Chương 43: The Right Call

Cecilia sent for him at two in the afternoon. Luca had slept five hours, showered, eaten something from the kitchen that he forgot immediately, and spent the last ninety minutes in the cellar reviewing the field data from the night's sorties. He was sitting in front of two monitors when one of Ruggiero's people appeared in the doorway and told him Cecilia wanted him upstairs. He saved his work. Closed the laptop.

Picked up the notebook he'd been using to compare field observations against the Division's pre-scenario projections, then put it down again because he didn't think she was calling him to discuss the projections. He went up alone. The second floor of the Palazzo was where the Leonelli inner circle operated. Cecilia kept an office, Bianca had a room with surveillance feeds, Dario floated between wherever he was making deals, and the others kept workspaces in adjacent offices.

Ruggiero sometimes showed up, but mostly he was with the enforcers in the courtyard or the cells below, managing the people who handled the visible edge of the operation. He knocked once at Cecilia's office door, then opened it when he heard her voice from inside. She was sitting behind an antique desk made of dark wood that probably cost more than the building he'd shared with Iris.

She looked up when he came in and gestured to the chair across from her, which had been pulled out to a conversational distance rather than the distance you kept for taking instructions. He sat.

"How much sleep did you get?" she asked.

"Five hours."

"Is that enough?"

"For what?"

"For this conversation." He looked at her. She was watching him with the particular attention she used when she wanted to understand something rather than direct it. He'd seen it twice before. Once during the class selection meeting, when she'd been letting him advise Ruggiero. Once in the cellar, during the first Analysis Division briefing.

"I can function," he said. It felt a little defiant, which wasn't productive.

"Good." She leaned back in her chair.

"Bianca gave her report. You handled yourself well. Walk me through the portal."

"Which one?"

"The first one you closed. In the piazza. From the moment you decided to move toward it." He'd been expecting this since the field reports went in, and he'd been preparing for it in the shower, which was where he did his best preparation because nobody could interrupt. He'd worked out three versions of how to frame the decision: the version that emphasized the tactical logic, the version that emphasized the class mechanics, and the version that was closest to what had actually happened. He gave her the third one.

"Bianca's squad was clearing the last of the creatures in the square. The portal was still open. I could feel it through Load-Bearing, the strain it was putting on the space around it. The structure was trying to stabilize, to make the portal permanent. If it finished stabilizing, we'd have a continuous spawn point. I didn't ask Bianca for permission because the window was short and she was engaged."

"How short?"

"I don't know precisely. Thirty seconds, maybe less. The stabilization was progressing while I was watching it."

"And if you'd been wrong about the window?" Cecilia's voice didn't sound like a challenge, but the question was pointed.

"Then the portal would have stabilized, and we'd have had a harder fight."

"That's the tactical answer," she said.

"I'm asking what would have happened to you." He blinked. His eye twitched. He hadn't realized she'd taken it there. The thing he'd been avoiding talking about.

"I don't know. I hadn't used my Framework skill at that scale before. I was pulling on something I hadn't tested. The strain was real. My head hurt. If the portal had resisted longer than I could sustain the push, I would have been standing in the middle of the square with no cover, and—" He stopped himself, aware of where that sentence was going.

"It would have been bad."

"Did Bianca have you covered?"

"Yes. But not by intent. I broke position."

"You acted."

"Yes. And it was the right call. I got the portal before it finished. If I hadn't moved, I couldn't guarantee I'd be able to intervene in time." He straightened his back without realizing he was doing it, a defensive posture.

"And now I know what my class can do. The next time, the risk is less." She picked up her coffee, looked at it, and set it down without drinking.

"What made you decide the risk was worth taking?" When he didn't answer right away, she added, "Don't give me the tactical explanation again. I understand that part." He swallowed, feeling the tension creep up his spine, the old fear of being called out for overreaching, of being told he was arrogant. But there was no shame in her tone. There was just the question. He made himself meet her eyes.

"Because I wanted to win." Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. That hung in the room, between them, more honest than anything else he'd said to her since he arrived. Cecilia's face shifted just enough for him to notice. She sat forward, elbows on the desk, her fingers laced.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked quietly. Luca exhaled, letting go of some of the tension. There wasn't a version of this conversation that wasn't going to reveal more about him than he'd planned. If he lied now, she'd know. And she'd care about the lie, not the truth.

"The System is a hierarchy," he said.

"I can see it, in the patterns. There's a top tier, and whoever gets there first will decide what the rules are after the apocalypse. I don't want to be in the middle, analyzing what the people above me do. I don't want to be below them. I want to be the one they're analyzing." He felt his jaw tighten.

"I'm good at that. At understanding how it works. And the faster I get ahead of the curve, the better chance I have to stay ahead. Last night, I was in a position to win something. I took it." There was a long silence. He thought it was judgment, at first, but when she finally spoke, her voice was even.

"Do you think I would stop you from taking advantage of an opportunity?"

"Not stop me, no. But I haven't been part of this long enough to know the cost yet. You've made it clear how much value you put on not losing assets, and that includes people. So I've been... cautious."

"Because you think I wouldn't want you to take risks for the sake of getting stronger." It wasn't a question, so he didn't answer. He just nodded.

