Chương 367: 159.Trouble Comes Knocking 2

I rode into the visitor and personal-vehicle checkpoint. The line wasn't long, but no one in it looked relaxed. Military uniforms, administrative suits, research institute jackets, and a few people in civilian clothes wearing the same expression I probably was: please don't ask me why I'm here. The queue was quiet in that particular capital-district way — everyone already knew complaining was pointless, so they kept their faces flatter than their ID photos. When it was my turn, the booth's scanner light swept over.

A young male sentry raised a hand, motioning me to stop. His movements were textbook — so textbook there was almost no person left in them, just the residue of training compressed into efficiency.

"Identification." I handed over my temporary pass and terminal. He looked down to verify. A translucent panel projected in front of him, pale-blue text scrolling and locking line by line. I didn't watch. Watching only ever makes you feel more like a half-finished product being fed down a line. His eyes caught on one field and paused. Just a fraction of a second. But I saw it. There it was again.

That one-second pause has become my least favorite experience lately — the moment when whoever's reading my file hits a certain line and quietly registers: oh, this one. This one's a problem. This one's not standard format. The sentry smoothed his expression fast. His voice stayed strictly official.

"Temporary access to the Research Wing has been approved for today. Proceed straight ahead and turn right at the second checkpoint. Park in the designated area." The Research Wing. Whatever small hope I'd still been carrying died right there. Great. Command itself wasn't enough. It had to be the Research Wing. Steiner, you had better actually have something worth saying today. Otherwise I'm burying you three times in my head before lunch.

"... Understood." I took my pass back. His eyes flicked over the bike once more, and he added — his tone shifting, just slightly, from system response back toward living person:"Speed limit's thirty. Security drones are active. Watch yourself." I looked up at him.

"... Is that a warning?" He hesitated, just a beat, clearly not expecting anyone to answer him like that here. Then, flatly:"It's a routine safety reminder." Fine. At least the guards here hadn't evolved all the way past having a sense of humor. Though this particular brand felt a lot like a surgeon mentioning, on the way into the OR, that the blade was sharp, so try not to move. I started the engine again and eased forward. Passing through the first gate, something strange climbed up from the bottom of my stomach.

Not nerves, exactly. Not fear, either. More like the instinctive understanding that even though you'd only come here to check in as instructed, the moment you crossed this line, you stopped being just your own problem. You became data. Procedure. Medical observation. Military clearance status. A temporal displacement case. A warship survivor. A special individual. A pile of words efficient enough to kill anyone's appetite. And the worst part — Not one of those words was asking how I felt about any of it.

That's what institutional air actually is. No shouting. No guns. No red light blinking in every corner. The opposite, in fact. Clean. Efficient. Quiet — quiet enough to make you wonder if you're the one being oversensitive. But pressure that actually has weight behind it never needs to raise its voice.

It only needs to show you this: Whatever you slept through on the couch last night, however bitter your coffee was this morning, whatever's still unfinished between you and Maki — all of it steps aside the moment it walks in here. Because in here, you're not Hoshino first. You're a pending item. At the second checkpoint, I caught myself licking my dry lips. The only sound in my ears was the engine. And I suddenly, genuinely hated that I hadn't looked up at the second floor one more time before I left the house.

I'd been too naive. Really. Naive to a degree that bordered on insulting my own intelligence. I'd actually assumed that, given the caliber of the person who'd summoned me — Dr. Heinrich von Steiner, Deputy Chief Academician of the Federal Central Research Institute, a title long enough on its own to crush half an administrative desk — I'd get routed through something a little less mortal today. Something like dedicated ID clearance. Or an expedited research-access lane.

Or maybe a badge on my chest, printed with total sincerity: FEDERAL CENTRAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE — DESIGNATED VISITOR OF DEPUTY CHIEF ACADEMICIAN DR. STEINER Some nonsense like that. And then I could sail through the checkpoints like the kind of inconvenient, well-connected problem case who isn't supposed to exist, straight into the depths of the Research Wing, without ever needing to know what the lobby looked like. Turns out, I'd overestimated myself.

And I'd badly overestimated Steiner's grasp of the concept making things easier for people. He clearly considered dragging me here the whole of his job. Not making it bearable. After I parked in the designated area, a guide whose expression looked like it had grown directly out of the institution walked me back to the ground-floor lobby. Ground floor. Lobby. Wonderful.

The Federation's most advanced, most massive, most likely-to-secretly-be-a-strategic-computer-wearing-a-building's-clothes facility, and I still had to start at the lobby like everyone else. It felt exactly like thinking you'd found the back door into hell, only for the demon at the gate to glance up, expressionless, and say: Sorry. Please take a number. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Fine. I'll admit it. I was a little annoyed.

