By the time the APCs returned to the northwestern industrial sector, the base was already waiting for them.

Not with celebration, but with procedure.

The driver of the leading APC connected the vehicle’s comms to the base’s channel.

"Bastion One and Two approaching base."

"Copy, Bastion One. Watcher Two confirms. Route is clear. Proceed."

Floodlights opened across the road the moment the vehicles crossed the outer checkpoint. Two Guardian APCs shifted aside to clear the route.

Cell 7 watched everything in silence.

No one shouted questions at them. No one rushed forward to welcome them. No one even seemed to verify the approaching Guardian APCs.

All they heard was a simple exchange between two radio operators, and somehow, that was enough.

Is this base too trusting? What if someone hijacked the vehicle? Genevieve frowned.

The security detail looked lacking. Too lacking. It did not match the soldiers who had extracted them earlier, nor the commander who had moved artillery, armor, and infantry through the night with frightening precision.

Either the base was careless, or its verification method was something she could not see.

Genevieve disliked both possibilities.

The APCs did not stop until they reached the inner unloading zone.

Only there did the lead vehicle slow down.

The floodlights above shifted downward, washing the road in harsh, blinding white. A squad of Army Soldiers stood near the entrance of a reinforced warehouse. Behind them, four Male Medics waited with folded stretchers, while an Engineer stood beside a portable scanner unit.

They were already prepared, Genevieve noticed.

The APC had not even fully halted before the rear ramp lowered with a heavy metallic thud.

"Wounded first," the squad leader outside ordered. He didn’t even ask about the situation.

Lucie’s eyes narrowed, but Vivian had already moved. The wounded agent between them needed treatment more than Cell 7 needed pride.

"Move him carefully," Vivian said.

One of the Male medic pairs stepped forward. They did not touch the wounded man immediately. They waited for Vivian to adjust her grip, then supported the transfer with practiced efficiency.

Genevieve watched their hands.

They were calm, clean, and steady.

These were not panicked camp doctors pretending to be useful after the world fell apart. They moved like personnel already integrated to the harshness of the battlefield.

That made the previous checkpoint even stranger.

No inspection at the gate, but medical triage was already prepared at the unloading zone.

No visible challenge, but escorts were already positioned before the APC arrived.

Jannik stepped down after the wounded, still carrying the sealed rolls against his chest. His eyes swept over the soldiers, the floodlights, the armored vehicles, and the distant structures glowing deeper inside the base.

Then he muttered, "Where is Golden Eagle?"

They were expecting to meet the Commander once more, yet for some reason, he was nowhere to be found.

No soldier answered his faint question.

The squad leader outside only looked toward Johannes.

Johannes stepped down from the APC last. His coat was dusty, his pistol already holstered, and his expression had returned to its usual calm.

Genevieve looked at him. "Cell 12."

"Yes?"

"Where is your Commander?"

Johannes glanced at the soldiers, but none of them reacted. For a brief moment, he placed himself in Hans’s position.

Perhaps he was out there, doing something. Or he was somewhere around, watching. Then his mouth moved.

"Observing."

Lucie frowned. "That is not a location."

"It was not meant to be one."

Johannes did not explain further. He only turned toward the soldier assigned to him, as if that single word was enough.

The rest of Cell 7 remained silent. There was no need to look for trouble.

What Golden Eagle had done for them tonight was more than enough. In fact, none of them had expected even half of it.

The assigned escort did not hurry them, but it did not slow down either. Two Army Soldiers walked ahead, two remained behind, and the rest kept a loose formation around the wounded without making the arrangement feel like an arrest.

Genevieve followed beside Vivian and the medics, her eyes moving quietly across the base.

The first thing she noticed was the bright light.

None of them resembled flickering emergency lamps, nor torches haphazardly placed around. Not even scavenged light bulbs connected to rusted generators.

It was stable light.

Rows of floodlights burned over the roads, guard posts, barricades, and warehouse entrances. The old industrial district should have been dead like the rest of Grefort, but here, power flowed as if the collapse had missed this part of the city.

Her gaze lifted toward the source.

Beyond the unloading zone, two large industrial silhouettes rose above the surrounding buildings. They looked like power facilities, but different in a way Genevieve could not immediately explain.

