Bulsara started with the tea table, where the cups were still warm, and stared at them in silence as if they were evidence at a crime scene. He picked one up, sniffed it, and turned it in his hands.

  “How often do you drink this?” he asked, not looking at anyone in particur.

  “After every discharge,” Byron answered. “It’s protocol.”

  Li stepped forward.

  “Doctor Bulsara, this is a certified blend. It’s used…”

  “Trust me, Doctor Li, I know more about blends of any kind than you do,” Bulsara said, still not turning around.

  Li clenched his teeth and flushed red.

  Meanwhile, Bulsara moved the cups aside to clear a space on the table. From his own spatial pocket, he pulled out a ft metal case and set it down.

  So now that pockets were no longer a secret, apparently everyone had one.

  The case opened without a click, revealing a set of scanner pens and vials filled with various reagents.

  Bulsara took one of the cups, swirled what little tea remained at the bottom, then retrieved a small pstic vial. He twisted off the nozzle and squeezed a few drops of clear liquid into the cup. He sniffed it again. Looks like I wasn’t the only one doing nose tests.

  He poured a bit of tea into a second cup, added fluid from another vial. Then another cup, another substance, this one a thick liquid from a tube. That one he stirred before proceeding.

  Then came the scanners, clearly specialised, as he used a different one for each cup.

  With every cup, with every scan, Bulsara’s expression grew darker, more furious.

  Li stood nearby, jaw tight, angry at first, then increasingly worried with every result.

  “It’s a reserve-recovery stimunt,” Li said. “Enhanced. A little aggressive, but…”

  “But doesn’t kill you instantly,” Bulsara finished for him. “That much is clear.

  “Instead, it eats away at the core. Slowly.”

  “What the hell?!” Pete muttered under his breath, clearly outraged.

  His grey face now took on a whole new meaning, and his words made Bulsara turn toward him.

  “Come here,” he said.

  Pete flinched but stepped forward.

  “How many shifts?” Bulsara asked.

  “I’ve lost count…” my colleague replied nervously. “I was one of the first to sign up.”

  “Tea every day?”

  “Eight cups,” Pete confirmed.

  “Eight?!” Bulsara’s eyebrows nearly climbed up onto his bald head.

  He set aside the specialised scanner and pulled a universal one from his b coat pocket.

  “Dantian or Sor?” he asked, clearly referring to the location of Pete’s core.

  “Sor,” said Pete.

  Bulsara scanned the area slowly. So slowly that Pete began to sweat from the tension — a single drop rolled down from his temple to his cheek and into his beard, but he didn’t dare move to wipe it.

  “The core is degrading,” Bulsara said ftly.

  “That’s not possib…” Li began.

  Bulsara calmly filled the st cup to the brim with tea and held it out to Li.

  “Here you go.”

  “My reserve’s fine, thank you,” Li replied stiffly.

  I didn’t think one cup would hurt him. He was still a Fourth Stage. But I was only a Second... In theory, it would take far less time for me to get injured.

  “Doc…” Pete asked. “What about my cultivation?”

  “Disrupted but not destroyed. No Flow Chambers for the next six months. We’ll sort you out tomorrow. Come see me, we’ll run proper tests.

  “Did they test you at all? Any medical check?”

  “Er… no…”

  “No?!” Bulsara snapped, gring furiously at Li before turning his attention to Novak.

  “They all need to be tested! And this poison must be banned immediately! We could be losing dozens of talented cultivators!”

  “And what about the project?” Li asked. “Do you even understand how much qi it consumes? We're barely keeping up with current demands, and for a jump to the edge of the system, we’ll need far more!”

  “As far as I’m aware,” Novak said, “the expedition team was meant to charge their own gate.”

  “That’s correct,” Li confirmed.

  “Were the expeditionary forces pnning to use this tea?” Novak asked calmly.

  “I… I’m not briefed on that level of detail.”

  Novak gnced at Bulsara. The two exchanged a silent agreement.

  “I want to see the Head of the Project.”

  “Master Sery is busy…”

  “Immediately,” Novak said, his voice cutting through the air, followed by a wave of cold, sharp aura.

  Unpleasant. I recognised it already. But it hit Li full-force. And my colleagues, poor Pete in particur, were nearly knocked off their feet.

  “Alright, alright!” Li agreed at once. “I’ll file the request, but I can’t guarantee security will let you in! You must understand, the future of humanity depends on his work!”

  “Do you know who dragged your ‘saviour of mankind’ out of the ostracism he’s been in for the st twenty years?” Novak asked. “If he refuses to meet, he can go right back to the ditch I pulled him from.”

  Novak was bluffing. I knew he didn’t have that kind of authority. But Li didn’t.

  “I’ll make the request…” Li muttered.

  “You’ll escort us.” Novak’s voice dropped to a commanding tone that made poor Pete wheeze in shock.

  When the doors closed behind Bulsara and Novak, the b felt like it had doubled in size. The pressure was gone.

  Pete was the first to break the silence.

  He staggered to the table, colpsed into a chair, reached for his cup, and quickly pulled his hand back.

  “What the bloody hell was that?” he asked.

  No one rushed to answer.

  Byron was the first to speak.

  “In short — we’ve been drinking something that forces the core to work faster than it can recover.”

  Pete gave a nervous ugh.

  “Eight cups a day,” he repeated. “Eight fucking cups. And it never even crossed my mind that it could be poison.”

  “Obviously,” Dave said quietly. “None of us thought of it. I mean... ‘aggressive stimution’? It’s a vital project, what’s the point of growing roots just to be burned up…”

  “I’ve got a different question,” said Byron. “How did Novak find out?” he asked slyly, though the bastard had seen me swipe that pinch of tea yesterday.

