Chapter 8: WAYFARER NEXUS 4

Sio had expected confirmation to feel useful.

It didn’t.

She began separating the reading into layers. Physical structures sharpened across the display until one region became strangely indistinct. The Scar signature remained fixed inside it, but the wound itself refused to resolve.

Another angle produced the same result.

Caspian had abandoned his study of the wall by then. He approached the console more slowly than before. "How deep is it?"

The examiner moved through the image again, revealing structures beyond the distortion as clearly as everything surrounding it. "Depth isn’t the problem. I can read past it."

Fern followed the layers changing across the display. "So the obstruction is specific to the Scar."

The examiner didn’t immediately agree. She adjusted the scan one more time, watched the same blur settle over the wound, then rested her fingers against the controls. "The machine is resolving everything around it and everything beyond it. The failure occurs only when I try to define the Scar itself. That’s what I can tell you with certainty."

Sio watched the blurred region sitting somewhere inside the representation of his own body.

Yesterday his System had informed him that he possessed a Scar he couldn’t see. Today, professionals had located it and somehow knew even less after finding it.

Progress.

The examiner finally shut down the active imaging and placed the confirmed results beside one another.

〔 WAYFARER CLASSIFICATION 〕

VEYR

〔 SCAR 〕

SIGNATURE: PRESENT

Then she brought up Sio’s older records beneath them.

BIRTH EXAMINATION — VEYR

PASSAGE DAMAGE — NONE DETECTED

AGE SIX EXAMINATION — VEYR CONFIRMED

CLAIM CAPACITY — III

ACTIVE CLAIMS — 0

SCAR SIGNATURE — NONE DETECTED

The room grew quieter.

Sio understood why.

This wasn’t one old classification that might have been mistaken. He had been examined when he entered the world because every newborn was checked. Six years later, when he still couldn’t Claim anything, his mother had brought him back and the Nexus had confirmed the same result all over again.

Now, thirteen years after that second examination, the machine was displaying something neither record had contained.

Fern read all three in sequence. "So there were two clean examinations before today."

The examiner nodded. "One at birth and one at six. Both confirm Veyr. Both show no Passage wound and no Scar."

Caspian rested one hand against the console, his usual easy posture giving way to concentration. "Which makes today the first recorded appearance."

Sio knew the records could narrow the change to the years since his second examination, but he could narrow it much further. He remembered the fracture opening above Luminara, the creature forcing its way through, and the warning that had appeared after it attacked him. Every part of that memory pointed back to yesterday, which was exactly why he kept those details to himself.

"My System had never shown anything about a Scar before yesterday." He made himself look at Fern rather than the records. "After whatever happened with the Claim, it suddenly called one anomalous."

The wording was broad enough to protect what mattered and true enough that he wouldn’t need to remember a fabricated story.

The examiner seemed more troubled by the timeline than by Sio’s careful phrasing. "Your birth examination was clean. Your second examination six years later was clean. A Scar appearing now means the injury happened long after the Passage encounter that classified you."

Sio’s eyes drifted toward the bright red signature contradicting everything they understood.

He had several comments available.

Fern recognized the expression. "Keep whichever one you’re considering inside your head."

"I was going to say the machine seems convinced."

"You were not going to say it like that."

"That was the respectful version."

Caspian’s quiet amusement earned him a warning from Fern without her needing to say his name.

The examiner eventually opened the Nexus record interface. Sio’s injuries appeared first, followed by the new classification anomaly carrying a destination beyond the room.

Fern noticed immediately. "Where does that report go?"

"District medical administration first. With two previous Veyr examinations and a newly detected Scar, Central review will almost certainly receive it automatically."

Until then, everything had felt contained.

Sio pictured the information leaving the room and passing through offices full of people he’d never met, each of them seeing his name beside three examinations that should never have existed in that sequence.

His discomfort must have reached his face because Fern’s attention touched him briefly before returning to the examiner.

"Hold the anomaly here. File his injuries normally, but keep the classification result local until we understand what we’re dealing with."

The examiner’s hesitation wasn’t defiance. She seemed to be weighing procedure against the morning’s circumstances. "I’ll need a reason for suppressing an automatic flag, especially with two older records to compare against."

Fern rested both hands lightly against the console. "A Vessel specifically hunted him less than a day after this Scar appeared. We don’t know what it wanted, why it recognized him, or whether anyone else would recognize the same information. Sending his anomaly through the network before we answer any of those questions doesn’t protect him. It advertises him."

That changed the examiner’s expression.

Caspian had spent most of the exchange studying the three examinations rather than Fern. When he finally joined the discussion, none of his earlier laziness remained in his voice. "Put the hold under my authorization. Administration can come to me."

Fern didn’t challenge him.

The examiner didn’t either.

Sio understood more about the weight behind Heliarch from those few seconds than a formal explanation of the title could have given him.

