The crowd has thinned a little around the main ring by the time Mason drops back into spectator mode.

  Some kids have peeled off toward the free-play stations, already trying to copy whatever they just saw on stream. A couple of parents hover by the snack counter, trading chaperone gossip. But the space closest to the barrier is still packed, faces tilted up toward the wall screens as the next feature match loads in.

  He wedges himself against the rail between a girl in a Blitz Fang hoodie and an older guy in a union cap. The metal under his palms is cool; the Field’s low hum goes straight through it into his arms.

  On the blue platform, the commentators’ favorite kind of local star steps up: Mark “Big Mark” D’Agosta. Six-two, broad shoulders, Titan logo tee stretched just enough to show he lives at the gym. His rig is glossy white with gold inlays and a promo Colossus Prime decal gleaming along the bracer.

  “And here he is,” the play-by-play caster booms. “Our resident heavyweight, Big Mark! Known for one thing and one thing only—dropping big bodies and daring you to live through it.”

  The crowd approves. Mark lifts his arm, soaking it in.

  On the red side, Naomi walks to her station without fanfare.

  If you weren’t looking for her, you’d miss her. Medium height, black hair pulled into a low ponytail, plain dark jacket and jeans. Her rig is a slim, matte silver with no decals at all.

  Mason has to remind himself this is NP_Theory. The same handle on half the matchup docs Denise complains about, suddenly three platforms away.

  The co-caster fills the audience in. “Facing him, we’ve got a bit of an unknown to most of you, but if you read theory posts—and we know you do—you’ve read her stuff. NP_Theory herself, Naomi Park, finally stepping out from behind the spreadsheets. Running…what looks like heavy Control/Support.”

  “Deck check says trap density is off the charts,” the play-by-play adds. “Chat is gonna have feelings about that.”

  The kids around Mason react right on cue.

  “Ugh, control.”

  “Why even play if you’re just gonna stall?”

  “I heard she plays to Decision every round.”

  He tunes them out, eyes on the stage.

  Pre-match UI flares between the platforms: BIG MARK vs N. PARK. Underneath: TITAN MAIN vs CTRL / SUPP.

  Core Integrity bars fill to twenty. Charge meters tick up to three. Round counter empty.

  “Players, acknowledge,” the ref calls.

  Mark lifts his rig. Naomi raises hers. The tap of plastic on plastic chimes through the PA.

  “Good luck,” Mark calls, easy.

  Naomi’s answer doesn’t reach the stands. If she replies, it’s brief.

  The dome overhead dims. Numbers start to count down in huge translucent blocks.

  3

  Mason exhales slowly, hands loose on the rail.

  2

  Naomi’s gaze is fixed on the HUD floating over her rig, somewhere only she can see.

  1

  GO.

  Beat one.

  Charge climbs from three to four on both sides.

  Neither player spends.

  “Hold from both,” the caster notes. “Mark’s probably eyeing a Rank-3 Titan on Beat two. Naomi? Could be anything from low-Rank walls to a Sentinel anchor.”

  Beat two.

  Charge to five.

  Mark moves first. Colossus Anchor’s art flashes on his bracer—a bulky Rank-3 Titan swinging a spiked flail, chain trailing.

  His Charge drops by three. The Field coils, then erupts in a column of light that resolves into armored bulk.

  Colossus Anchor lands on Mark’s half of the arena, knees bending under the impact. Sigils along its joints pulse dim orange. The flail drags behind it, spiked head gouging a faint path in the glossy surface.

  The barrier shivers. Vibration spoons into Mason’s fingers through the rail.

  “Here we go,” the caster says. “Big Mark doing Big Mark things. Colossus Anchor, Rank-3—ten attack, six defense, auto-advance. If this hits center and starts swinging, it’s a problem.”

  On Naomi’s side, Charge drops by three.

  Shimmer ahead of her platform thickens, then builds upward into a squat, broad-shouldered construct: Warden Golem. Rank-3 Controller staple. Stone plates for armor, runes sunk deep, thick arms ending in slab fists. Its “face” is just a triangle of light under a heavy helm.

  It takes one heavy step forward and stops, both feet braced on a slightly raised tile that hadn’t existed a second ago, hex pattern glowing under its weight.

