The triage tent was a chaotic symphony of groans and the rhythmic beep-hiss of medical scanners. Rumani sat on the edge of a cot, his "antsy" persona dialed up to a frantic tremor. He kept his hands folded neatly in his lap, his modest attire perfectly composed and undisturbed. Across the room, a Registry technician was waving a long-range sensor over a pile of recovered civilian belongings, checking for industrial contaminants.

  Rumani’s Oversight Senses caught a spike of violet light on the technician's monitor. The sensor had locked onto his modest canvas satchel, which was sitting at the bottom of the recovery bin. The bag had been near the Dark-Matter Core during the anchoring process, and its fibers were now vibrating with a high-frequency signature that was impossible to explain. If the technician traced the bag's ID tag back to Station 4, the link to Rumani would be undeniable.

  He didn't move. He didn't shout. He didn't even look at the bag. Instead, Rumani simply leaned back against the canvas wall of the tent and closed his eyes, appearing to succumb to the exhaustion of the day. Within the quiet of his own mind, he projected a Silent Molecular Scrub. He didn't cause a distraction; he simply reached out with a targeted, invisible frequency.

  The dark-matter ions in the satchel were vibrating at a specific resonance. Rumani emitted a Counter-Phase Harmonic. It was an invisible "silence" that canceled out the kinetic signature of the bag. As the technician moved the sensor closer to the bin, the violet spike on the monitor didn't just drop—it smoothed out into a flat, boring line of civilian baseline noise. The technician frowned, tapped the screen of the device, and assumed it was a phantom ghost-reading caused by the overhead fluorescent lights.

  "Nothing here but old lunch and bank forms," the tech muttered, moving to the next bin.

  Sabrina Thorne walked past the bin a moment later, her eyes scanning the room. She saw Rumani sitting quietly on his cot, the very picture of a tired, modest man who had seen too much. She didn't stop. She didn't even check the bin. The evidence was gone, neutralized without a single person in the tent realizing a god had just spoken to the atoms of a canvas bag.

  Minutes later, a junior medic tapped Rumani on the shoulder with a digital clipboard. "Mr. Vikaria? Your vitals are steady—remarkably so, actually. You’re cleared to leave. You’ll need to report to the Registry Administrative Hub in forty-eight hours for a formal statement, but for now, go home."

  Rumani stood, adjusting his glasses with a jittery hand. He retrieved his satchel from the bin; it was now as inert and ordinary as a piece of driftwood. He stepped out of the tent into the cooling air of Providenc. The 30x scale Superman Building loomed over the district at a terrifying ten-degree tilt, held in place by massive industrial braces that the Registry had spent the last hour frantically bolting into the street.

  The walk home was a labyrinth of redirected transit lines and holographic detours. Rumani moved through the crowds with his head down, the perfect picture of a survivor in shock. When he finally reached his apartment, the door flew open before he could even reach for his keys.

  "Dad!" Collin, his son, didn't wait for him to step inside, wrapping his arms around Rumani’s waist. Barbara was right behind him, her face pale but her eyes bright with relief.

  "The news said the building was being pulled into the ground," Barbara whispered, pulling them both into the foyer. "They said it was a biological terror attack. I tried to call, but the towers were down."

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  "I was in the vault, Barb," Rumani said, his voice soft and convincingly weary. "I didn't see a thing. It was just loud. Very loud."

  He let the familiar warmth of his home settle over him, but as he stepped into the living room, he stopped. Sitting on their modest sofa, a digital recorder already active on the coffee table, was Elara. She was dressed in a sharp, weather-resistant trench coat, her hair windblown as if she’d spent the last hour on the back of a Registry press-glider.

  "Hello, Rumani," Elara said, clicking off her recorder with a practiced flick of her thumb. "Barbara was kind enough to let me wait. I was covering the collapse for the Global Ledger, and I saw your name on the survivor registry. I thought to myself: what are the odds that the most modest man I know ends up in the only vault that didn't buckle under ten Gs of force?"

  Rumani blinked, his "antsy" persona kicking into high gear as he fumbled with his glasses. "Elara? I... I didn't know you were in the district. I was just lucky. The vault was built to 30x specs... the bank insisted on it for the high-yield ledgers."

  Elara pulled a high-resolution tablet from her coat and swiped to a photo. It was a forensic shot of the basement bedrock. It showed the deep, jagged depressions in the granite where Omnihero had anchored the building. "Lucky? Rumani, look at these impressions. The structural engineers are baffled. They say someone—or something—pressed into the stone with enough force to counteract a black hole. And it happened right beneath the floor of your 'safe' vault."

  Rumani leaned in, peering at the screen with feigned bewilderment. He let out a long, shaky breath. "Oh, that. Elara, didn't you hear? The Registry Hydraulic Bracing systems. They were testing the new Deep-Earth Pylons in the basement last month. They’re these massive, automated pistons designed to prevent skyscraper drift."

  He paused, looking at Barbara as if seeking confirmation of a mundane fact. "The bank manager mentioned it during the safety drill. When the singularity hit, the pylons must have engaged automatically. They’re designed to bite into the bedrock to keep the building from toppling. Those marks aren't handprints, Elara; they're the teeth of the building's emergency foundation. It was all purely mechanical."

  Elara stared at the photo, then back at Rumani. The logic held. In this superhero-laden Second Multiverse, hidden industrial safety measures were more plausible than a modest teller being a hero. She slowly retracted the tablet. "Aether-Marrow tech, huh? That would explain why Sabrina Thorne looked so frustrated. She hates being outpaced by private contractors."

  Elara stood, smoothing her trench coat. "Well, Rumani, you’ve given me a lead on the Aether-Marrow proprietary pylons. If they really saved the Superman Building, it’s the biggest industrial story of the decade. I’m going to head to the Registry office and see if I can pull the permit filings."

  "Good luck," Rumani said, his voice reaching that perfect pitch of helpful yet uninterested. "I hope they give you more than a 'no comment.'"

  As the door clicked shut behind her, the heavy tension in the room didn't fully dissipate. Barbara headed into the kitchen to finally finish the tea she’d started, her shoulders dropping an inch as the adrenaline of the day began to fade. Rumani let out a long, genuine breath, leaning his head back against the armchair.

  "Dad?"

  Collin was standing by the hallway door. He wasn't holding anything—his eyes were just fixed on the television, which was showing a grainy, zoomed-in shot of the "Smiling Anchor" holding the corner of the building. "The man on the news," Collin whispered. "He didn't have any machines. He just used his hands. Do you think he's like the heroes in the comic books?"

  Rumani looked at the screen, then at his son. His own attire was perfect, not a single thread out of place, even after holding up millions of tons of steel. "I think the world is a very big place, Collin," Rumani said gently, ruffling the boy's hair. "But usually, there's a logical explanation for everything. Like those pylons. Now, why don't you help your mom with the tea?"

  Collin nodded and headed into the kitchen. Rumani sat back, his gaze shifting to the window. His suit was pristine, his identity was intact, and his family was safe. But he knew that by inventing the "Aether-Marrow pylons," he had just pointed a very dangerous spotlight toward the bank's corporate backers.