The Answer waited.
That was the part nobody had prepared for. Not its arrival, not the question, not the face Sarya had seen on the bridge that she still hadn't told anyone about.
The part that unmade every contingency plan and left the operations center running on instinct alone was the simple, undemanding patience of something that had nowhere else to be.
It stood outside the Balance Branch in the grey hour before dawn, still as a planted tree, and the world arranged itself around it the way water arranges itself around a stone.
News helicopters maintained a respectful orbit. Military perimeters held their distance without being asked.
A pair of security dogs that had been working the outer fence all evening simply sat down when they reached the edge of its radius and looked at it with calm, attentive eyes, the way dogs sometimes look at things people cannot see.
Across the planet, nobody slept.
