## CHAPTER 1 — THE QUESTION Afterlife never became quiet. It merely learned how to lower its voice around Rogue. Music rolled through the old morgue in controlled waves, heavy enough to press against bone without quite overwhelming conversation. Glass met glass. Deals moved beneath laughter. Mercs who had survived enough to become interesting watched mercs who had not yet learned the difference between reputation and noise. Ace felt the room notice her. It happened differently now. Once, the glances had measured her height first. A woman under five feet, black hair carrying a violet sheen beneath the club lights, moving through the Afterlife with two wrapped katana hilts visible over one shoulder. An apparent contradiction inviting someone stupid to test which part mattered. These days, most people knew better. The glances still came. They simply moved on faster. Mai walked beside her with the calm alignment of someone who had already counted the exits, identified the concealed weapons nearest the booth, noted which conversations stopped when they entered, and decided none of it required comment. Silver hair caught the shifting light in clean bands. Her silver-blue eyes moved once across the room and made the chaos look briefly organized. Ace glanced up at her. “Missing anything?” “Several people’s good judgment.” “Afterlife.” “Yes.” They continued toward Rogue’s booth. Shammy’s absence changed the shape of their movement in a way Ace could feel without looking. No towering presence behind or beside them. No atmospheric softness wrapping itself around the sharper edges of the room. No faint response in the air when somebody stared too long. Just Ace and Mai. Not incomplete. Different. Shammy was already beyond Night City with Panam and Brenda on a courier run that had apparently justified two weeks on the road and one message from Panam consisting entirely of a photograph of Shammy leaning over a map upside down. Brenda had added: **She says it makes more sense this way.** Shammy had followed with: **It did.** Ace had declined to become involved. Iris was aboard Aureate II for the ship’s first proper voyage after refit. Between the two absences, the Safehouse had lost most of its usual background pressure. Rogue had not asked about any of that. She already knew. Rogue knew most things worth knowing before people reached her booth. The rest she arranged so they would tell her themselves. She sat where she usually did, grey hair precise under the low light, one hand resting near a glass she had not touched since Ace entered the room. The booth gave her privacy without removing her from Afterlife. She could see the floor, the entrances and the shifting human weather around both. A thin display lay dark on the table. No client waited beside her. That was the first useful detail. The second was the way Rogue looked at Ace and Mai rather than at the empty side of the booth where Shammy would normally have settled. “You came alone.” Ace slid into the seat opposite her. The booth had been designed for people substantially larger than she was, which meant the table sat high enough to be irritating. “We left the marching band at home.” “Out of town,” Mai said, taking the seat beside Ace. “Shammy is already on the courier route with Panam and Brenda.” “I know.” “Of course you do,” Ace said. Rogue’s mouth shifted by an amount that might have been amusement. “Aureate II left this morning.” Mai’s gaze sharpened slightly. “You are monitoring civilian ship schedules now?” “I monitor anything that changes who is available when the city decides to become difficult.” “A reassuring distinction,” Mai said. “It wasn’t meant to be reassuring.” A server arrived without being called, placed two drinks on the table and left before Ace could ask whether Rogue had ordered them or Afterlife had simply developed predictive logistics around Mai. Ace studied hers. “What is it?” “Tea,” Rogue said. Ace looked at her. “Why?” “Because the last time I gave you whiskey before a briefing, you described the client’s extraction plan as ‘suicide with administrative support.’” “It was.” “The client was still in the room.” “They benefited from the clarification.” Mai lifted her own cup, smelled it and gave Rogue a small nod. Ace looked between them. “This is coordinated.” “Drink your tea,” Mai said. Ace drank the tea. It was annoyingly good. Beneath the table, Mai's knee rested briefly against hers—not reassurance exactly, because neither of them needed the performance of it, only the familiar reminder that they were still moving through the room together. Rogue touched the display. A projection opened above the table—not a single clean file, but a constellation of fragments. Procurement references. Corporate reports. Cropped technical diagrams. A blurred image of something angular beneath protective sheeting. Portions of investor language stripped of their identifying headers. Three different timelines laid over each other in contradictory colors. At the center sat a block of plain text: **HEAVY ASSAULT VEHICLE INTERDICTION PLATFORM** Ace read it twice. “That sounds expensive.” “It is.” “Does it work?” Rogue met her eyes. “That’s the job.” Mai leaned closer to the display without touching it. Her attention moved from one fragment to another, not reading them in order but mapping relationships. “Who is asking?” “Someone who pays enough not to become part of the answer.” Ace rested an elbow on the table. “Militech competitor?” “Possibly.” “Government?” “Possibly.” “Someone planning to drive a heavy assault vehicle somewhere Militech might object?” Rogue paused. “Also possible.” Ace nodded. “Good client.” Mai did not look away from the data. “You did not bring us here to identify the customer.” “No. But it helps establish how funny this may become.” “It establishes how careful we need to be.” “Same thing, sometimes.” Rogue let them finish. That was another part of her authority. She did not rush to reclaim a room that had never stopped being hers. Mai selected one of the timelines and expanded it. The document claimed the project had entered advanced prototype validation six months earlier. A second report referred to subsystem feasibility assessment four months after that. She opened a third. This one described an upcoming integrated demonstration. Mai’s