The room was small, windowless, and cold in a way that had nothing to do with temperature.
It wasn't quiet.
It was suppressed — the way an airlock might feel between a vacuum and a battlefield. The kind of place where conversations weren't heard, they were catalogued.
Every surface gleamed matte-black and smooth — too perfect for fingerprints, too seamless for echoes. The lights in the Zodiac Command Annex ran colder than the rest of the academy. Here, illumination was an act of surveillance, not comfort.
Leo stood still at the obsidian-glass table in the center of Secure Chamber V-4.
The only sound came from the soft pulse of the incoming holo-channel, illuminating the etched Zodiac crest on the wall behind him.
Then — the signal stabilized.
A torso blinked into projection across the table. Hooded. Featureless. The voice came through five layers of encryption and tonal distortion, perfectly flat and void of emotion.
"You've been slow to report."
Leo didn't blink.
