Chapter 471: Friend or Foe?

The rest of the day disappeared into motion and planning.

They didn’t rush it. They couldn’t afford to. Reva and Requiem moved back and forth between the market and the nomad zone, filling in gaps, confirming rumors, discarding half the information they gathered and cross-checking the rest. By the time the light above ground had shifted toward evening, they had routes marked that avoided permanent checkpoints, service corridors that stayed unmonitored after dark, and stretches where patrol schedules overlapped badly enough to create blind windows.

They knew where inspections happened for show and where they happened for real. They knew which zones relied on automated sweeps and which ones still trusted human judgment. They finalized what they would carry, what they would abandon, and where they would stop only if something went wrong.

Night was the decision. Movement after sunset cut attention in half and made mistakes easier to hide.

Everything was ready except Reva.

She sat cross-legged inside the tent, tools spread around her, pieces of salvaged hardware stripped down to frames and exposed boards. The device in her hands didn’t look impressive. It wasn’t meant to. No casing worth admiring, no branding, no clean edges. It was a stitched-together unit built from mismatched parts that had never been designed to talk to each other.

That was the point.

She had gutted the transmitters that identified themselves too clearly and replaced them with a cycling relay that mimicked background noise. The device never held a signal long enough to be traced, bouncing it through environmental monitors and low-priority transit nodes before pushing it out as fragmented text bursts. No voice. No continuous data. Just short pings and compressed messages that slipped between systems the way dust slipped through cracks.

It wasn’t elegant, but it was quiet.

She adjusted the software again, watching the response lag fluctuate as the device tested different timing intervals. When it stabilized, she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and set it aside to cool.

Requiem and Viola had taken Lyra and Iria earlier to get food.

The place sat just outside the nomad zone, far enough that the crowd changed and the faces stopped pretending they didn’t care who passed through. The walk was longer than they liked, but the food was worth it. Warm, filling, heavy enough to ground Lyra in a way ration packs never managed.

They planned to bring back frozen portions too, sealed and portable, something they could eat on the move without stopping. Every unnecessary halt increased risk. Every extra interaction created memory.

When the sun dipped low enough that the light filtered down as dull orange through access shafts, Reva stood and stretched, joints stiff, mind still half inside the code she’d been wrestling.

Now they would eat and then leave.

A while later, they started loading the crawler just as the light finally gave up.

Crates went in first, strapped down and balanced so nothing would shift once they moved. Packs followed, then the sealed food containers, everything placed with the kind of care that came from knowing there would be no second chance to fix mistakes once they were on the road. Requiem checked the engine housing while Viola kept her attention outward, eyes tracking the edges of the underground access lane they were using as an exit.

That was when the lights appeared.

At first it looked like a convoy cresting the curve of the access road, but the shape didn’t resolve into anything familiar. As it drew closer, the scale became obvious. It wasn’t a truck or a transport van. It was several of them fused together into a single moving structure, frames welded side by side and stacked in places, reinforced with external braces and modular plates. The front section looked like a hauler cab stretched too wide, while the midsection rose higher, layered with windows, hatches, and mounted light rigs. Colored strips ran along its sides, not decorative so much as practical, marking edges and height so smaller vehicles wouldn’t clip it by accident.

It moved like a building that had decided it was tired of staying in one place.

The engine noise wasn’t aggressive, just heavy, carrying the weight of something that had been rebuilt more times than anyone could count. Floodlights swept the ground ahead of it, washing over concrete and metal, making the crawler look small by comparison.

Reva straightened slowly. Her hand tightened on the strap of her bag.

“Stay calm,” she said quietly. “Let it pass.”

The vehicle slowed instead.

Then it stopped at a distance that felt deliberate.

Side panels slid open and people started coming out, men and women dressed in layered travel gear, some armored, some not, all carrying handheld lights instead of mounted weapons. Their movements were controlled, not rushed, but not careless either. The lights fanned out, scanning the area, then settled on the crawler and the group around it.

Viola’s hand moved toward her sidearm. Requiem’s shoulders set as he reached back and drew his heavy blade from where it was secured along the crawler’s frame. The weapon looked like it belonged here, thick spine, industrial edge, more tool than ornament, built for close work and ugly outcomes.

They all knew the math.

If that vehicle was full, there could be dozens inside. Maybe more. If things turned violent, this wouldn’t be a fight they could win cleanly. Still, none of them stepped back. If it came down to it, they would hold their ground and make the cost clear.

The approaching group stopped a few meters away.

One of them lifted a hand in a casual greeting. “Evening,” he said. “We’re not here for trouble.”

Reva didn’t lower her stance. “Then keep walking.”

The man nodded as if that was fair. “Just need to ask something first. Is Lyra with you?”

The air shifted.

Reva’s face stayed neutral. “You’ve got the wrong people,” she said. “We’re packing up and leaving. You should do the same.”

The man glanced past her, eyes moving, taking in the shapes and faces. Another woman stepped closer, light lifting slightly as it brushed over Lyra’s face where she stood near Iria.

She stopped.

“That’s her,” the woman said.

Everything happened at once.

Requiem brought the blade fully up, angling it across his body. Viola drew both guns, arms steady, sights trained forward. Reva’s lips pulled back as her fangs showed, a low sound building in her chest that carried more promise than warning.

“Back away,” Reva said. “Now.”

The group froze.

Hands went up slowly, palms open, lights lowered so they weren’t blinding anymore. The man who’d spoken first took a step back to make space. “We’re not enemies,” he said. “We don’t want a fight.”

Reva didn’t relax. “Then leave.”

Before anyone else could speak, movement came from the vehicle itself.

A ramp extended from the side, and a larger figure stepped down, unhurried, posture relaxed in a way that suggested confidence earned over time rather than borrowed. He wore a long coat reinforced at the seams, travel-worn but maintained, and his presence pulled attention without effort.

He looked past the weapons, past the tension, straight to Lyra.

“Lyra,” he said. “There you are.”

Lyra inhaled sharply.

She stepped forward before anyone could stop her, eyes wide, voice breaking through the fear she’d been holding back for days.

“Uncle Jareth?!” she said.

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