# Chapter 15 Input — "The Wolf"

## Scene Goals

### Scene 1: Wake
- Devod regains real consciousness for the first time since the draining attack (Ch12). Not the half-tracking from Ch14 — actual awareness, focused eyes, speech.
- He manages about two sentences. Maybe says Mere's name, something disoriented but lucid.
- **Mere's reaction is the beat.** She's been clinical and fierce for 14+ hours. When he actually speaks, she lets him get two sentences out, then tells him to rest — same voice, same authority she used on Phelan after his near-death draining. The callback is deliberate: this is how Mere shows love. She manages you.
- Devod complies. Two sentences is genuinely taxing.
- Phelan observes from the corner (maintaining bracelet charging thread at 70%). Notes the parallel between how Mere handles Devod and how she handled him. Her caregiving has a pattern — it's not situational, it's structural.

### Scene 2: Visit (Chapter Centerpiece)
- A knock at the door. **Mere answers and greets Brennan Toor by name.** No surprise, no explanation to Phelan. She's met him before — he visited when she was born. It's never been important enough to mention. Classic Mere.
- Phelan registers: he and Mere still have entire chapters of each other's lives they haven't read. Not a problem. Just a fact that sticks.
- **Brennan Toor enters.** Warm and direct — a man who stopped hiding his feelings after enough friends didn't come home. Calls Devod "Wolf" immediately. Devod's reaction: tired smile, recognition. Short exchange showing shared history ("You look terrible." / "You got old." — something in that register). Keep Devod's lines to a few — he's lucid but weak.
- **Phelan's noise parenthetical:** *(Wolf?)* — the name maps to nothing in his model of Devod.
- Mere explains casually to Phelan (he's clearly confused): Brennan visited when she was born, she's known him since childhood, it just never came up. Delivered as data, no awareness this is a significant omission.

**Brennan's Pathfinder Story:**
- A specific mission. Frontier clearance gone wrong — hostile territory, bad situation, the unit pinned or trapped.
- Devod's first three ideas fail. Brennan should be specific and darkly funny about HOW they failed. This is the "nine ideas that'll get you killed" in action.
- **Idea four:** A flanking maneuver. Devod splits the unit — main force as a visible frontal distraction, Devod leads the smaller flanking squad himself. In the flanking action, Devod was an **absolute beast.** Close-quarters combat, leading from the front, precision violence — forearm strikes, terrain use, the kind of fighting that saves everyone behind you. He was the tip of the spear by choice.
- **Brennan's line:** "That's why we called him The Wolf. Nine ideas that'll get you killed, and one that'll save your life. And he'll try all ten.". 
- The contrast is the point: the young combat beast who led flanking charges vs. the man lying in a sickbed who delivers groceries. He chose to slow down and calm his life so Mere could have a father.

**Phelan's Internal Cascade (Noise Parentheticals):**
- As Brennan talks, Phelan's brain remaps everything. Higher frequency, short staccato fragments:
  - Mining navigation (earlier chapters) → Pathfinder terrain assessment, not delivery-driver instinct
  - Mine combat → terrain control training
  - Forearm/collarbone strikes → precision disabling techniques
  - The 10-ideas methodology → not personality quirk. Survival methodology. Pathfinders operate where most recruits die.
  - Everything he categorized as "civilian instinct" was elite military competence wearing civilian clothes
- **He says none of this out loud.** The reader watches it happen inside his head.
- **Mere's non-reaction is the final confirmation.** She's always known. Phelan is the last one catching up.

- Devod tries to participate more in conversation, manages more than Scene 1 but visibly tires. Mere shuts him down again when he pushes too far.

### Scene 3: Prepare
- **Brennan's departing offer:** As he leaves, he offers something practical — a Pathfinder network contact, tactical knowledge about the warrens, or an old comrade who operates in relevant territory. Something that directly feeds into the Ch16 planning session. This also seeds the "old-timer Pathfinder network" as a Book 3 resource.
- **Phelan's shift:** After Brennan leaves, Phelan looks at the bracelet. Still 70%. The slow passive charge is indeed gone — it's been stuck there. The math changes now: they're heading toward a confrontation with Kae, and 70% isn't enough.
- He has the jacket from Carter. He needs the bracelet at 100%. He starts actively charging it — committing real energy and focus. This is Phelan moving from "recovering" to "getting ready." Like preparing for a known fight. It might not go that way, but he won't be unprepared again.
- **Closing beat:** Not a speech, not a declaration. Phelan working on the bracelet with intent, in a room where a former Pathfinder sleeps and a woman who knew more than she said tends her father. The quiet before the plan.

## Key Dialog

- Brennan to Devod: Something warm and direct on arrival — "Wolf" as the first word. Their exchange should feel like old soldiers who haven't seen each other in years but fall right back into rhythm.
- Brennan's defining line: "That's why we called him The Wolf. Nine ideas that'll get you killed, and one that'll save your life. And he'll try all ten to save everyone" Brennan makes a comment how wolves are pack animals and the alpha will die before you hurt the pack. 
- Mere to Devod (both scenes): Short, authoritative commands to rest. Same register she uses on Phelan — the parallel should be unmistakable.
- Mere to Phelan (re: Brennan): Matter-of-fact explanation. "He visited a few days after I was born." No awareness that this is a reveal.

## Character Moments

- **Devod:** First real consciousness. Vulnerable but present. His interaction with Brennan shows a flash of who he was — even weak, the recognition and warmth are immediate. The contrast between his current state and the war story is the emotional engine.
- **Mere:** Three beats — caregiver (managing Devod's recovery), connector (knowing Brennan, casual reveal), and the non-reaction that tells Phelan everything. She's the one who's always known, and it's never occurred to her that this was information worth sharing.
- **Phelan:** Observer in his own chapter. The cascade is all internal. He doesn't confront, doesn't ask, doesn't verbalize. He processes, remaps, and then prepares. The shift from observation to action (bracelet charging) is his response.
- **Brennan Toor:** Warm, direct, no pretense. A man who says what he means. Strong contrast to Phelan's detachment. His affection for Devod is open and unguarded — the kind of friendship forged in life-or-death situations.

## Mood / Tone

- **Scene 1:** Tender, controlled. Relief of consciousness after days of uncertainty.
- **Scene 2:** Warm (Brennan's presence), revelatory (the Pathfinder story), internally electric (Phelan's cascade). This is the emotional center.
- **Scene 3:** Quiet resolve hardening into preparation. Teeth under the calm.
- **Overall:** A quiet chapter that ends with edge. The calm before the planning storm of Ch16.

## Freeform Notes

- Noise parentheticals: Higher frequency and shorter fragments during the Scene 2 cascade. Lower frequency in Scenes 1 and 3 — Phelan is observing, not spiraling.
- The Pathfinder war story should feel vivid and specific enough to establish what Pathfinder work actually looked like — dangerous frontier clearance, hostile territory, high casualty rates. This is world-building through character.
- Mere knowing Brennan since birth reinforces the theme that Phelan and Mere still have a lot to learn about each other. Not a conflict — a depth marker. Their relationship is real but young.
- The bracelet stalling at 70% has been a background detail. This is where it becomes a plot point — the passive approach isn't enough, active preparation is required.
- Word count target: 3,000–4,000. This is a character chapter. Let the beats land and get out.
- Ledger's subtle recognition of the Pathfinder connection (from earlier chapters) is NOT addressed here — that's a Book 3 slow-burn seed. Don't tip it.