  “Warden Golem,” the co-caster announces. “Five attack, nine defense, anchor passive. And she’s already dropped Fortified Ground under it. More defense, harder to move. Textbook answer to a push-heavy Titan.”

  Mason leans in. The way the Fortified tile glows around Warden’s boots makes the whole construct feel welded to the floor.

  Beat three.

  Naomi spends a single Charge. A card icon appears, then sinks face-down into the Field between the center line and her Warden.

  Trap.

  Mark burns all five remaining Charge to prime Hammerfall Overdrive on Anchor. The flail crackles, chain links lighting in sequence.

  “No time wasted from Mark,” the caster says. “He wants pressure now.”

  Beat resolves.

  Colossus Anchor strides toward center, flail building a wide, threatening arc. By the end of the Beat, it’s one tile off the line.

  Warden Golem stays rooted in place, arms lifting to guard.

  Beat four.

  Naomi’s fingers hover, then tap two quick inputs—one for Warden, one for another face-down card.

  On the Field, a second faint sigil appears just beyond the center line, then vanishes below the surface.

  Mark keeps driving Anchor forward.

  Beat resolves.

  Anchor steps onto Naomi’s half.

  The moment its leading foot hits, a glyph flares underneath—circles within circles, lines spinning like a gyroscope gone wrong.

  TRAP: GRAVITY SNARE – MOVEMENT HALVED, JUMP DISABLED.

  Anchor’s next step drags. Its whole mass suddenly seems heavier, flail dipping before it muscles the chain back up.

  A ripple of laughter and groans runs along the rail near Mason.

  “Gravity Snare,” the co-caster says. “Puts a weight vest on anything that walks through. And she placed it just deep enough that Mark had to commit. Nasty.”

  Mark’s mouth presses into a line.

  Beat five.

  Naomi lets Charge climb, then spends two to set another face-down card near the edge of the neutral zone. Her meter dips, but she’s clearly not pressed.

  Mark layers Momentum Lock on Anchor, spending what he has to give its hits more carry-through and reduce knockback.

  “He’s not backing off,” the caster notes. “If he can tag Warden once, that’s a big chunk of rock gone.”

  Beat resolves.

  Colossus Anchor shoves through the last of Gravity Snare’s drag. The glyph cracks and fades as the effect ends. Anchor’s flail comes in a brutal side swing.

  Warden Golem raises both forearms to block. Stone meets metal with a flash that reflects off the barrier. Numbers pop: ten attack + two vs nine defense + two from Fortified Ground.

  The blow lands, but most of the force bleeds into the Field. Warden’s health bar slides a manageable amount. Naomi’s Core Integrity ticks from twenty to nineteen.

  Mason’s own rig, synced to spectator feed, gives a muted rumble. For a second, the motion in Warden’s torso as it absorbs the hit looks too real—the slight give in its “chest,” the way it adjusts its stance after.

  The guy in the union cap whistles. “Took that like a champ.”

  The girl in the Blitz Fang hoodie mutters about “cheese walls.”

  Beat six.

  Naomi spends three Charge.

  On her HUD, a hex-pattern card art flashes: Zone Denial.

  A translucent ring of glyphs blooms under Colossus Anchor and extends just far enough to reach a single adjacent tile. Lines connect overhead, forming a faint shell.

  ZONE DENIAL ACTIVE – AREA SEALED.

  Anchor’s next step stops cold against the inside of the dome. Its flail glances off the edge of the barrier, chain rebounding with a visible jolt.

  “That’s rude,” the co-caster says, delighted. “Zone Denial. Draw a circle, say ‘this is your sandbox now.’ Mark’s big boy just got playpen’d.”

  Warden Golem stands at the edge of the dome, one foot inside its projection, one out, arms lowered. It doesn’t need to attack yet.

  Naomi’s eyes don’t move to Mark or the Titan. They flick to a small monitor built into the rail near her platform, where Core Field diagnostics scroll—charge dispersion graphs, stress percentages, containment readouts.

  Mark’s jaw tightens. He cycles HUD options, already trying to find a way out of the cops-and-robbers rectangle Naomi just painted around his central piece.

  Beat seven.

  He drives Anchor into the barrier again. The Titan leans its weight forward, flail grinding along the invisible surface.

  The dome flexes inward. Light lines along it flare brighter.

  The diagnostics monitor flicks a warning: FIELD STRESS – ZONE D THRESHOLD.