Just a little. Really — just enough to bury Steiner once in my head. Not enough to bite through the reception desk. But that irritation didn't survive long once I actually stepped into the lobby. Something worse replaced it almost immediately. The air was wrong. Not loud. Not chaotic. Not the kind of disturbance where someone's clearance failed or an admin sector had just gone into lockdown. The opposite — too quiet.

Quiet in the specific way of a room where everyone is working very hard to perform I didn't see anything, I just happened to glance over there seventeen times. The Joint Operations Command lobby was already big to begin with. A ceiling high enough to feel almost punitive. Semi-transparent panels and dark metal beams interlocking overhead. Information walls pouring down both sides like silent waterfalls, pale-blue and cold-white data bands sliding through the air in layers. Standing inside, you automatically shrink.

Your voice automatically drops, like speaking too loudly might get you flagged as non-compliant noise and routed down some remedial chute. But right now, every uniform, every research-institute jacket, every admin suit, even the staff whose only job was pointing people toward the right line — every gaze in the room was drifting the same direction. Very controlled. Also very obvious. I followed it. And saw someone who, by any reasonable logic, had no business existing in this building.

The first thing that registered was black. Not just black fabric — black with weight, black with order, black that knew, without question, it was going to be looked at. A long coat draped over the shoulders, its lines falling straight and steady, the edges clean to the point of feeling faintly hostile. Underneath, the hem of a dark military tunic, pressed so precisely it didn't hold a single unnecessary crease. The whole effect was restrained.

Restrained enough that you couldn't point at any one detail and call it excessive. No extra braid. No power-signaling accessories designed to make you roll your eyes. None of that cheap confidence that needs I am important stitched into every inch of fabric. Only a handful of insignia at the chest and collar — not many, but heavy enough that anyone with eyes understood immediately. Their presence wasn't a flex. It was a reminder. A reminder to everyone in the room: You'd better know exactly who you're looking at.

Higher up: gold hair. The particular cold gold of a winter dawn, right at the moment the light catches the edge of a blade before the sun's fully up. Long hair, kept immaculately, braided close, glossy without shouting about it, precise enough to be almost offensive. Not one loose strand — as if even the individual hairs had been through some joint committee on diplomacy, discipline, and pride before being cleared to appear here. I stopped where I was for a second. My first thought wasn't awe.

It was: Isn't that Princess Hedwig. Yes. That Hedwig. And the real problem was that Hedwig von Wittelsbach wasn't only standing here inside the Galactic Federation's Joint Operations Command — she was doing it in that uniform. The full set. Galactic Empire dress, worn out loud, in plain sight. My mind went briefly, completely blank. Not because of how she looked. Because of how insane the whole thing was.

Understand something: when some people walk into an enemy's — or a rival's — nerve center wearing their own colors, it reads as provocation. Some people, doing the same thing, just look stupid. Hedwig von Wittelsbach, standing there, read as a third thing entirely — Like it had genuinely never occurred to her that any of this required an explanation. Which is worse than provocation. Because provocation at least admits this isn't my ground.

The way she stood there said something closer to: Ground belongs to whoever plants their feet first. I watched her for two seconds and started seriously weighing a question. Was Her Highness an idiot, or was she brilliant. A normal person wouldn't try this. But if she were a normal person, she wouldn't be called Princess Hedwig in the first place. One layer deeper, and it only got more irritating.

Because if this wasn't simple recklessness, there was exactly one other explanation: she knew she could get away with it, and she knew it would work. Showing up in Imperial uniform inside a Federation command lobby wasn't rudeness. Wasn't miscalculation. It was a political move precise enough to draw blood — like planting a knife in the table and then very politely asking if anyone minded her pulling her chair a little closer.

Three seconds of high-speed processing later, I arrived at a conclusion that was entirely honest and entirely aligned with self-preservation. Leave. Not run. A tactical withdrawal. There's a real difference. Please don't confuse the two. I stepped sideways, planning to use the fact that most of the room's attention was still fixed on Her Highness to slip back toward the guide lines near the desk — ideally staying as unremarkable as a piece of harmless furniture the whole way. I only had two goals today.

One: get in and see Steiner alive. Two: get back out alive. Everything else — political subplots, diplomatic anomalies, royal walk-ins, cross-border provocations — sat well outside anything I was willing to take on today. I'd already mapped the route. Three steps left, use the column to break line of sight, cut in behind the counter to the guide track. Move naturally. Not too fast, not too slow, don't look like you're—"Well, if it isn't Lieutenant Hoshino, of the Yukikaze. What a coincidence." Fuck. I stopped dead.

Not because it was loud. It wasn't. It was pitched exactly right — enough for everyone within a certain radius to hear, not enough to count as making a scene. The kind of volume that only comes from someone with excellent social training, someone who might genuinely list dropping trouble into a crowd, precisely as a professional skill. I closed my eyes for a second. Of course. Why is it always me. No — wrong question. Better version: Why is trouble always this efficient at finding me specifically. I turned around.

