WAYFARER: CLAIM THE UNCLAIMABLE

The black Arcline core kept glowing after the last rescued child was moved into Aureole’s van. Its little guide stood above Sio’s palm with one hand raised toward the eastern ridge, patient as a station attendant waiting for passengers who had missed their connection.

Around him, C-17 cooled in pieces. Metal ticked under the night air, one damaged wheel hissed as heat bled out of it, and dust hung low enough for the vans’ headlights to turn the road pale. Rhea stayed beside the woman from her settlement while an unfamiliar medic wrapped her shoulder. Nearby, Fern shoved a roll of bandage into one stranger’s hands, pointed another toward the damaged carrier, and never stopped to ask which of them actually belonged to Aureole.

Sterling’s projection hovered beside the carrier door, surrounded by route overlays. ”The old node is east of the split, but that is where certainty ends.” He dragged the Arcline line over a modern terrain map, and the blue route passed through hills marked as empty before disappearing beneath a survey layer old enough to have faded at the edges.

Caspian leaned against the carrier and rubbed road dust from his sleeve. ”How does something that large disappear from maps?” Sterling enlarged the blank section. ”The same way entire populations did. Remove references long enough and eventually everyone calls the absence normal.”

The tiny guide chimed in Sio’s hand and projected four narrow columns above the road. The original characters were thin and hooked, nothing Sio could read, but a translation layer shimmered over them in familiar words without changing the old arrangement.

THE　　 WHEN　　 EARTH　　 NO

LOST　　 SUN　　 SHALL　　 PATH

SHALL　　 MEETS　　 KEEP　　 IS

FIND　　 THE　　 EACH　　 EVER

HOME　　 MOON　　 STEP　　 LOST

Sio stared at it. ”That is either a poem or the worst direction sign ever made.” Rhea moved closer, studying the rightmost column before tracing downward through the light with one finger.

”You’re reading across it,” she said. She reached the bottom, shifted left and followed the next column. ”No path is ever lost. Earth shall keep each step.” She moved to the third column. ”When sun meets the moon.” Her finger shifted left once more. ”The lost shall find home.”

The guide bowed as if pleased with them. Fern crouched beside the carrier door and brushed dust from an old transit emblem beneath the modern Organization plate. ”Elven.” Sio glanced at her. ”You know that?” Fern kept rubbing until the crossing arcs beneath the grime matched the symbol on the guide’s coat. ”Old Aureole references mention vertical Elven script on pre-Fall civic systems. I’ve never seen one still working.”

Angle’s gaze stayed on SUN a moment longer than the other words. Rhea’s finger paused over EARTH before she let her hand drop, and the translated columns dissolved into blue threads that folded back into the core.

A dead screen inside the carrier flickered. Another screen in the first prisoner carrier lit at the same time, followed by a pale glow through the windshield of the abandoned support vehicle farther down the road.

Sterling’s head snapped toward them. ”Those should not have power.” Fern’s hand moved to her sidearm while Sio looked from one vehicle to the next. ”Please tell me Aureole does this too.” Fern watched static crawl over the nearest cracked display. ”No.”

The Arcline guide vanished from Sio’s palm. A man appeared in its place, no taller than Sio’s hand, while larger copies of him unfolded across the wrecked vehicles behind them. Broker’s image broke into thin bands whenever drifting dust crossed the projectors.

”Good evening,” Broker said. ”You found something expensive.” Sio looked down at the tiny projection standing where the guide had been. ”You broke my tour guide.”

Broker glanced beneath his own feet. ”Borrowed the projector. Your guide is fine.” The Arcline figure appeared briefly behind one shoulder, still smiling, then vanished again.

Sterling opened two security windows so quickly they overlapped. ”How did you get into an isolated pre-Fall core?” Broker turned toward the Organization shell lying open beside Sio’s boot. ”I didn’t. They attached something less ancient.”

Fern stepped closer. ”What do you want?” Broker’s larger projections flickered in sync across the roadside. ”You are asking the wrong question. Ask what I know.”

Caspian pushed away from the carrier. ”Fine. What do you know?” Broker spread a map across the road in pale light, and the dust broke the terrain into moving patches as he placed a marker east of Harrow Ridge.

”Another transfer reached this region three hours ago. Two more are approaching from the south. All three vanish from ordinary tracking inside the same radius.” Rhea stepped into the projection, the map washing blue over her boots. ”How many prisoners?”

”Enough that somebody is suddenly paying very well to keep the traffic quiet.” Broker expanded the marker. Fern’s eyes narrowed. ”The node?” Broker smiled. ”Active. For now.”