  For a blip, as Anchor throws its weight against the barrier, Mason’s chest clenches.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Anchor doesn’t just press like a model in a canned animation. It thrashes, flail battering the unseen wall, shoulders twisting. Its head jerks, helm angling this way and that. There’s a quality to the motion that feels wrong—not just “big angry thing,” but something fighting containment.

  Then the Field pushes back. Motion dampeners snap on. Anchor jerks to a halt mid-swing, joints locking for a fraction before the animation resets to an idle.

  The stress warning fades.

  “Zone Denial is rated for Rank-5 strain,” the co-caster says, chuckling a touch too loudly. “Anchor’s only Rank-3. We’re still within spec, folks.”

  Mason’s fingers have gone clammy on the rail. He peels them off, wipes his palms on his jeans.

  Just visuals, he tells himself. Updated models. Better hit reactions.

  On Naomi’s monitor, he sees her thumb tap the edge of her smartband—logging something.

  Beat eight, nine, ten.

  On the surface, nothing dramatic happens.

  Anchor paces in its translucent cage, powerless to reach past the Zone Denial edge. Each time it winds up, the barrier pushes back. Sparks reflect along the dome but don’t breach it.

  Warden Golem chips carefully at Anchor’s health with short, efficient strikes whenever cooldowns align. Naomi uses cheap Tactics—Charge Leak, Siphon Echo—to bleed Mark’s resource pool so even if he recalls Anchor, he’ll struggle to bring in another high-Rank threat fast.

  The decision metrics in the corner of the broadcast: CONTROL TIME heavily Naomi, DAMAGE leaning her way now, STYLE firmly hers after the trap showcase.

  Mason tracks those numbers without meaning to. In his matches he barely glances at that panel. With her game, that panel feels like the real score.

  Beat eleven.

  Mark commits to a pivot.

  He burns precious Charge recalling Anchor from inside Zone Denial—a premium cost the game slaps on anything trying to exit hard control—then slams a hand over Voidback Colossus, his Rank-5 closer.

  Charge nosedives. The shimmer in his half of the arena condenses into something massive.

  Armor unfolds in jagged plates, negative black eating the Field’s light. Four arms extend, each hand gripping a different weapon—hammer, blade, hook, crackling orb. Horns curl back from a helmeted head. White points burn along its armor like distant stars.

  The Field flexes around the new presence. Even from the rail, Mason feels that extra weight, the sense that containment is working harder now.

  “Here we go!” the caster yells. “Voidback Colossus on Beat eleven! Mark burned half a round’s economy on that recall, but if this connects, it does not care.”

  Naomi’s Charge has quietly crept up to six.

  Beat twelve. Last of the round.

  She spends four.

  Seal Grid’s art flashes on the HUD: interlocking lines forming a lattice over a Titan silhouette.

  As Voidback finishes coalescing, a second pattern overlays it—a fine mesh appearing mid-chest and racing out across its limbs.

  TRAP: SEAL GRID – HIGH-RANK SUMMON NEGATED.

  Voidback’s left arm—hammer-hand—fades, then snaps back. Its torso glitches, two frames shuddering back and forth: fully formed, half-dissolved, fully formed again.

  For a breath, its head tilts, helm angling up toward Mark’s platform. The posture reads less like “cool summon entrance” and more like bewilderment.

  Then the lattice hardens. The Field clamps.

  Voidback buckles inward, body collapsing into static that sucks into a point and disappears.

  On Mark’s HUD, Voidback’s sigil greys out with a harsh warning flash. High-Rank attempt: canceled.

  The reaction from the rail is immediate and loud.

  “Oooh,” the co-caster groans. “Seal Grid on the Voidback. That’s just—wow. He saved all that Charge, and she just snapped it off the board for four.”

  “Perfect patience from Naomi,” the caster says. “She waits until it’s a Rank-5, not a Rank-3, then flips the switch. All that resource for nothing.”

  Mark stands on his platform a little too still. There’s no time for him to meaningfully respond. His Charge is empty. There’s one Beat left and nothing scary to spend it on.

  The buzzer sounds.

  Core Integrity bars freeze: Naomi at nineteen, Mark at sixteen. Warden’s health over half. Anchor gone. Voidback never entered.

  Decision metrics finalize: CONTROL massively Naomi, DAMAGE slight edge her way, STYLE heavily hers.