  “Not Novak. Bulsara,” I said. “I know one of his students. I described the symptoms to her.”

  “But we’re not allowed to talk about the project…” Dave added. “It’s in the contract.”

  “I didn’t sign one,” I said.

  And I didn’t think that was an oversight. I was pretty sure Novak pnned it that way.

  “So what now?” Byron asked. “We just… carry on? Pretend nothing happened?”

  Pete looked up at him, a mix of fear and outrage in his eyes.

  “If I keep this up for another month… Screw that contract. It doesn’t say I’m supposed to die!”

  “Li’ll skin us alive,” Dave muttered. “And there’s been no official order to halt work,” he added dryly. “But the tea…”

  “Could your doc give us some sort of medical note?” he asked me. “Something that says we shouldn’t keep working until we’re checked out?”

  “Good idea,” I smiled. “No guarantees he’ll answer, though,” I said and called Bulsara.

  All their eyes turned to me with clear expectation.

  “Sullivan,” Bulsara’s voice was tight. “Make it quick.”

  “No tea — got it. But what about work? Should we keep feeding the collectors?”

  Pause.

  “I don’t know your current conditions,” he finally replied. “And after what I saw, I don’t want to know until a full examination is done.

  “I’m forbidding you all from working,” Bulsara said sharply. “Everyone except you. You may drain half your reserve, then straight home.

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes, thank you…”

  He hung up before I finished, and I reyed his message to the others. The ds agreed, almost in unison, to wait around for me. Most likely figured that with the biggest backer in the room, I was worth sticking close to.

  I didn’t let it get to me. Just walked up to the machine, pced my hands on the hemispheres, and started draining half of my reserve. This particur collector could still hold at least three more of mine.

  The machine didn’t care about what had just happened. It didn’t care about tea, or cores, or people. It just waited for the next portion of Space Qi.

  Unlike my colleagues, who couldn’t wait to get out of this… b? Workshop? Whatever it was. They clearly felt the danger now.

  As soon as I took my hands off the spheres: “Well,” Byron asked, “shall we?”

  Even Pete managed a spark of energy as he jumped up from his seat.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he confirmed. “Before they change their minds and send a new order.”

  I didn’t bother correcting him that there hadn’t been an order, only a doctor’s recommendation. And the two could very easily end up in conflict.

  We left together. Not rushing, but not dawdling either. The corridor was the same — wide, sterile, with walls built for crowds of people that just weren’t here.

  Just like st time, the guards at the final security post decided they had questions.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” one of them asked curtly, gncing at his tablet. “Your shift’s not over yet.”

  “It was cut short,” Byron replied evenly. “You know the drill — can’t discuss the details, it’s in the contract.”

  The guard checked his tablet again, waving it in the air like it proved something.

  “I haven’t been notified anything about that.”

  “The medic pulled us off duty,” I said.

  “And again, I’m not seeing any of that here!” the guard shot back. “None of you are going anywhere until I get confirmation of this ‘schedule change’!”

  Pete nudged me lightly in the shin. Probably hoping I’d throw Novak’s name around again. But this wasn’t quite as dire as the morning situation, so I didn’t.

  We stood there waiting while the guard called it in, and then waited again as his higher-ups tried to figure out what was going on.

  The minutes dragged on — awkward and slow. We had nowhere to go, nothing to do but stand there while other staff passed by without issue.

  Then, finally, footsteps echoed down the hallway.

  The footsteps were fast, heavy, and angry. A whole herd of them.

  From around the corner, familiar figures emerged.

  Leading the group was a man I hadn’t seen before. He was huge. Not just tall — massive. Broad shoulders, thick neck, arms that looked like they could break a person without a hint of technique. Bigger than Johansson. Which, frankly, said everything.

  Shaggy hair, uneven stubble. The white b coat hung on him like it didn’t belong. But the moment he came into view, the guards snapped to attention like soldiers spotting a general.

  His stride was aggressive — a sharp contrast to Novak’s effortless calm, who, despite the difference in leg length, still managed to look like he wasn’t in any kind of rush. Some kind of technique, maybe…

  Beside Novak walked Bulsara, and slightly behind them trailed Li, who looked like he’d rather be anywhere but here.

  The giant’s interface read: S. S. Sery. Fifth Middle.

  A monster on the outside. And from the looks of it — on the inside too.

  “Boss…” one of the guards started.

  The giant waved him off and locked eyes with me. And added pressure, aura heavy enough to feel like the sky had colpsed onto my shoulders.

  Poor Pete gnced sideways, then slumped straight down against the wall.

  The giant gave him a look of pure disdain before turning his full attention back to me.

  “So you’re the little snitch that might tank the entire project?”

  I gnced at Novak. He blinked once — slow, deliberate.

  Permission. I think.

  “With all due respect, sir, I’ve been in the project less than a day.”

  “And you’re already writing reports?”

  “You mean the tea? The stuff you’ve been poisoning us with? Stealing any chance at a future?”

  “A Second Stage brat thinks he can interfere with a project that might decide humanity’s survival?”

  “This brat decided that getting crippled won’t help humanity. Neither will crippling dozens of b techs who could’ve been the ones protecting it.”

  He leaned in. “So, what, you’ve got big steel bollocks? Or are you just a little pet bitch yapping at a pit bull ‘cause your master’s standing nearby?”

  “If I’m nothing, why are you talking to me at all? Or is it you who’s scared to talk to my master directly?”

  That actually caught him off guard. For a second, I thought his eyes were going to pop right out of his head. He didn’t even get offended right away.

  While his brilliant, rotten brain tried to cook up a response, Novak spoke — calm, quiet, and with razor in his voice.

  “I’d think very carefully before answering.”

  MaksymPachesiuk