Dr Sane did not place the correspondence slips into the branch index at once.
She held them just above the slot, her fingers steady, her expression unreadable. Fang knew that look now. It was the look of a person who understood that once a record was admitted into a system like this, it could no longer be treated as merely a file. It became a witness, a trigger, or a weapon depending on who reached it first.
Pax stood to one side with his tablet raised, ready to catch whatever the archive revealed. Wolf had moved to the far end of the room, his attention split between the door and the shelves as though he expected the building itself to object. Ren remained beside Fang, calm but alert, his presence a steady line in the tightening air.
The archive wing had gone very quiet.
Not the ordinary hush of a room full of paper.
A listening silence.
Dr Sane lowered the slips into the branch index.
The slot accepted them with a soft mechanical sigh.