  ROUND ONE: N. PARK – DECISION.

  The kids by Mason are not thrilled.

  “What a lame way to win.”

  “Just fight, come on.”

  Union Cap chuckles. “That’s how you break a steamroller, boys.”

  Mason isn’t cheering. He’s busy watching Naomi.

  She doesn’t pump a fist or bask in the camera. She lowers her rig, thumb already flicking across the side panel. On the barrier monitor, the diagnostics replay in miniature: a graph of stress spikes, Charge flow, containment.

  Her eyes track the bump where Anchor hammered Zone Denial, then the sharper spike where Voidback tried to resolve and Seal Grid triggered.

  Her pen is in her hand before the ref even calls round two.

  Round two plays out like an adjustment test.

  Mark tries more nimble Titans—Rank-3 and Rank-4 bruisers with movement tricks—and fewer giant hammers. Naomi answers with Hex Sentinel, a floating sphere studded with eyes and runes that orbits Warden like a silent satellite. Every Tactic she plays seems to originate from somewhere within that slow rotation.

  She lines the arena in bands: a Slow Field strip that drags anything heavy, Clear Zones that strip buffs the instant a creature steps onto them. Where Mark wants clean lanes, she paints speed bumps and tollbooths.

  He lands a real sequence once, catching Warden with a double-hit into follow-up. The impacts look big. Light sprays off the construct’s chest. Naomi’s Core Integrity drops from twenty to fourteen.

  Mason expects at least a flinch.

  All he sees is a slightly deeper inhale, like she’d been waiting to see the exact numbers.

  By Beat twelve, Mark’s Core is at six, Naomi’s at nine. Control and style are hers. He pushes anyway, maybe hoping for a miracle.

  The buzzer settles it.

  ROUND TWO: N. PARK – DECISION.

  “Two-oh for Naomi Park,” the caster announces. “Control clinic. Mark landed some haymakers, but Zone Denial, Seal Grid, resource curses—she smothered his game plan.”

  “And for all you Titan mains in chat,” the co-caster adds, “this is your friendly reminder: pack interaction. Or this happens.”

  Applause ripples around the arena. Some claps are grudging, some loud. Even Mark, stepping off his platform, gives Naomi a quick nod that looks more respectful than his face.

  She returns the nod, already reaching for the small spiral notebook sitting near the ref table.

  Mason stays by the rail until she leaves the stage.

  He tries to sort what he just saw.

  He uses traps as surprise edges, stalling people for a Beat so Blitz Fang or Raider can land something huge. For him, Control is spice over aggression.

  For her, it’s the whole dish. She didn’t just answer what Mark did. She decided what questions he was allowed to ask.

  On the wall screen, the bracket updates. Mason’s handle pops into the round-two pairings: CORE RIFF vs LEO_K, table three, off-stream.

  He has maybe fifteen minutes before staging.

  He should refill water. Double-check sleeves. Stretch. Do any of the responsible-player stuff Denise lectures about.

  Instead, he watches Naomi cross the floor, notebook open, pen already moving.

  Something in his chest leans toward her. Curiosity, sure. Maybe also the selfish itch of a player who’s just recognized someone operating on a level he hasn’t even mapped yet.

  “Players for match seven, please report to staging in the next ten minutes,” Denise’s voice booms over the PA. “That includes you, Mason.”

  He winces.

  He still doesn’t move.

  Naomi disappears through the side door toward the hallway that leads to the competitor lounge and water coolers.

  He peels away from the rail, telling himself he’s just heading toward the bracket board.

  Sharing a hallway with a top-tier brain isn’t against tournament rules. Yet.

  —

  The noise drops a notch as he pushes through the fire door into the side corridor, leaving the layered sounds of the main floor behind. Out here it’s mostly vending machines humming, the faint buzz of fluorescent tubes, and the muffled crowd through cinderblock.

  Plastic chairs line one wall. The other is plastered with bracket printouts, hand-scribbled updates, and Denise’s taped notes in bold marker.

  Naomi stands near the water cooler, notebook balanced on one forearm, pen moving in quick, clipped strokes. A paper cup full of water rests on the cooler tray, untouched, a ring of moisture forming under it.

  Two guys about Mason’s age hover just to her side, all elbows and nerves.