Sio held up the black core. ”Then tell us where the entrance is.” Broker’s smile barely changed. ”Information has value because somebody does not have it yet.”

Angle’s hands remained loose at his sides. ”How much?” Sterling looked personally offended when Broker answered, ”Not money.”

Broker turned toward Fern instead. ”K-17’s census archive. R-4’s transfer files. You have proof that modern historical records were altered deliberately.” Fern’s expression barely shifted. ”You want the files.” Broker shook his head. ”Proof.”

Rhea’s heel ground into the gravel as she stepped closer. ”Proof of what they did to our people?” Broker looked toward her. ”Proof that your people were not invented. Elves. Dwarves. Beastkin. The classifications the public is taught to call folklore. That information would move.”

Sio looked past the hologram toward the rescued prisoners being loaded into the last van. A child slept against an Aureole medic’s chest, one small hand still wrapped around the borrowed coat, while the woman from Rhea’s village spoke quietly with two others and never looked toward the projections.

Fern said, ”No settlement locations. No surviving names. No active routes.” Broker’s smile widened. ”Then we are negotiating.”

They moved inside the carrier where the wind could no longer scatter the projection. Sterling built a temporary partition around the recovered files while Fern stripped current location markers from K-17’s census records. Caspian removed transfer timestamps that could be traced backward, and Rhea rejected two sections containing village family records by sliding them away without comment.

Sio watched the package shrink. The census percentages remained, along with old mixed-species classifications and continuity orders instructing later systems to recategorize living peoples as extinct, mythical or unverified. Locations disappeared, then names, then anything that could point from history toward someone still breathing.

Broker waited through all of it. Sio looked at the remaining package. ”This proves they lied.” Fern’s fingers rested above the transfer control. ”And gives him something he can sell.”

Broker answered from the wall screen. ”Truth does not become safer because only good people know it.” Sio looked at him. ”That sounded suspiciously like something a man selling it would say.” Broker nodded. ”It is.” Fern sent the package.

Broker’s projections multiplied across every active screen. One window showed old survey images of an overgrown stone face built into the eastern ridge, another showed thermal distortion beneath the ground, and a third displayed transport schedules with missing intervals.

The Arcline guide reappeared beside Sio’s hand and pointed toward the photographed ridge. Broker marked a narrow access road ending beneath vegetation. ”The modern entrance is here. The Organization built over an older service approach. Next confirmed transfer arrives in approximately four hours.”

Rhea’s eyes followed the marked ridge line twice while Fern copied the coordinates. Sio watched Broker rearrange the remaining windows and asked, ”Who else bought this?”

The projections stopped moving for a fraction of a second, then resumed. ”That question costs more.”

Angle had shifted his attention past him. One window near the damaged door showed recent queries against the same eastern region. Most were anonymous purchase strings, but one carried a small authentication icon beside it: a dark circle cut by a thin crescent.

Angle stepped closer until blue projection light climbed over his face, and the icon vanished. Sio looked at Broker. ”Put that back.” Broker answered without a pause. ”I did not remove anything.”

Sio pointed toward the empty space where the symbol had been. ”You absolutely did.” Broker glanced at it. ”Then perhaps you should have looked faster.”

The warped door panel beside Angle’s hand gave a small metallic tick as heat crept into it. The crescent pulled the Grand Exchange back across Sio’s memory: the marks on its doors, its contracts, and the people who had stood beneath them.

”Was that purchase theirs?” Sio asked. Broker’s expression gave him nothing. ”I sell information. I do not discuss customers.”

Caspian exhaled through his nose. ”You just showed us the customer.” Broker tilted his head. ”Did I?”

The tiny Arcline guide pushed through Broker’s projection, briefly splitting his holographic chest with blue light as it announced, ”Connection remains available.” Broker looked down at it. ”Persistent little thing.”

Sio almost laughed, but Angle kept watching the place where the crescent had appeared. Fern closed the copied access map. ”We have four hours.”

Broker’s projections began collapsing from the other vehicles until only the small figure above Sio’s core remained. ”Less, if your competitors dislike schedules.” Angle finally looked at him. ”Maelor?” Broker smiled without answering and dissolved into static.

The Arcline guide returned in full, straightened its little transit coat and raised one glowing hand toward the eastern ridge. Behind Sio, Aureole’s vans were already pulling away with the rescued prisoners while C-17 cooled beside the road, and the guide cheerfully announced that their connection remained on time. Sio looked east, toward land modern maps insisted held nothing. Beside him, Angle was still staring at the dead patch of air where Eclipse’s crescent had vanished.