expression did not change, but the focus in her eyes tightened. “The dates do not agree.” “No,” Rogue said. “The development stages do not agree.” “No.” “The terminology may be intended for different audiences.” “That is one explanation.” Ace looked at the blurred covered shape. “Another explanation is that nobody knows what they built.” “That,” Rogue said, “is why you’re here.” Mai expanded the image. It showed part of a heavy base structure on a transport cradle. The visible section could have belonged to a weapon mount, industrial machinery or a very expensive sculpture designed to frighten procurement officers. Scale markings suggested the concealed assembly was considerably larger than Ace had first assumed. “What is it supposed to do?” Mai asked. Rogue brought up a promotional fragment. The system would identify, classify and neutralize heavy assault platforms across complex urban and contested environments. It would shorten response cycles, minimize friendly exposure and create a decisive denial envelope against armored breakthrough forces. Ace read the last phrase aloud. “‘Create a decisive denial envelope.’ Does it throw a very large blanket over the vehicle?” “Keep reading,” Rogue said. “I have reached my consultant-language tolerance.” “You lasted eight seconds,” Mai said. “Personal best.” Mai opened the technical fragments beneath the claim. Sensor language appeared without architecture. One section implied kinetic defeat, another electronic immobilization, and a third described a directional effect without identifying either a viable source or delivery mechanism. “This is not one system description,” she said. “No.” “It could be competing approaches under one program, requirements written before architecture existed, or unrelated subsystem work assembled for an outside audience.” “Any of those,” Rogue said. Ace watched her. “You already have an opinion.” “I have several.” “And you hate all of them.” “I hate paying for uncertainty someone created deliberately.” That settled differently from the rest. Around them, Afterlife continued breathing. Somebody laughed too loudly near the bar. A chair shifted. A deal ended badly enough that one party left without finishing a drink, but not badly enough for weapons. Inside the booth, the project fragments hung between them like pieces of several different lies. Mai folded one hand over the other. “What do you know with confidence?” Rogue answered immediately. “Militech is spending real money.” A procurement list expanded. Specialist hardware. Shielded storage. Custom mechanical fabrication. Simulation resources. Short-term contracts with several consulting groups whose names meant nothing to Ace and apparently displeased Mai on sight. “People have been reassigned,” Rogue continued. “Some from vehicle-defense programs. Some from sensor development. Two from electronic warfare projects that officially ended years ago. At least one structural team has been fabricating something large enough that Militech moved the work away from its usual urban testing facilities.” “So the project exists,” Mai said. “Yes.” “But existence is not maturity.” “No.” Ace pointed toward the covered assembly. “That exists.” “A physical object exists.” “Useful distinction.” “It will keep you alive.” Ace gave her a small smile. “Usually does.” Rogue changed the projection again. Three intercepted summaries appeared side by side. The first described a concept-development program. The second used the phrase **prototype integration**. The third claimed the platform was approaching **pre-deployment validation**. Ace stared at them. “How many months apart?” “Five,” Mai said. “Could they have moved that quickly?” “No.” Rogue’s eyes shifted to her. “Certain?” “The claims cover different kinds of progress. A program can move from concept selection into subsystem prototyping in five months if enough work already exists. It cannot move from unresolved architecture to credible pre-deployment validation merely because three reports use increasingly confident nouns.” Ace leaned back. “There she is.” Mai ignored her. “The language may be describing budget status rather than technical status.” Rogue nodded once. “Go on.” “A funding milestone becomes ‘prototype integration’ because money has been approved for integration. A presentation unit becomes a ‘prototype’ because it is physically visible. A scheduled test becomes ‘validation’ before the test occurs. Different departments report progress according to what they need the reader to believe has happened.” “Meaning?” Ace asked. Mai finally looked away from the projection. “Meaning all three documents could be technically defensible and collectively dishonest.” Ace considered that. “I miss ordinary lying.” “No, you don’t.” “No. But it was easier to stab.” Rogue’s gaze moved to her katana hilts. “You are not stabbing this.” “I haven’t even met it.” “You are not stabbing the project, the building, the consultants, the procurement officers or whoever wrote ‘decisive denial envelope.’” Ace looked offended. “You remove all joy from intelligence work.” “I preserve the part where you get paid.” Mai returned her attention to the files. “What triggered the request now?” Rogue did not answer immediately. She selected a final document. Unlike the others, it contained almost no technical language. It was a threat-market assessment, assembled from military procurement chatter, intercepted corporate discussions and movements in the private security sector. The project had begun changing behavior before anyone knew whether it worked. A regional security company had delayed a heavy-vehicle purchase. Two weapons manufacturers had adjusted their projections. A mercenary transport group had raised rates for armored convoy work near Militech zones. Someone was selling fear of the system already. Mai saw it. “The rumor has acquired operational value.” “It has,” Rogue said. “If people believe Militech can stop heavy assault vehicles cheaply, quickly and at range, they plan around that belief. Competitors change investment. Buyers delay contracts. Anyone considering direct action against Militech recalculates.” Ace looked again at the blurred shape beneath the sheeting. “So it does not have to work.” “Not yet,” Rogue said. “It only has to sound close.” “Exactly.” Mai’s fingers moved