  “Hey, uh, Naomi, right?” one works up the courage. He worries at his rig strap. “That Seal Grid was nasty. You streaming this event or what?”

  Her pen doesn’t pause. “No.”

  The other leans in. “What’s the list? Are you on double Denial or one? Some folks online say two is greedy, but that line was—”

  “The full list will be published after rotation,” she says. “Matches from today will be reflected then.”

  “‘Reflected,’ huh.” The first guy snorts. “So we’re just inputs on your spreadsheet?”

  “If you’re logging your own matches, yes,” she answers. “If not, no. Excuse me.”

  She steps sideways without looking, somehow missing their shoes by a hair. The guys exchange a look—irritation, reluctant respect—then drift toward the bracket board.

  Mason pretends to study the printouts, giving himself a second to get his mouth under control.

  His name is in neat marker: CORE RIFF vs LEO_K, table three. Next block.

  He can feel his pulse in his rig arm.

  Say something.

  He clears his throat. “That trap line into Voidback was brutal.”

  Naomi’s pen stops mid-word.

  She looks up.

  Up close, her eyes are darker than they looked from the stands, framed by thin silver frames. Her expression is neutral, not bored exactly, just waiting to sort where this interaction fits in her mental tables.

  “What?” she asks.

  “Seal Grid,” he says. “Beat eleven. Waiting until he burned basically all his Charge on Voidback, then—” He chops one hand lightly through the air. “Cutting the summon.”

  A little bit of tightness leaves the corners of her mouth. Not much. Enough.

  “It was the highest-leverage option,” she says. “If I spring it on Colossus Anchor, he recovers. Voidback sinks his whole round.”

  “Still,” he says, “doing it in the moment like that? That was clean.”

  Her gaze drops to the rig on his arm, then back up.

  “You’re CoreRiff,” she says.

  “Yeah.”

  “Blitz Fang into Crossline Raider. Reversal Spike on Dunn’s Body Drop. Feint Echo into Full Commit on Beat twelve.”

  He stares. “You got all of that.”

  “It was on stream.” She taps her notebook. “And relevant. Grappler behavior into mixed aggro-control is underrepresented in my sample.”

  “‘Underrepresented,’” he repeats, half-laughing. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “It is one.”

  His shoulders ease. “You didn’t even react when Mark almost cracked your Warden. Those double heavies looked rough.”

  “It was within expected range.” She clicks her pen cap into place. “Warden at that health with Fortified Ground and two reactive Tactics had a ninety-two percent chance to survive. No reason to spike my heart rate.”

  “You’ve actually got the percentages for that stuff memorized?”

  “Some.” She shrugs one shoulder. “The rest I approximate.”

  He lets out a low whistle. “I’m over there going ‘this feels right’ and praying I don’t fat-finger the wrong button, and you’re doing math by hand.”

  Her head tilts the smallest amount. “You knew you were ahead on Decision in round two.”

  He frowns. “What?”

  “You had more Core, more control points, and higher style,” she says. “If you’d held position and blocked, judges still give you the round. Instead, you played Full Commit into a Clinch deck. Lower expected value line.”

  The way she says it—calmly, like stating a weather report—hits harder than any shout.

  “I…” His thumb scrapes under his rig strap. “Didn’t really think about the numbers. It just—”

  “Felt right,” she finishes.

  “Yeah.”

  They regard each other across a couple of scuffed floor tiles.

  “Sometimes that works,” Naomi says. “Sometimes ‘felt right’ is just bias toward highlight plays. I’d need more of your matches to classify it.”

  “So I’m a data point,” he says.

  “Everyone is.” She lifts the notebook a centimeter. “I don’t always get to attach conversations.”

  A round judge leans in through the door. “Next block staging in five! Matches seven through ten, let’s go.”

  Mason glances at the door to staging, then at the cheap plastic clock above the hallway. Time’s about to evaporate.

  He doesn’t move.

  On the open page of Naomi’s notebook he can see narrow columns: Opponent / Archetype / Key Cards / Anomalies.

  Under today’s entries for B. MARK, the last column reads: Anchor/Zone D stress > last patch. Voidback/Seal sync offset ~.2s?.

  “You write down everything?” he asks.

  “Everything verifiable.” She taps the page. “Memory lies.”

  “Tell that to my dad,” he mutters. “He still thinks I’m ten playing with cardboard tokens.”

