The fall of Johannesburg began immediately after the Wanderer announced his return, within hours hundreds had been killed. Sector seven and six were no more, the ash fiends kept on multiplying and within three days half of the mega sanctuary was a wasteland.

Glen and his companions were safe in the Sanctuaary of Eden, but his mother was not. Isla and Caleb both said they had no family to worry about on the surface but Glen on the other hand had his mother.

She had beeen discharged months ago before the wander became a problem, and he had been renting her a an apartment in sector three but now the woman was nowhere to be found, Glen had asked Malachi to go fetch her and bring her to Eden and after some time of begging and putting in extra effort in his training Malachi relunctantly agreed.

But even after two months of searching, he still could not find traces of his mother. It was as if the woman had vanished off the face of the world, and that scared him. But there was nothing more he could but hope that his mother had evacuated to nearest sanctuary, there were small sanctuaries that were created for travel and between the seven Mega sanctuaries.

He hoped that his mother had escaped to one of these sanctuaries with the rest of the citizens of Johannesburg, all he could do was hope for the best.

Currently Glenn stood in the briefing chamber of Eden with both handsresting on the edge of the holographic table. Above the table floated a detailed projection of Johannesburg, but the city he saw there barely resembled theplace he had once known.

Massive regions were marked in gray and red. Sector seven and Sector Six were completely blacked out. Sector Five flickered between red and orange, which meant it had not fallen completely, but it was already bleeding. Sector Four was under siege. Sector Three, where his mother had been staying, was marked as unstable.

"Show me the civilisn evacuation routes again," Glen said.

Vane stood on the opposite side of the table, pale hands clasped neatly behind his back. His pitch black eyes did not leave the projection. "You have already reviewed them seventeen times." 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"Show me again."

The Chief Researcher looked at him for a moment, then lifted one hand. The map shifted. Thin blue lines appeared across the city, showing the official evacuation channels used during the first forty eight hours of the crisis. Several routes led out of Sector Three toward the inner rail tunnels, emergency convoy lines, and temporary sanctuary gates placed between Johannesburg and the nearest minor shelters.

Glenn stared at the lines until his eyes burned.

His mother’s apartment building was marked by a small white dot near the edge of Sector Three.

There were too many possible routes.

Too many ways she could have run.

Too many ways she could have died.

"She was discharged months before the Wanderer became a problem," Glenn said, more to himself than anyone else. "I moved her to that apartment because it was supposed to be safe. Sector Three had private security, reinforced roads, proximity to the hospital network, everything."

"You did what you could with the information available to you at the time," Caleb said quietly.

Glenn did not look at him. "That does not mean anything if she is dead."

The room fell silent.

Isla stood near the wall with her arms crossed, the Frostbreaker gauntlet locked around her right forearm. The blue and white runes along the weapon pulsed softly, leaking faint cold into the air.

Caleb was beside her, one hand resting on his titanium gravity focus. Neither of them said anything for a while.

Malachi stood at the far end of the chamber, his featureless white mask turned toward the map. He had been silent since the meeting began, which was never a good sign. When Malachi stayed quiet, it meant he was not deciding whether something was dangerous. He was deciding how much of the danger to tell them.

Glenn looked up at him.

"You said you would find her."

"I said I would try," Malachi replied, his metallic voice smooth and unreadable. "And I did try. Eden agents searched the evacuation logs from Sector Three. We intercepted Association convoy records. We bribed three gate wardens from the minor sanctuaries. We recovered survivor manifests from New Pretoria Relay, East Rand Shelter, Vaal Outpost, and the Eden auxiliary stations between the mega sanctuaries."

"And?"

"No confirmed trace of Amelia Mcdonald."

Glenn’s fingers tightened against the table.

The metal groaned.

Isla uncrossed her arms slightly. "No confirmed trace does not mean dead."

"No," Malachi agreed. "But it does mean she did not leave through the official evacuation routes under her own name."

"Maybe she used a false name," Caleb offered. "People panic during evacuations. Records get messy. Families get separated. Some survivors probably entered the minor sanctuaries without proper scans."

Vane tilted his head. "Possible, but unlikely. Sector Three civilians were priority logged because of their proximity to the inner medical district. The Association was careful during the first wave. They only became disorganized after Sector Five began collapsing."

Glenn slowly looked at him. "Then where is she?"

Vane did not answer immediately.

That hesitation made the fragment inside his core stir.

Dead gray energy pulsed once beneath his skin, cold and hungry. The lights above the briefing table flickered. Caleb noticed it first and shifted his weight, not afraid, but alert. Isla’s gaze dropped to Glenn’s hand. A thin vein of gray spread from his wrist to his knuckles before fading again.

Malachi turned his mask fully toward him.

"Control your breathing, Mcdonald."

Glenn exhaled slowly through his nose.

The gray vein vanished.

Vane watched the reaction with clinical interest. "Your control is improving. Two months ago, that emotional spike would have destroyed the table."

"I am not in the mood to be studied."

"You are always being studied," Vane said. "That is the price of being impossible."

Vane’s expression did not change, but he wisely continued before Glenn could speak. "There is another possibility. During the second day of the crisis, before Sector Three was cut off, several unofficial groups began moving civilians through old maintenance lines beneath the sanctuary. Smugglers, rogue hunters, former guild scouts, religious shelters, and independent militias. If your mother was taken by one of those groups, she would not appear in any official record."

Caleb leaned over the table. "Can we track those groups?"

"Most are dead," Malachi said. "A few were absorbed into larger survivor convoys. Others vanished into the lower service tunnels. The problem is that the lower tunnels now connect directly to infected zones."