Hero Tower's Level 5 command deck was built like a warship bridge—open sightlines, tiered workstations, and translucent walls that glowed faintly with real-time uplink feeds. The panels breathed with data—red during alerts, blue for standard flow, green for live engagement. At dawn cycle, it buzzed like a hive trying to outrun collapse. Too many feeds. Too few eyes. Everyone running one step behind the next emergency.
Hernan stepped into the central tier just past 0800.
His field uniform was crisp—black-on-black, no cape, no hood. Just the flat collar of a Command Class operative and a rank badge polished sharp enough to draw a reflection. A quiet symbol of compliance. Or camouflage.
