Lina did not laugh. She looked from Elias to the scorch marks and back again. “You thought it would wait,” she said.

She nodded once. Elias said, “Yes.”

Her face closed with sad understanding, though he doubted she grasped the full shape of it. He turned from her and scanned the horizon again, forcing himself to think. If not random scavengers—and nothing here suggested random anything—then a system had noticed the arrival, classified the object, and sent retrieval. Fast enough to erase most traces before evening. Hidden enough that the garden dwellers barely registered it.

His eyes found the dark tower and held.

It stood beyond the green commons like a statement no one wanted to read. Everything else in sight invited approach. This did not. Its walls were smooth and sealed, its entrances lost in shadow under a heavy overhang. No trailing flowers softened it. No idle bodies lounged on its steps. Even from here it seemed to drink light instead of reflecting it.

There, he thought. Or under it. Storage, control, archive, security—whatever this age called the hard rooms that kept these soft lives running.

He pointed. “That building. Is that where things go?”

The group fell quiet in a strange, loose way. Not shocked. More like a flock sensing a shift in weather.

One man smiled too brightly. “No need.”

Elias said, “That wasn’t an answer.”