"Of course you're an asset," she said.

"Valuable things are protected. Don't confuse that with limitation. That's why I expect you to make the right call. Sometimes, that means taking the risk you took. Sometimes, it means retreating to a better position. I expect you to judge correctly, not perfectly." She watched him.

"Was it a mistake?" He hesitated, then shook his head.

"No. I'd do it again."

"Then don't stop. That's how we stay ahead." Her eyes didn't leave his.

"But tell me next time. Don't decide in a vacuum." He let that settle. It was a fair ask. It was a lot of trust, from someone who didn't seem to give it away easily. And she had let him know what she wanted: honesty, even when it was ugly or difficult, even when it put him at risk. It felt like a test he hadn't realized he'd agreed to take.

"I will." She gave a single, short nod of acceptance. Then her attention shifted back to business.

"The Division's projections were useful last night. Ivan's spawn density maps improved Bianca's route efficiency by fifteen percent. How much more can you refine from the data you collected?" That was the switch. From personal to operational, with no gap in between, just her focus, narrowing onto the part she needed. He followed her into it.

"We need another twelve hours to isolate the variables in the spawn patterns. The portals aren't purely procedural—they're responsive to how many people are in the engagement zone, and to the density of Players versus non-Players. I think there's a multiplier on aggression if the Player count is low but concentrated." She raised an eyebrow.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning," he said, warming to the analysis, "if we don't have enough Players fighting back, the monsters get meaner and they try to open more portals. It's a balance system. The Scenario wants a certain level of pressure."

"Interesting," she murmured.

"Can you game the balance in our favor?"

"Maybe." He shrugged, because this was still theoretical.

"We could run controlled engagements with minimal Player presence to provoke a weak spawn wave, then close everything quickly. But it would require timing and coordination."

"What resources do you need to prove it?"

"A safe test zone. At least two combat squads who will do exactly what we tell them."

"You'll have them." She stood up, rounding the desk.

"We've collected a decent amount of materials from the Scenarios and monster drops. Most of them are items we can't even identify. Tell Giulia that she can start experimenting."

"With the artifacts from the monster corpses? Okay." That was exciting enough to get past the last of the tension.

"We'll make her lab space in the cellar. We're running out of storage anyway." Cecilia came closer. She stopped right in front of him and rested her hand on the desk beside his chair, an easy motion that was also a reminder of who was in charge.

"Is your sister comfortable with the work she's doing?"

"Comfortable isn't the word," Luca said, his heart thudding a little harder at the sudden mention of Iris.

"She's doing well. She's... keeping up. But I don't think this life is what she would've chosen for herself. I mean, I don't know anymore what that is, but this isn't it."

"If it changes, if she wants to leave, the door is open. For both of you." Her voice didn't change tone, but something in the statement was deliberate, like she wanted him to take note.

"And if you need something to make her feel secure, tell me." He blinked up at her. That was... unexpected. He'd known she would protect them. But knowing Iris could opt out? That was not a deal he'd thought she'd offer. It was dangerous. People who could leave were people you couldn't rely on. Unless Cecilia was willing to trust them enough to let that be their choice, not a command. He didn't know how to read the politics of it.

"Thank you," he said, and it wasn't just politeness. She pushed away from the desk, walking back around it.

"Go back to the others. Let me know what you need. And tell Ivan he gets a bonus for this run. The maps he sketched in real-time saved two of Bianca's people from a flanking maneuver. Tell him that, and I'll give him something useful."

"Okay." She sat down, picking up a folder of contracts and flipping to the next page, her attention already gone from him to whatever deal she was reading. The dismissal was as clear as if she'd said it aloud. He stood up, feeling a little dizzy with how quickly she shifted from one conversation to another, from personal investment to cold strategy. Then he nodded to himself and turned to the door. He had the distinct feeling that something had changed between them.

Something he'd have to keep track of, in case it became important later. But for now, he had data to compile. And a little bonus to tell Ivan about. When he returned to the cellar, Ivan was pacing in front of the board, while Ermilio watched him from the couch, making sarcastic comments every ninety seconds. The other three weren't here yet. Ivan looked up as Luca entered.

"She get to you too?"

"Yes. I'm the bearer of good news." Ermilio sat up.

"We won something?"

"Bianca sent in her report. Cecilia's giving you both combat bonuses."

"Finally," Ivan said.

"I thought this was just the gig from hell with no upside."

"You didn't believe in the Italian labor movement before this either. Why start now?" Ermilio stretched out on the couch.

"The trick to happiness is to expect nothing."

"What about the bonuses?" Ivan asked.

"What about them?"

"You're not curious how much?" Luca left them to it. He went back to his workstation and pulled up the raw files from last night's encounters. He would give Cecilia the projections she wanted. And he would start working on the controlled scenario proposal. Because if they were going to exploit the System's balancing mechanics, he needed to have the numbers ready before she asked for them. The work felt familiar again, like the life he'd had before the world ended.

Except now there was a feeling of power behind it that made every projection feel like it could become something real, not just numbers on a screen. He wasn't sure how he felt about that, exactly. But he couldn't say he wanted it to stop. Not now that he'd tasted what it felt like to win.