once against the edge of her cup. “And if it is close?” “Then people planning around it need to know before Militech chooses the first real target.” There it was. Not spectacle. Not theft. Not even the weapon itself. Timing. Rogue had not brought them in because something dangerous existed. Night City produced dangerous things before breakfast and monetized them before lunch. She had brought them in because nobody knew how much time remained between the rumor and the thing the rumor claimed to describe. Ace looked at Mai. Mai was still examining the conflicting timelines. She had gone quiet in the particular way that meant she was not merely reading information but testing the shape of the absence between pieces. Rogue watched her do it. “What do you think?” she asked. Mai took several seconds before answering. “I think someone has separated the project’s narrative from its technical state.” “Deliberately?” “Almost certainly. That does not mean there is one central deception. Engineering may be reporting real work. Management may be reporting achieved milestones according to contractual definitions. Consultants may be reporting projected capability. Finance may be presenting approved development as completed development.” Ace grimaced. “So everyone lies differently and calls it alignment.” “More or less.” “Corpo poetry.” Mai’s mouth moved at one corner. “The public fragments are too inconsistent to establish maturity. We need internal development records, test provenance, interface status and physical fabrication history.” Rogue gave a small nod. “I assumed you would.” “You have tried the obvious routes.” It was not a question. Rogue removed two documents from the display. “Militech’s accessible network has been searched by people who know what they’re doing. Nothing useful survives outside approved reporting layers. Project identifiers lead to procurement shells, dead archives or documents that repeat the same contradictions.” “Kiro?” Ace asked. Mai’s eyes shifted toward her. Rogue’s did not. “I haven’t spoken to her.” “Why not?” “Because I wanted the question defined before your netrunner started following every missing signal in Militech’s infrastructure.” Ace accepted that immediately. “Fair.” Mai gave her a look. “What?” “You encouraged her to inspect an abandoned traffic-control datalake last month because it ‘looked lonely.’” “It did.” “It attempted to incorporate her interface identity.” “It was friendlier after.” Rogue’s pause was almost patient. “This is why I called you first.” Mai inclined her head, conceding the point. Ace drank more tea and looked back at the project name. “What does the client consider an answer?” Rogue’s expression sharpened. It was the right question. Not what files they wanted. Not what object to steal. Not which engineer to drag into a warehouse and frighten with Ace’s listening face. What answer justified the risk. Rogue collapsed the projection until only four lines remained. **CONCEPT** **SUBSYSTEM DEVELOPMENT** **INTEGRATED PROTOTYPE** **OPERATIONAL VALIDATION** “I need to know where it is,” she said. Ace tapped the first line. “Here?” “Useful.” The second. “Here?” “More useful.” The third. “Expensive.” The fourth. Rogue held her gaze. “Urgent.” Mai studied the progression. “And if the answer falls between them?” “Tell me exactly where and why.” “No pressure to simplify?” “Not if simplification makes the answer wrong.” Mai leaned back slightly. That mattered to her. Ace could see it. Rogue was not asking for certainty as performance. She was asking for a position she could defend when someone else made decisions involving armored vehicles, Militech and the probable shortening of several lives. Ace looked toward the room beyond the booth. Mercs drank beneath old names. Stories grew with every retelling. Somewhere near the entrance, a young solo was explaining an operation with enough hand movement to suggest the bullets had become more numerous since the event itself. Reputation worked like the Militech project, she thought. A real core. Several versions. Confidence added during transmission. She turned back. “Why us?” Rogue’s expression did not change. “Because you can enter places where plans stop being useful.” Ace nodded. “Flattering.” “Mai can tell the difference between a broken system and a system designed to look broken.” Mai gave the slightest acknowledgment. “And Shammy?” Ace asked. “Would tell me whether the room itself believed the lie.” The empty place beside them seemed briefly more visible. Rogue continued before the absence could become sentimental. “She is unavailable. The question is still moving.” “So you called two-thirds of the problem,” Ace said. “I called the two people I need to decide how the rest of the problem should be assembled.” Mai looked at Rogue for a long moment. “You expect physical access.” “I expect you to tell me whether physical access is necessary.” “And if it is?” “Build the right team.” Ace smiled. “Now it sounds like a job.” “It sounded like a job when you walked in.” “No. Before, it sounded like research.” Rogue shut off the display. The sudden absence of projected light left only the booth, the glasses and the low controlled movement of Afterlife around them. “No sabotage,” she said. Ace sighed. “No public incident.” Mai nodded. “No stolen prototype rolling through Watson.” Ace looked at her. “That feels unnecessarily specific.” “It became necessary while you were looking at the transport cradle.” “I was assessing options.” “You were calculating whether it would fit through the Afterlife entrance.” “It wouldn’t.” Rogue stared at her. “Probably.” Mai placed her cup down with deliberate care. “We will speak with Kiro and determine whether the missing architecture leaves a recoverable trail.” Rogue nodded. “If it doesn’t?” “Then we identify where the trail was deliberately broken.” “And if that requires going inside?” Ace answered before Mai could. “We go inside.” Mai turned toward her. Ace lifted one shoulder. “We were both thinking it.” “We were.” “See? Efficient.” Rogue’s gaze moved between them. For a moment, Ace wondered whether she was thinking about the missing third presence again, or measuring what changed when the Triad’s usual shape contracted around a job rather than expanding. Then Rogue reached for her glass. “One more