Chapter 13: THE TRANSFER ORDER

Sio was already preparing to ask which part had been personal when the communicator across the table began vibrating.

Caspian’s name appeared.

Arch answered immediately.

The man who appeared above the display had clearly moved somewhere private just long enough to make the call. He skipped any greeting, his voice low and precise while movement passed beyond the room behind him.

"Central Nexus has Sio’s complete file. Current examination, both clean baselines, Scar reading, examiner notes. Fern and I locked everything locally. Somebody either bypassed us or released it deliberately, and I don’t know which yet."

Arch was already closing Silas’s case and placing it inside the travel bag. Sio rose at the same time, the urgency in Caspian’s face pulling him completely away from the examination.

"What are they doing?" Arch asked.

"Transfer order under anomaly jurisdiction. A retrieval team left the Central Nexus station before the order finished circulating through Luminara." Caspian checked something beyond the projection before continuing. "They’re already moving and I can’t get their route. Get Sio out now."

Sio had his notebook in his hand before he realized he had reached for it. He pushed it into his bag and moved closer to the communicator. "If they get here first, what happens to me?"

Caspian focused on him immediately. "They’ll call it examination, and most of the people involved will mean that honestly. Central Nexus has specialists who will see your case as something they need to understand before it happens to somebody else. Anomaly jurisdiction also gives them authority to hold you while they test the Scar, the Claim and whatever caused the contradiction. Fern and I lose most of our ability to tell them when they’ve gone far enough."

He paused only long enough to make sure Sio understood him.

"I would rather explain later why I made you run than spend tomorrow trying to get you released."

Arch snapped the travel case shut while Sio pulled his bag over one shoulder. "Find the leak. Old channel only."

"I’m already on it. Move."

The connection disappeared while Caspian was still turning away from the display.

For several seconds, the room seemed to rearrange itself around urgency. Every instrument on the table became something they would either carry or abandon. Every map on the wall became a possible destination. Sio’s pulse had begun climbing, though the fear felt different from yesterday’s attack. The Vessel had made its intentions brutally clear. Central Nexus was more difficult to process because the people coming for him might genuinely believe taking him away was reasonable.

Arch pushed one of the smaller bags across the table.

Sio caught it against his chest, then reached automatically for the parcel Mira had packed the previous evening. Seeing it brought her conditions back with uncomfortable clarity.

He secured the food beneath one arm and stopped Arch before he could cross toward the maps. "Mum needs to hear this from us before we disappear somewhere. Yesterday she made you promise that she’d know before you took me anywhere outside this house, and I have absolutely no interest in explaining later why both of us decided that agreement stopped mattering the moment things became inconvenient."

Arch didn’t waste time arguing. He called Mira while continuing to secure the straps around the travel case.

She answered on the second attempt with flour across one cheek. Whatever she had been preparing disappeared from her attention the moment she saw Arch’s expression and Sio packing behind him.

Arch kept the explanation brief without hiding the danger. "Sio is safe. His examination reached Central Nexus, and Caspian doesn’t know how. They’ve issued a transfer order and already sent people toward the house, so I’m moving him until Fern and Caspian understand who released the information."

Mira remained quiet until he finished. Sio knew that silence well enough to recognize how much effort it cost her. Her hands had disappeared beneath the projection, and he could picture them braced against the kitchen counter while she forced herself to understand the situation before fear decided what it meant.

"Yesterday you told me he would stay with you, that I would know before you moved him anywhere, and that nobody would turn him into something passed from one specialist to another." Her attention stayed on Arch until Sio stepped fully into view. "I understand that you didn’t create this. Central Nexus calling something procedure still doesn’t make me comfortable with strangers deciding what they’re allowed to do to my son."

Sio adjusted the strap around his shoulder. "I’m still all right, Mum. Nothing new happened to me. This is mostly everybody else becoming more complicated."

She looked at him with the familiar expression that meant the joke had failed to hide nearly as much as he hoped. "And you’re doing what you always do when something frightens you. You’re trying to make it sound inconvenient instead."

Sio had an answer ready and let it go. After everything Mira had learned in one day, lying to keep her calm no longer felt protective.

"A little," he admitted. "Yesterday I knew the Vessel wanted to hurt me. I didn’t understand everything, but at least that part was obvious. I don’t know whether the people coming here even think they’re doing anything wrong, which somehow makes this harder."

Mira’s expression softened without losing the worry behind it. "Then stay close to Arch until you understand what you’re dealing with. You can investigate every other question later, and yes, I realize telling you to postpone curiosity may be the least realistic request I’ve made in nineteen years."

Sio managed a small smile. "I’ll attempt responsible curiosity."

"Start by calling me before wherever you arrive becomes more interesting than your mother."

That was specific enough to his habits that denying it would only strengthen her case.

Arch stepped closer to the projection after securing the last case. "I’ll get him somewhere safe first. Once we’re there, he’ll call you himself. Central Nexus won’t get access to him through me, and I won’t let their interest in the anomaly become an excuse to forget that Sio still has a say in what happens to him."

Mira studied him with the same old measure Sio had noticed the previous day. Something in Arch’s answer seemed to satisfy the part of her that had once known him before Sio existed.

"That’s the man I remembered yesterday," she said. "Keep being him."

Arch accepted the trust without trying to make it sound lighter than it was. "I intend to."

Mira looked at Sio once more and told them to go.