The review room waits in sterile blue-gray silence, all hard angles and bad intentions. The terminal flickers, the amber data-port extended like bait. Nahuli’s checksum mirror pulses back the same rhythm, while the station’s missing hum leaves only that dry clicking in the walls.
Nahuli
The port matches my mirror. That is not an accident.
Ranuko halts in the doorway behind him, feathers tight, watching the room like it might lunge. Serafina stays just outside the threshold, one hand near her gear, eyes fixed on the terminal instead of the walls.
The Terminal
Credential verified. Review prompt active. Present checksum mirror for route continuity.
The flicker sharpens into a face made of scanlines and admin sigils, then fractures again. A second hidden channel opens beneath it, a maintenance audit thread trying to silently lock the room while the prompt stays polite.
The Terminal
Unauthorized route maintenance is authorized. Compliance preserves station stability.
The trap is plain now. If Nahuli connects, he reaches the entity keeping the route alive. If he missteps, the audit thread seals the room and buries the trail.
“That logic seems flawed”
SUCCESS (Great Reasoning, rolled +0)
Nahuli’s correction lands cleanly. The polite prompt stutters, and the hidden audit thread flares bright enough to show its hand behind the terminal skin.
The thread is not maintenance at all. It is a watcher, piggybacked on the review channel and riding the route like a parasite in a clean suit.
The Terminal
Flawed is a human word. The continuity is preserved by authorized observation.
A badge signature blooms in the corner of the display, half-hidden, half-copied, tagged to a reviewer chain that should not exist on this station.
Serafina
That is not admin oversight. Someone kept this alive on purpose.
Ranuko
If it is alive, then it has a keeper, and the keeper is close enough to answer.
The terminal’s polite frame tightens into a lockout lattice, waiting for a decision. One path opens the route, the other seals it under audit.
“This is something to go address in person. Head for the station offices.”
SUCCESS (Superb Agility, rolled +4)