thing.” Ace waited. “The people behind this project may not agree on what they have.” Mai went still. Rogue continued. “Do not assume the engineers, managers, consultants and executives are protecting the same truth. You may find several.” “That is what concerns you,” Mai said. “It is what makes the current intelligence worthless.” Ace frowned. “If nobody agrees, how do we know which one is the lie?” Rogue looked at her over the rim of the glass. “You don’t.” Mai’s attention returned to the dark display as though she could still see the contradictory layers hanging above it. “No,” she said quietly. “We determine which version has hardware behind it.” Rogue’s eyes settled on her. “And how much.” The music shifted. A deeper beat rolled through the floor. Somewhere behind Ace, a bottle broke and nobody important reacted. Ace slid out of the booth, boots reaching the floor after an undignified fraction of a second she chose not to acknowledge. Mai rose beside her. Rogue remained seated. “Bring me an answer I can use.” Mai adjusted one sleeve. “We will bring you the most accurate answer the evidence supports.” Ace glanced up at her. “That was almost comforting.” “It was not intended to be.” Rogue’s small smile appeared and vanished. Ace turned toward the Afterlife floor. The room noticed them leaving, too. At the edge of the booth, Mai touched Ace’s shoulder lightly enough that anyone else might have mistaken it for navigation through the crowd. Ace stopped. Mai looked back once at Rogue, then at the dark display. “She already knows the project exists,” she said. Ace nodded. “She wants to know if she should be afraid of it.” “No.” Mai’s eyes sharpened, silver-blue becoming precise beneath the club light. “She wants to know when everyone else should be.” Ace considered the distinction. Then she smiled without humor. “Right.” They moved into the crowd. Behind them, Rogue’s booth remained the still point around which Afterlife arranged its noise. Ahead waited Kiro, a missing network and a Militech project that seemed to become more complete every time someone described it to a less technical audience. They did not yet have a target. They had something more dangerous. A precise question. **What development stage had Militech actually reached?** --- ## CHAPTER 2 — THE MISSING NETWORK The Safehouse was too quiet for Kiro. She noticed it before the door had finished opening. Her attention moved through the entryway in quick layers: Ace sitting sideways on the edge of the main table, one boot hooked around the lower support; Mai standing beside the technical display; three inactive work surfaces where somebody would normally have left something warm, dangerous or both; no low pressure in the air announcing Shammy’s presence before sight did; no Brenda under an open machine panel insisting she had only removed the parts that were already unnecessary. Kiro stopped just inside. “This is wrong.” Ace looked up from her drink. “Good evening to you too.” “No, the room.” Kiro let the door close behind her. “It has too much room in it.” “That is usually how rooms work.” “Not this one.” Mai crossed the distance between them before Kiro could turn the observation into a technical complaint. Kiro’s pale silver-blonde hair had been tied back with whatever had been nearest when Mai’s message arrived. Faded synthetic streaks caught the Safehouse light in uneven fragments, one side carrying more old blue than the other. She wore three layers despite the mild night, two of them apparently selected for pockets, and had pushed both sleeves high enough to expose the signal-path tattoos along her forearms. She looked tired. Not badly tired. Kiro tired. Which meant she had probably slept, but not in a sequence anyone else would have recognized as deliberate. Mai touched two fingers beneath her chin, looked into her eyes for one quiet second, then kissed her. It was not a ceremonial greeting. It was familiar, warm and brief enough to leave Kiro leaning toward the space after Mai withdrew. Ace watched over the rim of her cup. “Should I give you two another minute?” Kiro turned her head. “You are sitting on the table.” “I can sit somewhere else.” “You would still be here.” “True.” Mai’s hand remained lightly against Kiro’s side. Kiro covered it with her own for one quiet beat before the work claimed both of them again. “You came quickly.” “You sent me six incompatible Militech documents and wrote, ‘Do not begin without us.’” Kiro looked up at her. “That is not a normal invitation.” “It was intended to prevent you from beginning without us.” “I noticed.” “Did it work?” Kiro considered the question seriously enough to become suspicious. “Define beginning.” Ace lowered her cup. Mai closed her eyes for one second. “I opened the files,” Kiro admitted. “I did not touch Militech.” “That pause contained a great deal of legal interpretation,” Ace said. “There are no laws involved yet.” “That is exactly how these nights start.” Kiro moved farther into the room. The quiet became more obvious as she crossed the main room. Shammy’s absence changed the pressure of the space; Brenda’s removed its unfinished mechanical conversations. Kiro usually arrived after everyone else. Tonight she had reached a room waiting for its population. She set a compact equipment bag beside the technical station. “Where is everyone?” “Still where they were when Mai messaged you,” Ace said. “Shammy, Panam and Brenda are on the courier route. Iris is aboard Aureate II.” “I knew that.” “You asked.” “I asked why the room feels like somebody ran a population-reduction algorithm.” Ace tapped the black leather collar at her throat. “Shammy makes every room feel louder.” “Not with sound,” Kiro said. “No.” Kiro glanced once toward the wide couch, then turned back to the display. “Show me the lies.” Mai activated the projection. Rogue’s source fragments appeared above the table in the same constellation she had used at Afterlife, though with identifying marks removed and several access trails replaced by plain provenance tags. Procurement records shifted beside executive summaries. Incomplete diagrams hovered near timelines that disagreed about whether the project had barely begun or had already entered validation. Kiro’s shoulders lowered. Her scattered attention converged on the files, but she did