Chapter 44 – It Is Milea’s Investigation!

The Syn-Fibra Seldia Research Institute.

It occupied a world apart from the maintenance hangars and operations rooms that Letaria and the others passed through daily--a facility where access was granted only to selected researchers. In its deepest section, surrounded by layered wiring and terminals, Milea Ichinose worked alone. She had not slept properly in days. Her eyes were sharp, but they couldn't quite hide the thin film of exhaustion underneath.

"--Sorry, Chief Ichinose. Keeping you this late."

The calm voice came from behind her. Milea's shoulders dropped as she turned.

Standing there was a man in his middle years, silver threading through his hair. Steve Plack. He was her senior in research--one of the few people in this world she would call, without reservation, both respected and trusted. In terms of rank, Milea as Chief sat above him now, but it was Steve who had guided her in the early days. That hadn't changed.

"Steve-senpai... Have you found something?"

Steve connected the terminal in his hand to the central hologram table and gave a measured nod.

"I've been going back through the comm logs from Blang's Dien. The ones buried in all that noise. And I found something."

"...I ran pattern analysis on that data repeatedly. I couldn't pull any meaningful string or waveform out of it."

Milea leaned in toward the monitor, skeptical. She had reached that conclusion herself, after multiple passes--the noise was electronic garbage, or the remnants of heavy jamming. Nothing more.

Steve shook his head quietly.

"That's right, if you treat it as a standalone comm log. But I tried something different--I overlaid it with the logs from the black box's receive processes. The device installed in the Dien."

Steve's inputs brought wave after wave of data overlapping on the monitor.

"The receive logs were heavily encrypted too. But when I cross-referenced them against the control system of the black box recovered from the unmanned machines Letaria-san's group brought back... a specific pattern emerged. ...This isn't language data. It's something more direct than that."

Milea's eyes went wide.

Steve had spent his career studying brainwave control--Trace Mode applications in Makinas, powered loader systems for care facilities. He had spent decades translating the body's faint signals into machine language. That was precisely why he had been the one to recognize what the pattern was.

"This is... not a command signal. It's a neural sync pulse...?"

"Exactly. Both the Dien and the unmanned machines show signs of having been directly operated by someone. Someone synchronized with them at a neural level. ...That's as far as I've gotten for now."

Steve took a sip from the cup in his hand, exhaled.

"Chasing it further is going to take more time than my old brain wants to give tonight. I'll keep at it. ...But that means you, Ichinose. Go and rest. Right now."

"Senpai, I appreciate the concern, but I'm not--"

"Is there anyone else in this branch who can actually order you to stand down? Anyone besides me?"

He looked at her with quiet eyes--warm, but closed to argument.

"One day is enough. Let your body recover. Save yourself for what comes next. Your turn is still ahead of you."

Milea was silent for a moment. Then she nodded, once, small.

"...All right. I'll take you up on that."

◆◆◆

Back in her room, Milea put together a brief handoff summary and sent it to Steve. He would handle the distribution of remaining tasks without a flaw--she trusted that completely.

She dropped the heavy lab coat from her shoulders. She was halfway to falling onto the bed when her personal terminal chimed.

The sender was Grain.

She exhaled, and answered.

"...What is it? At this hour. Is something urgent?"

"...Sorry. Were you about to sleep?"

"It's fine, I'm sleeping right after this. Make it quick."

There was a small hesitation in Grain's voice over the line.

"...I need you to push my machine's output one more step. Raise the limiter release rate."

"That's dangerous, Grain. You're already running an experimental Photon Rifle on that frame. Push the load any further and the machine could come apart mid-flight."

"I know. ...I want to be ready. In case something happens."

The words carried the weight of a decision already made. Milea heard it. She let the silence sit for a moment, then let out a quiet breath.

"...I'll look into it."

Grain heard her answer and spoke again.

"There's one more thing I need from you--"

◆◆◆

Some thirty minutes later.

The call with Grain finished, Milea finally hit the limit of what her body would give and let herself fall onto the bed.

She lifted one heavy arm and brought up the hologram interface with her fingertips. An audio-only call this time, on an encrypted private line.

"...Hello, Steve-senpai. I'm sorry to keep bothering you."

Steve's unhurried voice came back through the connection.

"What is it, Ichinose? You still haven't slept?"

"I'm going to sleep now. I promise. ...But I've already pushed too much onto you tonight, and I'm afraid I have one more thing to ask."