The tea was served in modest, mismatched ceramic mugs, the steam rising in lazy curls that mimicked the heavy fog rolling through the 30x scale canyons of the city outside. Rumani took a sip, the warmth grounding him as he maintained his "shaken survivor" posture. Across the table, Barbara was checking her phone, her brow furrowed as she scanned the latest headlines.

  "It’s all over the feeds, Rumani," she said, turning the device toward him. "The Registry is already calling the 'Aether-Marrow Pylons' a miracle of private engineering. But some of the independent analysts are calling foul. They say the kinetic displacement doesn't match the footprint of a hydraulic system."

  Rumani nodded vaguely, his eyes fixed on his tea. "People always want to find a mystery in things, Barb. It was a loud, terrifying day. The engineers will figure it out eventually. I’m just glad the bank invested in the upgrade."

  Deep within his Oversight, Rumani was already tracking the fallout. His digital forgery had worked too well. The Registry wasn't just checking files; they were mobilizing a Technical Audit Team. Because the Superman Building was still leaning at a ten-degree angle, it was considered an active hazard. Protocol dictated that if the structural integrity was being maintained by "proprietary pylons," those pylons had to be inspected and certified immediately to ensure the building wouldn't finish its collapse onto the residential sectors.

  Sabrina Thorne was currently in a Registry transport, screaming through the 30x scale air traffic toward the Aether-Marrow headquarters. She wasn't looking for a paper trail anymore; she was looking for steel and oil.

  Rumani realized he had roughly twenty minutes before Sabrina reached the basement of the Superman Building. If she opened the floor plates and found only solid granite where his "pylons" were supposed to be, the Aether-Marrow lie would vanish, and the investigation would turn back toward the only other variable in the vault: him.

  "I... I think I need to lie down for a bit, honey," Rumani said, standing up with a convincing stumble. "The adrenaline is wearing off, and I’m starting to feel a bit lightheaded."

  "Of course," Barbara said, her voice softening with concern. "Go on. I’ll keep the noise down. Collin, why don't you go finish your homework in your room?"

  Rumani walked to the bedroom, closing the door and locking it with a silent, kinetic click. He didn't lie down. He stood in the center of the room, his eyes turning a cold, luminous white as he expanded his Oversight to its maximum range. He couldn't leave the apartment physically—that would break his "modest" cover—but he didn't need to be there in person to build.

  Using a Sub-Quantum Projection, Rumani reached through the city’s ley lines, focusing his will on the basement of the Superman Building. He began to gather the discarded scrap metal, the shattered granite dust, and the leaked hydraulic fluid from the building's actual, failed systems. Under his invisible direction, the debris began to assemble.

  He wasn't just creating an illusion; he was performing Alchemical Synthesis. He forced the molecules to bond into the shapes he had designed in the digital blueprints. Massive, soot-stained pistons began to materialize beneath the floorboards. He etched the Aether-Marrow serial numbers into the cold iron. He even heated the metal to create the "scorched" look of machinery that had just undergone a massive, high-pressure emergency engagement.

  By the time Sabrina Thorne’s boots hit the concrete of the bank basement, three miles away, Rumani had manifested four massive, 30x scale "Deep-Earth Pylons." They looked decades old, smelled of burnt ozone and grease, and were currently humming with a fake, low-frequency vibration that mimicked a heavy load.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  In the bedroom, Rumani’s forehead was beaded with sweat, but his suit remained perfectly dry and his posture stayed upright. He heard the distant, muffled sound of Sabrina’s voice through the building's subterranean comms.

  "I don't care what the blueprints say," Sabrina snapped at an Aether-Marrow representative. "I want to see the load-bearing valves. If these things held up a billion tons, I want to see the—"

  She stopped. Her thermal goggles picked up the massive heat signatures Rumani had just "baked" into the fake pistons. She stepped forward, her hand reaching out to touch the vibrating metal.

  "They're real," she whispered, her voice a mix of awe and deep, lingering suspicion. "They’re actually here."

  Rumani exhaled, his eyes returning to their normal brown. The physical evidence was in place. He had turned his lie into a reality of steel and iron. He lay down on the bed just as Barbara tapped gently on the door to check on him.

  "Rumani? Are you okay in there?"

  "Just... just resting, Barb," he called back, his voice perfectly weary. "I’ll be out in a minute."

  He lay on the bed, his suit still immaculate, his mind already calculating the next move. He had manifested the physical evidence—four massive, soot-stained "Deep-Earth Pylons"—in the basement of the Superman Building. To Sabrina Thorne and her Registry team, they were a mechanical marvel. To the actual Board of Directors at the Aether-Marrow Group, they were an impossibility.

  As Rumani’s Oversight Senses drifted back toward the Aether-Marrow headquarters, he felt the panicked energy of the executive suite. The CEO, Valerie Simmons, was currently staring at the news in a state of clinical shock. Known for her ruthless efficiency and a memory that spanned every decimal point of the company's 30x scale budget, she was currently pacing her glass-walled office. Her company was being credited with a miracle they hadn't engineered, and the Registry was already demanding the maintenance logs for a project that didn't exist in her ledger.

  "We didn't build those," Valerie whispered to her Chief of Security, her voice sharp and cold as she watched the live feed of Sabrina Thorne touching the "Aether-Marrow" serial numbers on the fake steel. "We don't have a 'Deep-Earth' division. If the Registry finds out we’re the face of an industrial hoax, they’ll strip our charter by dawn."

  Rumani realized he had created a vacuum that the corporation was either going to fill with a lie of their own—to claim the credit—or they were going to panic and expose the "pylons" as a fraud.

  He couldn't let them expose the hoax. He needed Valerie Simmons to believe she had a secret project she had simply archived and forgotten during the last district merger.

  Using a Synaptic Ghost, Rumani reached out to Valerie’s mind. He didn't rewrite her personality; she was far too sharp for that. Instead, he simply nudged a few dormant memories, weaving them into the digital paper trail he’d created earlier. He planted a "recollection" of a black-budget project from three years ago—a project so classified that even her primary assistant hadn't been cleared for the files.

  "Wait," Valerie said, her eyes narrowing as the false memory took hold. She moved to her terminal, her fingers flying across the keys. "The Aegis-7 files. The subterranean division we acquired during the Fourth District consolidation. I... I remember now. We mothballed the project because the costs were too high, but the automated deployment system must have remained on standby."

  Her Chief of Security blinked. "Ma'am? You never mentioned a subterranean division."

  "Because it was a proprietary secret, you idiot!" Valerie snapped, her corporate ambition quickly overriding her initial confusion. "Get the PR team on the line. If we’re the heroes of the hour, I want our stock price to reflect it before the markets open in the Second Multiverse. We are claiming every inch of those pylons."

  Rumani pulled his consciousness back to his bedroom, a small, tired smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. The corporation had accepted the lie. They would now fight to protect the "pylons" as their own intellectual property, creating a legal shield that would prevent Sabrina Thorne from ever looking too closely at the "modest" teller who had suggested they were there.

  He stood up, adjusted his glasses, and walked out to join Barbara and Collin for tea, his secret identity more secure than it had been an hour ago—hidden behind the thick, impenetrable walls of corporate greed.