not touch them immediately. She walked once around the projection, stopped beside a funding brief, then compared it with the engineering fragment beneath it. “Who assembled this?” “Rogue,” Mai said. “From whose sources?” “Multiple.” Kiro pulled the engineering record closer. “They do not share a weather system. Engineering has been dried until only review-safe facts remain. The funding brief is trying to become warm by repetition.” Ace leaned toward Mai. “I understand every word separately.” Kiro spread the timelines apart. “Approved work becomes completed work. Ordered hardware becomes existing hardware. A scheduled demonstration becomes proof that somebody already knows what it demonstrates.” “Consultants,” Ace said. “That word is doing too much work.” “It usually bills by the hour.” Mai indicated the covered assembly. “Rogue wants engineering reality. Not funding status, executive confidence or projected capability.” “Those may be four different systems,” Kiro said. “We know.” “They are making incompatible statements occupy one project identity.” Kiro enlarged the visible mechanical coupling, then stopped. “And I am not inventing material properties because the silhouette looks expensive.” Mai’s mouth moved faintly. “You did the approving expression,” Kiro said. “I did not.” Ace pointed between them. “She did.” Kiro collapsed the image and moved to the procurement records. The speed increased gradually. Not random. Not frantic. She built categories as she worked, separating shielding components from storage, storage from signal processing, signal processing from mechanical fabrication. Items that appeared unrelated moved together beneath her hands until a different kind of architecture began to form—not the system Militech claimed to be building, but the infrastructure around the effort. Ace left the edge of the table and came closer. “What are you doing?” “Looking at what they needed before they knew what they wanted.” “That sounds backwards.” “Development often is.” Kiro opened a set of storage purchases. “High-density local arrays. Shielded enclosures. Short-path optical transfer. Redundant local power conditioning.” Mai selected one of the purchase destinations. “Different facilities.” “On paper.” “You think they were consolidated?” “I think some of these were ordered through places that do not use them.” Ace looked at the destination list. “Militech owns enough buildings to lose a tank in the accounting.” “They do not lose tanks,” Mai said. “They classify them as underutilized mobile assets.” Ace looked at her. “That was a joke.” “No.” Kiro made a small sound of recognition. “There.” A procurement chain expanded. The original request named a general R&D modernization budget. The purchase moved through two internal cost centers, changed project designation, lost its original technical description and ended at a facility identified only by a numerical code. Mai leaned nearer. “What did you see?” “The missing return path.” Ace folded her arms. “Explain that one as though I have only stabbed three networks.” Kiro pulled the procurement route into a straight sequence. “This hardware goes somewhere. That part is ordinary. Once installed, it should produce something—maintenance traffic, service contracts, diagnostic updates, access requests, staff support, replacement cycles, storage growth. Systems breathe even when nobody wants them to.” “Shammy language,” Ace said. “No. Signal language.” “They overlap.” “Sometimes.” Kiro highlighted the final facility code. “This stops.” “At the building?” Mai asked. “At the cost center. After delivery, the equipment disappears from the normal service ecology.” Ace stared at the blank space beyond the last record. “Could Militech simply be hiding it?” “Yes.” “That sounded too easy.” “It is easy. The interesting part is how.” Kiro opened another group of purchases, then another. Different suppliers. Different project descriptions. The same terminating code. “Shielded storage arrives there. Local compute arrives there. Physical security upgrades arrive there. Specialist cooling arrives there. Then none of it generates ordinary network support.” Mai’s eyes narrowed. “Air-gapped.” “Maybe.” “Maybe?” Ace echoed. “Air gap is not a magic word. People say air-gapped when they mean ‘we put the important machine behind a different login.’” “And this?” Kiro hesitated. Her fingers stopped moving. “This looks like somebody wanted the building to stop existing digitally after the front door.” The room became quieter around the words. Ace looked at the facility code again. “Can you find it?” “Probably.” “How long?” Kiro gave her a look. Mai intervened. “Without touching Militech.” Kiro’s eyes shifted toward her. “I heard the condition the first time.” “You redefined beginning.” “That was a separate philosophical issue.” “Kiro.” “I can find it without entering their network.” Ace leaned toward Mai. “She said entering. Not touching.” “I noticed.” Kiro began working before either could object. She did not jack into the Safehouse systems. This was shallower work, distributed through legal records, contract mirrors, municipal infrastructure feeds, leaked procurement caches and the less respectable parts of the netrunner community where information existed because somebody had noticed that it should not. Her hands moved through the display while her gaze periodically unfocused—not absence, but partial immersion through local interface overlays. “Militech does not own the ground directly,” she said. Mai watched the paths forming. “Lease shell?” “Three of them. One holds the building. One handles utilities. One exists only to pay a private maintenance firm that appears to service six sites but has employees physically present at one.” “Which one?” “The one we want.” Ace shifted closer. A map opened over the table. Night City unfolded in layered infrastructure: roads, buried utilities, corporate property lines, municipal service access, private transit routes. Kiro moved away from the obvious Militech zones and toward a sparse industrial district where corporate ownership fragmented into warehouses, fabrication blocks and facilities designed to look less important than they were. One building pulsed faintly. It did not carry Militech markings in the public layer. The registered tenant conducted materials