The 06:00 light in Milan was a bruised purple, filtered through the thick atmospheric haze that always lingered after a 60x storm. Alex stood at the base of the Duomo, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of a plain, oversized hoodie.

  "Six minutes past the hour, Alex," Natalie Monica said, tapping the screen of her digital clipboard. She was a sharp-edged woman, her grey suit tailored to withstand the pressure and her expression even more rigid. "Punctuality is the bedrock of infrastructure. If we are late, the building feels it."

  Alex gave a quick, rhythmic tap against his thigh—a three-stroke pattern that meant Understood/Apologies.

  "Oh, leave the boy alone, Nat," Valenzo Vachelli Monica yawned, leaning heavily against a reinforced stone buttress. His work vest was unzipped, and his tie was loosened to the point of irrelevance. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a limited-edition Bamboo keychain, spinning it around his finger. "He’s twenty-four. At that age, I was still dreaming of being a pilot. Let him breathe."

  Natalie rolled her eyes but turned her focus back to the structural scanners. Valenzo shuffled over to Alex, his lazy grin widening as he leaned in close.

  "Did you see the interworld feed this morning?" Valenzo whispered, his eyes lighting up with a sudden, uncharacteristic energy. "Bamboo was in the Piazza! He pinned a courier van to the stone like it was a paperweight. And Prism over in Turin? The news says he’s already cleared the debris from the rail-lines. Those two... they’re the real deal, Alex. They have the soul."

  Alex looked at the keychain—the tiny, stylized version of his own mask—and felt the 31-year-old weight in his chest pull tight. He tapped a complex series of signals on his palm: Slow. Heavy. Not special.

  "No, no," Valenzo chuckled, shaking his head. "That’s where you’re wrong. You think it’s just physics, don't you? You’re too technical, kid. You haven’t mastered the 'Path of the Fan.' You see a guy in green armor; I see a symbol of the 2000x spirit! You need to stop looking at the bolts and start looking at the heart. If you want to understand Bamboo, you have to imagine what he’s thinking when he hits that wind."

  Alex looked away, his gaze falling on a hairline fracture near the foundation. He signaled: Bamboo is probably just tired.

  "Tired? Impossible!" Valenzo laughed, oblivious. "He’s a powerhouse! You should read more of those Second Multiverse comics I gave you. They'll teach you about the 'Hero’s Flare.' You’re too quiet, Alex. You need a hobby that puts some fire in you."

  Natalie’s voice cut through the air like a blade. "Valenzo, stop filling the boy's head with moon-world fantasies. Alex, look at the base of the South Spire. The vibration sensors tripped at 04:00, but the wind speeds shouldn't have caused a shear at that depth. What do you see?"

  Alex knelt by the stone, his fingers tracing a crack that didn't follow the natural grain of a wind-strike. It was a clean, mechanical separation—the kind of damage caused by high-grade industrial cutting tools, not the weather. Someone had been trying to weaken the foundation under the cover of the storm.

  He stood up and tapped a rapid, urgent code against his wrist.

  "Wait," Natalie said, her eyes narrowing as she read his hands. "You're saying this was a manual breach? Not a structural failure?"

  Alex nodded once, his face an unreadable mask of youthful shyness, while his mind was already calculating which mundane salvage crew had the audacity to try and topple a cathedral.

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  Natalie stepped closer to the spire, her heels clicking sharply on the stone Alex had identified. She knelt, her professional eyes scanning the precision of the cut. "This isn't a stress fracture. A 60x shear leaves jagged edges and pulverized dust. This is a clean bypass."

  "Someone was digging," Valenzo said, his lazy demeanor momentarily replaced by the sharp instincts of a man who knew the city's guts. He looked up at the towering heights of the Duomo. "If they cut the primary tension cables in the foundation, the next storm doesn't just shake the building—it tips it. And a building this size tipping... that’s half of Milan gone."

  Alex stood back, his hood pulled low to hide the intensity in his eyes. He tapped a slow, steady code on his thigh: Who benefits?

  "The Reconstruction Guild," Natalie whispered, her voice tight. "If the Duomo falls, the city council signs off on the 'New Milan' project. Billions in cellulose-steel contracts. They wouldn't have to wait for the environment to do the work; they’d just help it along."

  Valenzo let out a long breath, looking at his Bamboo keychain. "They're using the storms as a cover for murder. They think because everyone is hunkered down in bunkers, no one is watching the foundations."

  He looked at Alex and tried to force a smile, though it didn't reach his eyes. "See, kid? This is why we need guys like Bamboo. But even he can't be everywhere. Sometimes it's just up to the inspectors to find the rot before it spreads."

  Alex nodded, his expression shy and distant. He tapped a final message: I'll check the north drainage pipes. See if they left more marks.

  "Good lad," Valenzo said, patting Alex on the shoulder. "Don't go too deep. Those pipes are slippery after a heavy-burst."

  Alex turned and walked away, his pace steady. As soon as he was out of their sight, his stride lengthened. He wasn't going to the north drainage pipes to "check for marks." He knew the Guild used heavy industrial cutters—tools that required massive power cells. Power cells that left heat signatures in the damp, 60x air.

  He reached a shadowed corner of the cathedral’s exterior, checking to ensure he was completely alone. He didn't need a supernatural sense to know where they were; he just needed to follow the sound of the city's heartbeat being tampered with.

  The sub-levels of Milan were a labyrinth of reinforced concrete and massive cellulose-fiber conduits, designed to channel the immense vibrations of the 2000x world away from the surface. Down here, the air was stagnant and thick, carrying the smell of ozone and industrial grease.

  Alex moved through the shadows of Pylon 42 with the silent, heavy grace of a predator. He had already swapped his hoodie for the Bamboo suit, the segmented plates clicking softly as he navigated the narrow catwalks.

  Below him, a crew of five men in high-visibility Guild jackets were gathered around the base of a primary tension cable. They weren't using magic or powers; they were using a massive, hydraulic-powered shear. The machine hummed with a low-frequency growl, its diamond-tipped teeth biting into the skyscraper-grade cable that held the Duomo upright.

  "Hurry it up," the foreman barked, checking a handheld chronometer. "The atmospheric shift is coming in twenty minutes. If this cable isn't frayed by then, the pressure differential won't be enough to snap the spire."

  "This cable is thicker than the ones in the south, boss," one of the workers grunted, leaning into the machine. "The Guild didn't account for the 60x reinforcement on this sector."

  Alex watched from the rafters, his yellow-white lenses glowing faintly in the dark. His 31-year-old maturity allowed him to see the situation for what it was: a cold, calculated business decision. These men weren't monsters; they were employees following a paycheck that required the deaths of thousands.

  He didn't make a grand entrance. He simply stepped off the catwalk.

  The weight of the Bamboo suit hit the metal floor with a sound like a falling anvil. The workers spun around, their eyes wide as they saw the green-armored figure standing in the dim light. The leaf-textured plates on Alex's chest caught the orange glow of the hydraulic shear.

  "Who the hell—?" the foreman started, reaching for a heavy industrial wrench.

  Alex didn't wait. He closed the distance with "Steel-Flex" momentum. He didn't punch; he simply moved through them. He caught the arm of the man with the wrench, his segmented bracers locking as he redirected the worker's own momentum toward the floor.

  He moved with an aloof, mechanical efficiency, disarming the crew as if he were simply clearing debris. He wasn't there to hurt them more than necessary—he was there to stop the clock.