Chapter 94 – Veins of Smoke
The surveillance lab in the Zodiac Annex didn’t hum.
It pulsed.
Buried two levels beneath the Academy’s tactical wing, the observation bay was carved from obsidian-hardened alloy and engineered silence. No windows. No soundproofing needed — the walls absorbed thought itself.
At the center stood six floor-mounted displays, fanned outward like blades of a giant black flower. A half-dome of sensors above tracked eye movement, thermal shifts, and motion vectors.
It was a mind palace for one kind of person.
Dr. Camilla Varn stood in its heart. Silent. Precise. Her coat whispered around her as she moved, the hem brushing the edge of the glowing dais like a priestess in a temple of cognition.
On-screen, the rooftop ambush played again.
Cadet Rook Vale — Hernan — moved through it like code written for violence. Every disarm, every redirection, every calculated mercy moved with algorithmic clarity.
Camilla rotated the projection with a flick, overlaying neurofeedback lines on each cadet. Heart rates. Reflex triggers. Blood oxygen.
"Cadet Two’s heart rate spiked before the feint," she murmured. "But he never committed. He flinched."
She isolated the motion. "And still... Hernan stepped into the strike path before it existed."