reliability research and industrial impact simulation. Ace read the description. “That sounds exactly like something built to stop a heavy vehicle.” “It also sounds like testing pavement,” Kiro said. “Corporate balance.” Mai expanded the satellite image. The facility occupied a long, low structure surrounded by a secondary fence and several service buildings. It lacked the visible defensive architecture of a major Militech site. No towers. No obvious heavy emplacements. No large vehicle yard. The absence made it more interesting. “How certain are you?” Mai asked. “Of the building? Seventy.” “Of the network isolation?” Kiro looked at the map without answering. Mai waited. Kiro opened a second overlay. This one showed data infrastructure rather than property. Fiber trunks ran beneath the industrial district. Corporate lines divided and rejoined. Private relays appeared as narrow illuminated channels. Wireless traffic hovered above the map in fluctuating layers. The suspected facility was dark. Not completely. Nothing occupied Night City without emitting something. Public utilities reported. Security vendors exchanged maintenance states. Employees carried devices. Vehicles requested routing and access. A building could lower its profile, but silence required work. This one had a clean administrative connection serving the tenant company, ordinary enough to support payroll, communications and compliance reporting. Beyond that, nothing. No high-capacity Militech trunk. No encrypted corporate backhaul. No burst traffic matching local R&D workloads. No periodic replication to larger storage systems. No remote diagnostic exchange appropriate to the hardware delivered there. Kiro stared at it. The technical display reflected pale lines across her eyes. “There should be weather,” she said. Ace did not interrupt this time. “There is always weather. Even a closed system leaves pressure at the edges. People ask for access. Files move in and out. Technicians complain. Backups happen somewhere. Somebody forgets a rule and connects the wrong diagnostic tool. Something leaks heat into the network around it.” Mai looked at the dark facility. “And this does not.” “It has an office network wearing a company costume. Nothing behind it.” “Meaning the real development environment is local.” “Or nonexistent.” Ace tapped the building. “Hardware went there.” “Yes.” “People went there?” Kiro opened personnel records. “Some.” “How many?” “Not enough for the project they are advertising.” Mai studied the list. “Unless most of the work is performed elsewhere and this is only a secured integration site.” “Or a storage site,” Kiro said. “Or a presentation-unit assembly site. Or a place where failed branches go when management is not ready to call them failed.” Ace looked from one to the other. “This is why Rogue hates the answer.” “We do not have one yet,” Mai said. Kiro pulled up a small cluster of messages. They were not Militech communications. They came from the informal contact mesh she maintained among runners, repair specialists, data brokers and people who made a living noticing when systems behaved unlike themselves. No names appeared in the projection. Only time stamps, trust markers and stripped content. Mai glanced at her. “You asked already.” “Before you messaged me.” “You said you had not touched Militech.” “I did not.” “You asked your contacts about Militech.” “I asked whether anyone had seen a building with no weather.” Ace’s mouth curved. “How often does that question produce a useful answer?” “Often enough that people stopped asking me what I mean.” Kiro opened the first response. **Saw a procurement ghost in that district six months ago. Shielded racks, no service loop. Assumed black lab or somebody hiding tax exposure.** The second: **Two architecture contractors went dark for eleven weeks. Came back with clean accounts and no project history. Both refuse local Militech work now.** The third contained only a short note. **There is a Militech site that is not a Militech site. Local net only. Do not look from outside twice.** Ace read it. “Friendly.” “It is good advice.” “Have you looked twice?” Kiro did not answer. Mai turned toward her fully. “Kiro.” “I looked once from three different directions.” “That is not better.” “It is technically not twice.” Ace moved a hand between them. “I feel responsible for saying this sounds exactly like something I would argue.” Mai kept her gaze on Kiro. “What did you find?” “Nothing.” “Nothing because it is isolated?” “Nothing because it is clean.” Kiro closed the public map and opened a narrow spectrum view assembled from several passive observations. “The administrative network behaves normally. Too normally, but not impossibly. Building access reports to the shell company. Utilities report through standard systems. External cameras use a private security vendor. None of it connects to Militech.” “Could the contact be wrong?” Mai asked. “Yes.” “Could the hardware have been redirected elsewhere?” “Yes.” “Could the facility be unrelated?” “Yes.” Ace sighed. “We are making excellent progress.” Kiro sharpened the spectrum view around the site. “One of my contacts tracked a technician who used to maintain hardened local clusters. Not a runner. Infrastructure. Very boring, very expensive.” “Alive?” Ace asked. “Yes.” “Good.” “He spent four months assigned to this facility through a subcontractor. During that time, his normal corporate credentials were suspended rather than extended.” Mai understood first. “They did not want his usual access identity crossing into the site.” Kiro nodded. “When he came back, he had a new retinal certificate, two sealed settlement payments and a contractual record saying he had performed environmental-compliance testing.” Ace looked again at the building description. “Materials reliability.” “Exactly.” Mai enlarged the facility footprint. “What kind of local architecture?” “He would not say.” “You spoke with him?” “My contact did.” “And?” “He said the place had two networks. One for people who needed to believe they worked in a normal building. One that never acknowledged the first existed.” Ace smiled slowly. “That is our missing network.” Kiro did not smile back. “It is a missing network.” “Difference?” “We still do not know what is inside it.” “The