Chapter 54: The Ledger
The 0600 meeting in Rostova's office was less of a debriefing and more of a reckoning. The room was cold, the only light coming from the holographic map table, which currently displayed a detailed, rotating schematic of the ruined Med-Sci lab, red icons highlighting every fried server and destroyed conduit.
Leo stood alone before the table. Rostova circled it like a shark, her hands clasped behind her back.
"The official report," she began, her voice a low, dangerous hum, "will state that Dr. Thorne suffered a catastrophic psychotic break due to exposure to an unknown memetic agent from the Weaver data. In his paranoia, he sabotaged the lab's power systems, starting a fire that tragically claimed his own life and that of an unidentified intruder."
She stopped pacing and fixed him with her gaze. "It's a clean narrative. It explains the lockdown, the damage, and removes the inconvenient stain of a high-level traitor from my command structure. It maintains order."
"A good story," Leo agreed, his own voice neutral.
"The problem, Director Miller," Rostova continued, "is that you and I know the truth. The truth is that a hostile foreign agent, a being of immense power, bypassed every defense I have constructed. And he was stopped, not by my soldiers, not by my defenses, but by a janitor who weaponized a fire extinguisher and a pressure valve."
She leaned forward, her hands flat on the table. "You have become the single most effective and the single most unpredictable asset in this entire facility. This makes you both invaluable and a terrifying liability. I cannot afford liabilities."
"I did my job," Leo said simply.
"You did more than your job," she countered, her voice sharp. "You rewrote the tactical playbook without authorization. Your 'janitorial solutions' are, in essence, exploits of reality's base code. A man who can do that is a man who can, in theory, unmake anything. Including the systems that keep these walls standing and a thousand people alive."
This was the heart of it. It wasn't about the broken lab. It was about control. Grunt's hammer, for all its chaos, was a known quantity. Leo's "mop" was a black box that produced miracles and disasters in equal measure. She didn't know how he worked, and that terrified her.
"What do you want from me, Commander?" Leo asked.
"I want to know your limits," she said bluntly. "And I want to set your parameters. From now on, your new department will operate under Protocol Blackbriar."
A new file appeared on the table in front of him. "Protocol Blackbriar designates your team as a rapid-response unit for high-level supernatural or systemic threats inside The Foundry. You will investigate anomalies, you will patch security holes, you will contain internal threats. You will be my ghost squad, my troubleshooters. Your authority within the maintenance and infrastructure of this facility is absolute."
"And the catch?" Leo asked.
"The catch is that you are forbidden from engaging in any external field operations without my explicit, direct authorization," she said. "You are too valuable—and too volatile—to risk in the field. Your weapon is this building. You will stay within its walls and learn to master it. You will not be a Vulture. You will not be a diplomat. You are the head of my internal affairs division. You are the ultimate Custodian. Is that understood?"
It was a brilliant move. She was giving him a kingdom, but it was also a cage. She was empowering him to protect The Foundry while simultaneously leashing him, keeping his reality-warping talents firmly under her control. He could be the master of the house, but he could never leave it.
"Understood, Commander," Leo said. For now, it was a bargain he could live with.
Later that day, life in The Foundry began to normalize. The lockdown on the Med-Sci wing was lifted, and the official narrative about the "tragic accident" spread through the population, accepted with the grim resignation that had become a part of daily life.
The Custodians gathered in their new, larger quarters, now officially designated "Dept. of Internal Security - Command Unit".
Ben was in heaven. "Leo, Level 5 access to the mainframe... It's like being handed the keys to the universe! The raw data from the lab's power surge, the way the network collapsed... I can use this to build predictive models, to create failsafes for the failsafes!"
Maria, meanwhile, was looking at a set of structural blueprints on a tablet. "Rostova gave me the green light on my reinforcement proposal for the West Wall," she said, a grin on her face. "And I'm requisitioning Stokely's entire reserve of seismic dampeners."
But Sarah was quiet. She had spent the morning with Lily, who was now awake and asking when she could play outside.
Leo didn't have an answer. His promotion felt less like a victory and more like a change in job title. He had moved from a small cage to a very large and complex one.
The thought was interrupted by a knock at their door. It was Chief Stokely. He held a small, sealed evidence bag.
"The forensics team just finished their preliminary sweep of the lab," the old chief said, his voice low. He handed the bag to Leo. "They found this in the wreckage of Thorne's body. Must have had it in his pocket."
Leo looked inside the bag. It was a small, scorched data chip, different from the standard Foundry tech. And etched on its casing was a familiar, chilling logo: the ouroboros of the Chiron Group.
"We thought he was helping the Infiltrator download our data," Stokely said grimly. "But what if we were wrong? What if the Infiltrator was helping him upload something from this?"
Leo stared at the data chip. A final "gift" from the traitorous doctor. A new mystery. A new mess.
His new job had already begun.