Standing behind me was a young man, not yet thirty, in the deep-gray formal dress common to the Federation's military-government track. His collar tabs, his shoulder lines, his chest ID — all clean enough to be suspicious. His face matched. Nothing wrong with it, technically. You could even call him good-looking. The problem was the smile. Too complete. Not really a smile at all. More like an expression that had been calibrated through some kind of social-engineering process. That type is always the worst.

Because you can never tell if the next thing out of his mouth is going to be a business card, a knife, or both at once. I looked at him and ran through the options. Liaison officer? Diplomatic point of contact? Some administrative mouthpiece the Research Institute sent to collect me? Or, worse — the kind of institutional bloodhound that surfaces the instant there's an irregular individual, a high-ranking guest, or the first whiff of a political incident, usually a half-step ahead of everyone else?

Unfortunately, I gave the last option the best odds.

"... Coincidence?" I said, my voice flat as the back of a freshly honed blade.

"If the Empire's princess shows up here in Imperial dress every day, the Federation has a very forward-thinking definition of coincidence." He blinked. Once, briefly. Then his smile deepened, like he'd just confirmed I wasn't the type to say how do you do and leave it there.

"My apologies — poor phrasing." A small, flawless bow.

"What I should have said: it's hard not to notice someone like Lieutenant Hoshino appearing here, at a moment like this."

"Is that a compliment, or are you tagging me for a file?"

"Depends on the context." Right. This kind of person is exhausting. I hate dealing with anyone who leaves every sentence usable both ways — never puts intent on the table, but always makes sure you know the table has knives taped underneath. I let my eyes drop to his chest ID. Rank wasn't low, but not high enough to make me want to snap to attention. I caught the name and immediately filed it under disposable.

Names in situations like this are bottled water at a meeting — you drink it, you move on, you don't get attached.

"If you're here to collect me," I said, "your timing's not exactly kind." He followed my glance, apparently willing to admit he already knew exactly what I'd been staring at, and tilted his head slightly toward the too-iconic black and gold in the center of the lobby.

"Today's a bit busier than usual."

"You're calling that busy?"

"Would you prefer diplomatic incident?"

"That's more honest." He laughed — a real one this time, or at least closer to a living person's version.

"Lieutenant Hoshino is exactly as advertised." I looked at him, flat.

"Which rumor."

"Hard to manage. Easy to watch." I nearly rolled my eyes out of my skull.

"Wonderful. So today's medical exam comes with a bonus zoo exhibit."

"I wouldn't dare." Quick, smooth — clearly not his first time handling someone who bites.

"The doctor's already waiting." The doctor. Right. So not some administrative coincidence at all — Steiner's own retrieval unit. The whole scene snapped into focus, and instantly got more irritating.

"You could have led with the doctor's waiting."

"If I had, I'd have missed the chance to watch Lieutenant Hoshino's tactical withdrawal in progress. It was really something." I stared at him and seriously weighed whether obstruction of research progress would hold up as grounds to throw him back over the counter.

"You're asking for it."

"Thank you for the feedback."

"That wasn't a compliment."

"I know." Damn it. People who can absorb your irritation that evenly and hand it right back, folded — those are exactly the kind of people who thrive in the military-government track. Or maybe it's simpler: anyone who isn't like that doesn't make it this far. I was done sparring. I opened my mouth to tell him to lead the way — and the air in the lobby shifted again. No shouting. No alarm. Just that small, controlled, impossible-to-fully-hide drift of attention that moves through a crowd.

I didn't need to turn around to know. Her Imperial Highness had moved. Every alarm in my head went off at once. Not the shipboard kind — no all hands, battle stations. The personal kind. We're screwed, find cover. The young officer noticed too, but he didn't step back. If anything, he planted his feet more firmly, like this exact category of disaster was written into his job description. Impressive. I genuinely admire people who set their own lives to hard mode voluntarily.

"Lieutenant Hoshino," he said, quiet, still perfectly composed — tragically composed — "I'd recommend you not attempt to leave right now."

"Funny," I said, just as quiet.

"That's exactly what I was about to do."

"I'm afraid that's no longer an option." I went still. Then, with real reluctance, I turned my head. My gaze crossed layer after layer of cold-white and dark-gray light, past the crowd doing its best impression of people who hadn't noticed anything while their ears stood up like military antennae, and landed on the black and gold moving steadily in our direction. Princess Hedwig walked quietly. Not because she made no sound. Because she didn't need sound to clear a path. The crowd parted on its own.

Eyes retreated on their own. For a few seconds, even the Federation's own command lobby looked like it had been forced to admit what actual presence looks like. I stood there and understood, with total clarity, that today's routine check-in at Joint Operations Command was about to go somewhere strange. And the worst part was, I wasn't even surprised. Because my life lately had done a very thorough job proving one deeply annoying law: The moment I leave the house, trouble grows its own legs.

And it's always faster than me.