The wider submission was closed, leaving the anomaly restricted to the examination archive.

Some of the pressure eased from Sio’s chest when the external access indicators disappeared, though the relief didn’t last very long. Three experienced Nexus members had just agreed that fewer people should know what he’d become. That was probably not the kind of protection a person wanted to need.

Caspian remained beside the console after the examiner finished, returning repeatedly to the sequence of records: Sio’s examination at birth, the second at six, and the impossible result sitting in front of them now. Something about that progression held his attention more strongly than the contradiction itself.

Fern knew him well enough to recognize when his silence had changed. "You’ve remembered something."

Caspian rubbed his thumb slowly along his jaw without taking his eyes from the records. "Someone."

The answer altered Fern’s posture.

She understood before Sio did.

"Caspian."

There was history in the way she said his name now, stripped of the irritation she’d used over paperwork or privacy.

He reached beneath his coat and removed a slim communicator. "He knows more about abnormal Passage injuries than anyone still taking Nexus appointments."

Fern watched his thumb move through older contacts. "You haven’t spoken to him in years."

"I haven’t needed to."

"That isn’t why."

His thumb stopped.

For the first time since Sio had met him, Caspian’s silence didn’t feel casual. Something older had surfaced beneath it, something Fern recognized well enough that she didn’t press him further.

Sio’s curiosity steadily overcame the ache in his shoulder. "Am I allowed to ask who we’re dramatically refusing to name?"

Some of Caspian’s usual self returned. "A man who will be delighted to hear from me."

Fern folded her arms. "He will not."

"That was optimism."

"Try honesty."

Caspian studied the contact for another second. "A man who may hang up."

Sio found that far easier to believe.

The connection took long enough that he began wondering whether the prediction had already come true. Caspian didn’t pace, but tension had entered the hand holding the communicator. His thumb rubbed once against its edge before he noticed the movement and stopped.

Eventually, a rough older voice answered.

"Caspian."

The single name carried enough history that Sio stopped wondering why Fern had objected.

Caspian’s expression barely shifted, though his reply came more carefully than anything Sio had heard from him all afternoon. "I need your help with a reading."

A dry breath came through the communicator. "Years without a word, and you begin with work. You’ve become predictable."

Fern lowered her attention toward the console, offering him the closest thing to privacy the room allowed.

Caspian accepted the criticism without defending himself. "You can insult me after you hear this. We examined a Wayfarer today. Veyr at birth, confirmed Veyr again at six because he still hadn’t made a Claim, and both examinations show no Scar or Passage damage. Today he’s still Veyr, but there’s an internal Scar signature that appeared within the last day. The equipment can locate it perfectly. The wound itself won’t resolve."

The resentment on the other end vanished so abruptly that Sio felt it even through the tiny speaker.

"Start again."

Caspian repeated the sequence more slowly. He gave Sio’s age, both previous examinations and the current reading. The examiner had stopped working entirely by then, and Fern no longer pretended the call was private.

The man’s next question came with careful precision. "You can confirm the Scar, but you can’t image the actual wound?"

"Exactly. The distortion is localized around it. Everything past the Scar remains readable."

The answer came fast enough to make Fern move closer before the man finished speaking. "Shut the scanner down. Don’t probe it again."

Sio became unpleasantly aware that he was still sitting inside the apparatus.

Fern rested one hand against the back of his chair while addressing the communicator. "Why? What do you think we’re looking at?"

Recognition entered the older man’s voice. "Fern?"

"I’m here."

"Then make sure that machine is completely off."

The examiner was already doing it. Fine lines along the frame faded one after another until the apparatus became ordinary metal around Sio again.

Caspian watched the final light disappear. "You know what this is."

"I know enough to tell you not to touch it again until I arrive."

That caught Fern harder than the warning itself. "You’re coming here?"

"I am now."

Sio had spent most of the afternoon allowing curiosity to crowd out more sensible reactions. The change in the old man’s voice finally made that difficult. Whoever Caspian had called, this result had just turned years of silence into immediate travel.

Caspian heard it too. "What aren’t you telling us?"

The older man took a moment before answering, and when he did, every trace of his earlier resentment had disappeared.

"You’ve already ruled out depth. The scanner can read what lies beyond the Scar, yet the wound itself remains obscured. That means the interference is specific to whatever you’re trying to see."

Fern’s attention settled on the dark apparatus. "We reached the same conclusion."

The man responded more quietly this time.

"You reached the safest conclusion."

Sio felt unease gather beneath his ribs as Caspian’s attention moved from the communicator to him.

The old man continued.

"You’re assuming the Scar is hiding itself from your scanner."

Caspian’s expression changed first. The words seemed to push him toward an implication Sio hadn’t reached yet.

Then the man finished.

"Consider the possibility that something else is hiding it."