They didn't climb far.

Alteea took the first curve up from the great book and then another, counting steps in her head the way people count breaths when they're trying not to run. Saffi followed, tablet tucked to her chest, eyes still dragging back to the pedestal below like the weight of it might pull her down by mistake.

"Where are we going"

"Up a little" Alteea said. "Left a little. Then somewhere I don't remember until I see it"

"That's reassuring"

"It's how my brain works. I hoped you already got used to it"

The rail hummed a touch louder here and there - not warning, just machinery being itself. Alteea walked with her fingers grazing the wall, feeling the tiny dips where a panel had once been pulled and set back with respect. She slowed at a run of shelves that looked like they'd been organized twice and then argued with.

"What are you looking for"

"You'll know when I find it" Alteea said. A beat later, she remembered other people liked words. "Hm… A box"

"What kind of box?"

"A box that looks ridiculously like a book until you try to lift it, as far as I can remember"

"Very helpful"

Alteea leaned over the rail to scan a lower shelf. Her boot slid on the glass. For half a second she tilted toward the open center.

Saffi yanked the back of her coat. "Careful"

Alteea rocked upright and pretended that had been the plan. "Thank you. See. This is why you're here. To keep me from falling into history"

"You're saying that like you're about to make it a habit!"

Five more steps. Alteea stopped. Her eyes lit with the quick joy of catching a scent that belongs to home.

"There you are" Alteea breathed, slipping her fingers under what Saffi had taken for a dull gray book with a weird spine.

Underneath: a thin metal tray, thin folders stacked in tight neat rows. Each corner wore a tag with a number and a year. But most of the dates were smeared, so you had to pull out every file, if you really wanted to see what it was about.

Saffi stared. "What's this, now?"

"People" Alteea replied, joyfully.

"Ughh… I'll stop asking questions. I don't get answers either way" Saffi rolled her eyes.

Alteea pulled out folder after folder, old paper whispering its "we'll-cooperate-one-more-day" sound. Inside: pages printed and handwritten, clipped bundles, small glued envelopes with who knows what. A black ID card with a silver Lotus stamp sat on top.

"Identification" Alteea said, tipping the card. A woman stared from the photo, mouth set, hair pulled back. Under it: name, number, date. The corners wore finger-curve shine.

She flipped. Eye retina scan. Face captures. Finger pattern. Two medical summaries. Eon tolerance line below a SITE ACCESS report ending with APPROVED. A signed field study permit. A proximity warning for Nyx remains. A note in neat hand: supervises poorly under stress.

Saffi's mouth drifted open. "You have files like this. For everyone!?"

"For anyone who touched the Heart under certain clearances" Alteea said. She was already pulling a second. "And for anyone who tried"

She spread three more on the steps. Paper fanned under their knees, the kind of mess that only makes sense when Alteea is driving it. If someone came by, they'd find the spiral wearing biographies like a train.

Alteea dealt lives to herself. Photos. Scans. Notes. Two to the left, five to the right. Saffi caught a name and reached. "Doctor Osei. She signs off on Warden gear"

"Too old" Alteea said. "Never left Neoshima without five witnesses or protection. Good scientist, but she always had this weird paranoia that someone hunted her down. Too safe for my preference."

Next. A man with sharp eyes and a stare that refused to be photographed. Saffi read. "Missing right eye. Prosthetic arm."

"Whoops… Wrong year" Alteea said, and quickly buried 2 folders back.

"You… Know all these people"

"All the ones who matter, and those that were still alive when I became Lighthouse Command" Alteea said. "Names. Faces. A few of their lies and secrets. It's my job to remember when the network forgets"

Her hands stopped.

A plain folder. No extra tabs. The ID showed a man in his thirties, mouth slanted into an almost smile, eyes bright and busy in a way the public press hates.

Alteea's voice found a grin it didn't intend. "Well, well, well. Found you, Professor Eiden"

Saffi blinked. "Eiden? The engineer?"

"Just engineer? Think again." Alteea laughed. "Mechanic. Tinkerer. Marine biologist. Architect. Scientist if you catch him on the right hour. Designed the Kestrel-X"

"And Arashi's board" Saffi completed, because she could still hear Arashi crowing about lift ratios and calibrations. "He argued with physics and won"

"He flirts with physics" Alteea said, scanning. "Look here"

Eiden's file had fattened with years. Early training. A photo of a younger Eiden with oil to his elbows and a grin for nobody.

Clearance card stamped Heart, with a list of areas he could enter. All of them were allowed.. Medical checkups with Eon exposure notes. A small folded sheet titled OUTSIDE STUDIES. A short list of permits, locations, and one word written larger than the rest.

UNSUPERVISED

"He was allowed to study wherever he wanted?"

"More than allowed" Alteea said. "Encouraged. He was the only one not tied to Heart duty then. Everyone else was building petals, patching power supplies, inventing food. This guy got the odd problems. The ones that needed a person who'd try ten things badly to find the eleventh that worked"

"That sounds like him"

"It is him" Alteea said. She tapped dates. "Look. The cavern was open. Still observations on "Possible hallucinations", the illusions division 3 and 4 saw. And the Council signed Eiden to poke anything that made a new noise"

Saffi's stomach did a small twist. "So if anyone trained the crystals. If anyone taught them to like a tone"

"Eiden fits" Alteea said. Careful. Not accusation. Not absolution. An option laid on the table and watched.

She kept reading. Reread. Went back to the start and did it again. Checked a year. Cross-checked a list folded into the spine. Her mouth pressed thin. Even her shoulder blades thought hard.

"If he made those studies" Saffi said. "If he liked 440 and taught a rock to hum... Why seal the entrance? Why hide the work?"

"That's the part that refuses to sit right with me" Alteea said. "He was careless. Arrogant about machines. Kind to people who didn't deserve it. He didn't hide what he was proud of. He would have bragged to three nurses and a vending machine"

"So he didn't seal it"

"Nobody else could, under normal circumstances."

"Hmm…"

"Maybe… Maybe something scared him. Maybe something happened. Something he wasn't meant to see" Alteea suggested. "Or someone borrowed his access and did their cutting with his shadow. Or the network ate wrote week to hide a month of continuous discoveries!"

"That's a lot of or"

"Welcome to the part of research where you realize the world isn't neat"

Saffi watched her turn one last sheet. A simple schedule. Dates with tick marks for when Eiden checked gear out and when he put it back. A gap. Five days of nothing. No reason why, no justification. The blank felt loud.

Alteea stared at it like it had insulted her.

Shortly after, she began putting folders back, one by one, in the exact order she'd taken them. She brushed a sleeve over a corner so no edge bent. She didn't look at Saffi. "Up. We're done for now"

The rail felt warmer now, like the room liked being left tidy. The alloy remembered Alteea's hand and opened. The corridor outside felt too simple, too bright. The Heart sounded like it always did up here - people and machines making a truce for another day.

They walked toward the lab in the quiet that comes when thoughts have weight. The ordinary tile tried to make the secret behind them unreal. Saffi didn't let it.

"Hey, Alteea?"

"Yeah?"

"Why didn't you store all of that on the servers? The data. The images. Reports. Why not put it in the Lighthouse"

Alteea sped up a bit. Her eyes sharpened like the wrong exact question was asked at the wrong exact time.

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