  Her attention sharpens. “Your dad plays?”

  “Played.” He waves that off. “Back when starter kits still came with little punch-out counters. He decided the real-summon update turned the whole thing into an AstraForge cult.”

  One side of her mouth twitches. “He’s not entirely wrong.”

  “You don’t exactly look like you bought all the merch,” he says, nodding at the notebook.

  “I’m here for the system,” she replies. “The game is just where it surfaces.” Her eyes drop briefly to his rig. “Speaking of. In your match with Dunn. Reversal Spike on Beat seven. Did it feel…off?”

  “Off how?”

  “On input.” She taps two fingers along her own forearm where the rig’s sensors lie, mirroring where his sit. “You triggered Reversal Spike at the right time from a motor standpoint. Broadcast shows it registered maybe a frame late. Clinch hit your Fang a bit deeper than ideal.”

  He drags the moment back up: Blitz Fang pinned, Grudge Clincher hauling it, his thumb hitting confirm, the twist, the bite.

  “I figured that was animation,” he says. “Old rig, minor delay. Haptics went pretty hard when they hit.”

  “Denise tunes her Fields well enough to compensate for older models most of the time.” Naomi’s tone stays even. “Your other commands registered clean. That one didn’t. I’m logging containment anomalies. The last firmware patch changed how core buffers interact with certain Tactics.”

  “Containment firmware,” he echoes. “You really did read the manual.”

  “And the patch notes.” Her gaze ticks up. “And the internal memos they tried to bury last year.”

  He raises both brows. “That sounds illegal.”

  “They were already public by then. Mostly.” She looks past him, toward the arena door, where a faint blue-white glow leaks around the edges. “If you notice anything that feels wrong—outside normal lag or misplays—write it down. Spikes. Recalls taking a beat too long. Summons moving before commands. Anything that doesn’t match documented behavior.”

  “Why?” It comes out quick.

  “Because AstraForge never explained how we got from holograms to things that come off the Field looking hurt,” she says quietly. “And they don’t let independent labs near their hardware. So we start with whatever scraps they give us. Which is us.”

  He studies her face for a moment.

  In the arena, she’d looked like a walking spreadsheet. Here, there’s a thread of something sharper. Not just curiosity—resistance to the idea that someone else gets to define what’s “normal.”

  “Okay,” he says. “If my rig starts acting haunted, I’ll let you know.”

  “Haunted is imprecise,” she says. “Glitched works.”

  “Glitched, then.”

  “Mason!” Denise’s voice bounces down the hall. “If I have to come dig you out of a chair like you’re eight, I’m taking an extra ten percent.”

  He flinches. “On my way.”

  Naomi’s brows rise a fraction. “Extra ten percent?”

  “Long story,” he says. “Short version, she skims less if I pretend to be low-maintenance.”

  “Then you should go.”

  “Yeah.”

  He takes a step toward staging, then glances back.

  “Hey,” he adds. “Good game. Against Mark.”

  “Thanks.” She flips her notebook closed. “Your next opponent runs midrange Support that pivots into rush on Beats four and seven. Track Charge spikes.”

  It takes him a second. “You scouted my next opponent already?”

  “I scout everyone.” She lifts one shoulder. “Otherwise I’m wasting time.”

  She raises the notebook a little, not quite a salute, more like a promise: you’ll be in here too. Then she turns toward the competitor corridor, rig clipped against her hip, untouched cup of water still sitting on the cooler.

  Mason fills his own, downs it too fast so it hits his stomach like a rock, and heads for staging.

  His mind keeps sliding between images as he goes: Blitz Fang twisting out of a slam; Warden Golem welded to its tile while a Titan crashes against a transparent wall; Voidback glitching half-born under Seal Grid; the moment Naomi looked less interested in the scoreboard than in a jagged spike on a graph.

  And the word she used for him: “competent.” It lands less like a ceiling and more like the first rung on a ladder he hadn’t seen.

  By the time he reaches the competitor door, his fingers around the rig grip feel steadier.

  “Match seven?” the staffer asks, checking his clipboard.

  “Yeah.” Mason flashes his badge. “CoreRiff.”

  The light over the door flips from red to green.

  “Good luck,” the staffer says.

  Mason draws in the dry, humming air of the staging corridor and steps through, one more line item heading back into the Field.