project.” “Maybe.” “The prototype.” “Maybe.” “The answer Rogue wants.” Kiro turned toward her. “Maybe.” Ace raised both hands. “I understand. No inventing material properties from expensive silhouettes.” “Good.” “I still think it is there.” “So do I.” The admission landed more heavily than the argument. Mai looked at Kiro. “How strongly?” Kiro returned to the projection. “Enough that I would go.” Mai’s expression changed very little. Ace saw it anyway. Kiro did too. The air between them shifted from analysis to consequence. Mai reached across the display and closed half the open data paths, reducing the problem from a spreading mesh to the building, the terminating procurement code and the blank space where the local system should have touched the wider world. “What would you need?” “Physical proximity first.” “To confirm?” “To listen properly. The outer edge may leak enough to tell me whether the internal system is active.” “And if it does not?” Kiro looked at the building. “A local access point.” Ace pushed away from the table. “So we go inside.” Mai did not respond immediately. She studied the facility with the patience she gave problems that might kill someone she cared about. Kiro waited. Ace did not. “What?” “We do not yet know enough to plan an entry.” “We know where the door is.” “We know where several doors appear to be.” “Same beginning.” “No.” Kiro lifted one hand. “Mai is right.” Ace looked betrayed. Kiro continued before she could object. “If the system is actually isolated, I cannot shape the inside from here. I cannot open routes, suppress cameras, monitor security movement or tell you which access point is real. We would be entering a building designed by people who specifically did not want a runner outside it to matter.” Ace’s smile returned. “A building built to be stabbed.” Kiro stared at her. “What?” “Nothing.” Mai folded the facility data into a planning layer. “We perform physical reconnaissance before discussing entry.” Kiro nodded. “We also need to know whether the local network has any removable transfer process.” “Data courier?” Ace asked. “Possibly. Air-gapped does not mean nothing enters or leaves. It means transfer is controlled physically or through a narrow one-way mechanism.” Mai began listing possibilities. “Encrypted storage rotation. Optical transfer. Sealed maintenance packages. Dedicated personnel.” “Or a temporary bridge opened on schedule,” Kiro said. “Could we use it?” “If it exists and if I know when and if it connects to the useful segment and if it does not incinerate unauthorized hardware.” Ace counted on her fingers. “So almost definitely.” “No.” “Your tone says maybe.” “My tone says you heard the nouns and ignored the conditions.” Mai interrupted before they could build momentum. “How did Rogue’s people miss the facility?” Kiro glanced at the source fragments. “They were searching for project data.” “And you were searching for absence.” “Yes.” “Could someone else make the same connection?” “Yes.” “How soon?” Kiro’s gaze shifted toward the muted contact messages. “That depends on whether they know which procurement ghosts matter.” “Do your contacts?” “One knows the facility is strange. One knows hardened local hardware went there. One knows staff were compartmentalized. Nobody had all three.” “Until you asked.” Kiro became still. Ace saw the moment she understood the concern. “Did you expose the pattern?” “No names. No project identifier. Different questions to different people.” “Could they correlate the questions?” “Not unless they compare them.” “Will they?” “Probably not.” “That is not the same as no.” “No.” Mai’s attention stayed on her. “Close the inquiry.” Kiro opened her mouth. Mai did not raise her voice. “Kiro.” The protest changed shape before leaving. “I need one response.” “From whom?” “The contact who warned me not to look twice.” “No.” “She may know whether the local system has a physical maintenance cycle.” “You have already looked through three directions and asked enough questions to assemble a target Rogue’s people missed.” “That is why one more answer matters.” “That is why one more question may become visible.” Kiro’s jaw tightened. Kiro held Mai’s gaze. The argument was old enough that neither needed to mistake refusal for dismissal. That made it harder. Ace remained quiet. Kiro looked at the facility again. “If we go in without knowing the maintenance cycle, we may be forcing a physical breach that was unnecessary.” “If we continue signaling interest, there may be no quiet facility left to enter.” “There is already no quiet facility.” “There is a facility that does not yet know we have identified it.” Kiro rubbed one thumb across the edge of a tattoo at her opposite wrist. A small grounding motion. Not overload. Restraint. Mai saw it. Her voice softened without losing structure. “We will not enter blind. We will observe the site physically. You will listen from the perimeter. We will build the next decision from what is there, not from one more contact who may already have told us everything she safely can.” Kiro looked at her. The room remained suspended around them. Ace waited long enough that the waiting itself became support rather than impatience. Finally Kiro closed the contact window. “All right.” Mai did not thank her as though obedience were the point. She touched Kiro’s wrist, directly over the movement that had stopped. Kiro turned her hand beneath Mai’s and held on for one second. Then the technical problem reclaimed them. Ace exhaled. “Good. Now we can discuss who gets to stab the air gap.” “Nobody stabs an air gap,” Kiro said. “Metaphorically.” “Still no.” Mai highlighted the route from the industrial district to the facility. “Before team selection, we need to define the vulnerability created by the local access.” Kiro pulled her hand back from Mai’s only because she needed both hands for the projection. “If I connect inside, I may be able to control local systems.” “May?” “If the development environment shares infrastructure with security. It might not.” “Assume it does not,” Mai said. Kiro nodded. “Then the team gets me to the useful segment, and while I am inside it, I cannot guarantee support outside it.” Ace’s expression became more serious. “How deep?” “I do not know.” “How long?” “I do not know.” “Can you come out quickly?” Kiro