Before he could answer, one of the panes on the wall flickered.

Not a normal glitch.

Two additional brainwave signals flashed over Jagger’s primary reading, overlapping it for the briefest instant. One was sharp and narrow, jagged in a way that looked almost deliberate. The other was broader, heavier, and more violent in its pattern. They appeared in tandem, held for barely a fraction of a second, and then the pane stabilized as if nothing had happened.

"What was that?" the young technician asked, his voice tightening.

Doctor Tham’s eyes narrowed immediately. "Hold still."

"I am standing still."

The scanner arm slowed as it passed over him again, pale blue lines crawling from his scalp to his throat, down over his sternum, abdomen, and spine. The light lingered around his head and chest this time, more focused, more invasive. For one strange heartbeat, the temperature in the room seemed to dip.

Then the hum evened out.

The extra signals were gone.

The technician swallowed as he checked the feed on his tablet. "I got two foreign pattern flares for less than a second. It could be signal bleed from the mana lattice. The system is still new."

"It could be the equipment," Doctor Tham said, though her tone suggested she wasn’t convinced by either explanation. "Run it again."

The machine reset with a clean, clinical chime.

A second scan began at once, this time deeper. The humming grew louder and more focused as layered sheets of light moved over Jagger’s body in overlapping passes, stripping him down into data. Bone density. Muscle integrity. Organ function. Neurological activity. Mana flow. Blood continued to feed through the analyzer line while the technician cross-checked each stream at increasing concentrations.

Nothing happened.

No second flare.

No duplicate signals.

No strange overlap riding the edge of his brain activity.

Only Jagger’s body was standing on the platform, pulse steady, lungs rising and falling, corruption moving through his system in unstable, fluctuating waves that refused to settle into anything clean. The scanner tracked it. So did the staff. Neither of them said a word about it.

The technician frowned at his screen. "No recurrence."

Doctor Tham stayed silent for a few seconds longer, eyes moving over the readings one line at a time. Then she reached out and shut the anomaly pane down herself.

"Interference," she said. "Log it and move on."

"Yes, doctor."

The technician obeyed immediately, though his fingers moved a little too fast over the console.

Doctor Tham stepped forward and began a final physical review. She circled him once, quick and clinical, checking the back of his shoulders, the healed tears along his side, the marks at his throat, the bruising that had already started to fade beneath newly repaired skin. She pressed lightly at the edge of one rib, then another, watching for his reaction. Jagger gave her none.

Finally, she stepped back and peeled off one glove finger by finger.

"That’s enough," she said.

Jagger glanced toward the blackened observation window. "That’s it?"

"For intake, yes."

"You’re not going to tell me what you found."

"If there is something you need to be told, you’ll be told." Doctor Tham turned toward the technician without looking at him. "Package the bloods. Flag the scan set. Forward everything upstairs."

The technician nodded and began closing down the consoles, though his eyes kept drifting back to Jagger like he was still trying to convince himself he hadn’t imagined what he saw.

The soldier by the door finally pushed off the wall. "Doctor. Orders are to escort him to the next location."

"Take him," she said.

"What, like this?" Jagger gestured down at himself.

"What are you shy about? The nurses won’t care." The doctor retorted.

’Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Ophilia said. ’I’m blushing on your behalf.’

Jagger let out a deep sigh before moving to pick up his gear from the steel table.

"No," the soldier said. "Leave it."

"Pretty sure those are my weapons."

"They’ll be delivered to your room if your evaluation is approved. If not, they’ll be kept in the annex armory until you’re given clearance. For now, you come with me."

Jagger stared at his weapons. He had carried them through hell, and now they sat on a sterile table like evidence. He didn’t like it. Not one bit.

He exhaled and turned toward the soldier.

"Fine."

The soldier gestured with a slight nod of his head. "Let’s go."

They walked out of the room, the doors sliding shut behind them with a sealed hiss, leaving Doctor Tham and the technician alone with the data.

The soldier led him out into another corridor, one just as clean and bright as the last, though narrower and less crowded. The deeper sections of the annex felt more controlled, as if every meter inward stripped away one more layer of choice. Their footsteps echoed across polished flooring as security doors unlocked in quiet sequence ahead of them.

They stopped at a room marked SUPPLY DISPENSARY 2.

The soldier keyed the panel, stepped aside, and let Jagger enter first.

The room was compact but tightly organized. Open shelves lined the walls, stacked in rows with folded clothing, sealed hygiene kits, standard-issue boots, towels, underlayers, and transparent bins filled with belts, tags, and plain utility items. Behind a waist-high counter stood a stocky woman in dark-gray quartermaster fatigues with close-cropped hair and the expression of someone who had long ago stopped being impressed by anyone.

She looked Jagger up and down once, taking in the blood, the medical underwear, the dried soot, and the general state of him.

"New one?" she asked.

"Looks that way," the soldier said.

The quartermaster bent, pulled a bundle from a lower shelf, then added a rolled towel, a sealed hygiene pack, and a pair of black indoor slides before dropping everything onto the counter in front of him.

"Temporary issue," she said. "One navy training sweatsuit, underclothes, socks, shower kit, and standard indoor footwear. Don’t lose any of it unless you want the ugly version next time."

Jagger looked down at the folded clothing. The sweatsuit was navy blue, plain but clean.