no change. That bothered her more than surprise would have.

"Lucie and I decided to test it ourselves," she said, shaking her head. "We should have left it to the experts instead."

"Let me guess," Hans gave a faint smile. "That rock evolved?"

Genevieve studied him once more.

"Golden Eagle indeed knows more than me."

"Quit the flattery," Hans scoffed. "Tell me what happened with that rock."

Now that they had found common ground, Hans had no intention of letting the opening close.

Genevieve studied him, trying to decide whether his reaction came from knowledge, guesswork, or something else entirely.

Unfortunately for her, Hans had no intention of helping her decide.

"Tell me what happened with that rock," he repeated.

"At first, nothing happened."

"Skip the boring part."

She then gritted her teeth and continued.

"Then we lost observation for one night, and by morning, it had become a mass of flesh."

"Oh?" Hans raised a brow. "How can an agent trained for optimal observation miss the crucial part?"

"Because it happened during the only blind window we had," Genevieve said. "A sudden conflict arose in our RFT-4B passage. If not for it, we could have witnessed how that strange rock evolved."

Hans paused. RFT-4B should be that tunnel leading to the sewers. Their attacks is very timely indeed.

"How was the experience?" Hans teased. "That must have been a pleasant view."

"You are very annoying, Golden Eagle."

"Or so I have been told," he shrugged. "I assume you fought with it?"

Genevieve’s expression stilled as the memory returned—the past experiences she had against that strange rock and mass of flesh.

"Barely," she said, her tone slightly deflated. "My powers were not trained at the time. If they had been, it would not have survived."

I would not be so sure of that, Hans thought. "That is a strange way to train your powers."

A bold thought emerged within him. Should I let Kimmy and the others train through controlled exposure as well?

It was a risky proposition, and Yunera would be the first to object, and also the same to second her own objection.

His thoughts were interrupted as Genevieve clicked her tongue.

"Do you think I walked away from it that easily?"

"You are alive now, at least."

Genevieve slammed the table. "Enough. What is it that you want from me, Golden Eagle?"

Johannes moved at once, but Hans stopped him with a slight lift of his hand. Callum remained in place, unmoved by the short fuse.

Tyrus’s eyes opened slithery, clearly enjoying both the banter and the drama.

Hans did not look at him. He only raised one hand slightly.

"What I want is simple."

Genevieve’s breathing was still uneven.

"Did you kill that thing or not?"

Genevieve’s anger did not vanish, but it lost direction for a moment.

Hans continued, "And if it is not dead, perhaps we’ve found the culprit to your safehouse night attack."