Their structures were complete. There was a faint mixture of fresh metal and concrete that should have taken months to assemble.

White vapor drifted from their upper sections, vanishing into the night like quiet breath.

Lucie noticed them too.

"These weren’t here the last time we mapped this sector,," she muttered while recalling the past.

"Lead," Jannik turned to Genevieve. "This Golden Eagle... can we really trust him?"

"What choice do we have?"

Genevieve’s question doused a huge portion of their resistance.

Indeed. If Golden Eagle wanted them inside his base, what else could they do tonight? Refuse the man who had just pulled them out of a collapsing outpost?

Walk back into the dead city with wounded agents, exhausted bodies, and an abandoned safehouse behind them?

Being prideful in this situation would make them look brainless. That was simply suicide wearing a better uniform.

No one from Cell 7 answered.

Looking at how lively this base was and how dead the city was, the choice they would take was obvious.

As they continued forward, Genevieve saw another structure. It was lower, wider, and more militarized than the power facilities.

Armored doors lined one side. Reinforced ramps stretched toward the road. Soldiers moved around it with familiar rhythm.

They did not look like refugees forced into security detail. They moved as if the building behind them was not shelter, but machinery.

Is this a barracks? Genevieve narrowed her eyes. No. Not quite.

A normal barracks housed soldiers. This one felt as if it organized them before they even stepped outside.

The silence ensued as they continued.

Lucie’s fingers tightened around her coat. "Excuse me, but how long has Golden Eagle occupied this place?"

No one from the escort answered.

The two Army Soldiers ahead kept walking. The two behind did not change their pace.

Even the medic pair carrying the wounded agent gave no reaction, as if the question had never reached them.

Genevieve understood the silence well enough.

It was not ignorance. It was discipline.

She looked at the lights again. The armored vehicles. The patrols. The medical team prepared before they arrived. The silent verification at the gate. The commander absent, yet somehow everywhere.

A military base needed supply lines.

Fuel. Ammunition. Spare parts. Engineers. Food. Doctors. Command staff. Construction crews. Time.

And above all of it was time.

Yet the northwestern industrial sector had not looked like this before.

Cell 7 had watched this part of the city long enough to know that much. Even before the collapse, nothing here matched these silhouettes. After the collapse, building anything of this scale should have been madness.

The commotion by itself would have garnered huge attention from the city’s infected.

Power did not return simply because one man wished for it.

Armored vehicles did not appear because a commander needed them badly.

Soldiers did not move like a complete military unit without training, logistics, and command structure behind them.

But Golden Eagle had all three. And worse, he had them too quickly.

Genevieve’s earlier suspicion returned, colder than before.

During their first meeting, he had read the traces of her ability from tunnel walls he had never personally entered. His soldiers had recognized signs that no ordinary force should know how to interpret. Tyrus Shearman had spoken of HELIX like an old joke. Young Star-Blood had stood beside him like a protected secret.

And now this.

Electricity in a district that should have been as dead as the city.

Structures that sprouted out of nowhere no different from fiction.

And soldiers that acted as if they had been in special forces or counterintelligence units for long periods of time.

Golden Eagle was not merely occupying the northwestern industrial sector. He was replacing it.

And perhaps, his next target—

Genevieve turned her head to where Grefort City was.

Vivian glanced at Genevieve’s expression. "Lead?"

Genevieve blinked once and forced her face back into calm.

"Nothing. Let’s rest, for now."

The disturbance within her toiled with her heart, but there was nothing she could do about it.

They continued walking, as if Cell 7’s suspicion had already been calculated and accounted for, and their judgement irrelevant to Hans and his army.

Ahead, the entrance to the medical wing opened.

Clean white light spilled from inside.

For a moment, Genevieve almost laughed.

In the middle of a dead city, Golden Eagle’s base was like a star, possibly attracting the eyes of those were still alive.

Either he was insane...

Or he already knew that nothing could threaten him here.

"Medical wing first," the squad leader said.

Genevieve looked at the open doorway. Then she stepped inside.

While Cell 7 entered the medical wing, Hans had already stopped thinking about the rescue.