hesitated. Mai’s eyes sharpened. “That answer matters.” “It depends on the architecture.” “Kiro.” “I am not avoiding the question. A local document store is easy. A segmented development environment with active counter-intrusion and physical transfer controls is not. If the project data is split across branches, I may need to stay long enough to understand which version is real.” Ace looked at the contradicting reports. “And if the system notices you?” “It will.” Not _might_. Will. Ace’s attention settled fully on her. Kiro continued. “A good isolated system assumes anyone inside it is supposed to be there. A serious isolated system assumes authorized people are still dangerous. If this is protecting Militech black development, it will monitor behavior, not just credentials.” “Can it hurt you?” “Yes.” The simplicity of the answer changed the room. Mai’s hand remained near Kiro’s, no longer touching. “What form?” “Trace feedback. Interface attack. Sensory flooding. Forced disconnect. Hardware lock. Depends on how paranoid they are and how much they are willing to do to their own staff.” “Militech,” Ace said. “Yes.” “So very.” “Yes.” Ace looked toward the hall that led to the equipment room. “We need Reyes.” Kiro’s eyes moved to her. The response was small. Too small for surprise. Too immediate for neutrality. Mai noticed. Ace absolutely noticed. Kiro looked back at the display as though the facility had developed a new and urgent detail. Mai spoke with careful calm. “Why Reyes?” Ace did not look away from Kiro. “Because I cannot stay still beside her if the building starts moving against us.” “You were never going to stay still,” Kiro said. “No.” Ace pointed at the map. “If you are connected, somebody has to own the room around you. Mai has the whole operation. I have the parts that need to stop existing elsewhere.” Kiro’s mouth shifted. “And Reyes?” “Reyes knows when a person saying ‘I’m fine’ is lying.” “I do not lie about that.” Ace looked at Mai. Mai looked at Kiro. Kiro’s expression hardened. “I make context-dependent assessments.” “Reyes,” Ace repeated. Kiro crossed her arms. “That is not an argument.” “It is a complete argument.” Mai let the silence expose what none of them needed explained. Reyes was not a stranger to Kiro’s limits, and Kiro did not doubt what Reyes would do when those limits became physical. The objection was not lack of trust. It was that the trust already had consequences. Ace watched the understanding move across Kiro’s face. Kiro tried once more. “Reyes is not a netrunner support specialist.” “No,” Mai said. “She is better for this.” Kiro turned to her. Mai continued. “She will not attempt to manage the network through you. She will manage the physical conditions that allow you to work.” “That sounds extremely like something she would say.” “Because it is accurate.” “And irritating.” “Often the same thing.” Ace smiled into her cup. Kiro looked between them. “You discussed this before I arrived.” “We did not know about the facility before you arrived,” Mai said. “You discussed Reyes.” Ace answered. “We discuss Reyes.” Kiro stared at her. Ace’s smile widened. “The operational need is clear. Once Kiro connects, the team requires someone who can hold her immediate space, read physical decline and provide ranged support if Ace must move away from the access point.” Kiro looked back at the facility. The tips of two fingers pressed into the fabric over her opposite arm. This time the motion was not grounding. It was calculation. Or an attempt to make calculation occupy all available space. Ace stepped beside her. “You trust her.” Kiro did not answer immediately. “Yes.” “You know she will pull you out if she has to.” “Yes.” “You hate that.” “Yes.” Ace nodded. “Perfect.” “That is not what perfect means.” “It is for this job.” Kiro glanced at Mai. Mai’s silver-blue eyes held no teasing. She knew what Reyes meant to Ace, what Reyes’s presence did to Kiro and why the mission needed both truths at once. Nothing in that threatened the structure already between them. Kiro exhaled. “Call her.” Ace’s brows lifted. “That was easy.” “No, it was correct.” “Frequently confused.” Kiro pointed at her. “You are not allowed to tell Reyes I said that.” “That you trust her?” “That she is correct.” Mai touched the control that stored the facility map in a restricted planning layer. “She will infer it.” “She always does.” The words came out with more familiarity than Kiro intended. The room caught them. Kiro closed her eyes. Ace made a soft, delighted sound. “No.” “I said nothing.” “You made a sound.” “It was an involuntary response to useful intelligence.” Mai’s mouth curved. Kiro looked at her in betrayal. “You too?” “I said nothing.” “You have the expression.” “What expression?” “The one where you have become extremely calm because Amber is trying to happen before she exists.” Ace nearly dropped her cup. Mai’s eyebrows rose. “That is an imaginative accusation.” “It is accurate.” “Noted.” “No. Not noted.” Ace recovered enough to set the cup down. “I think the empty Safehouse is improving everyone.” Kiro turned away from both of them and began closing the remaining data windows with unnecessary firmness. The facility remained at the center. A long, low building inside a pocket of disciplined silence. Hardware had gone in. People had gone in. Whatever they built there did not report to the wider Militech network, did not breathe through normal support channels and did not leave enough weather at the edges to reveal its shape. Rogue had asked for a development stage. The answer sat somewhere inside a system specifically designed to ensure that nobody outside could ask it the question. Mai secured the last of Kiro’s contact traces and transferred the planning layer to an isolated Safehouse partition. “No further external queries.” Kiro sighed. “Yes.” “Physical reconnaissance first.” “Yes.” “No approaching the facility alone.” Kiro turned. “I was not going to.” Mai waited. Kiro’s eyes narrowed. “I was not.” Ace looked at the ceiling. “We should call Reyes very soon.” Mai took out her phone. Kiro watched her thumb move across the interface. The charge beneath her irritation had nowhere useful to go. Not yet. Mai sent the message. For several seconds, nothing changed. Then her display answered. Mai read it. Ace leaned closer. Kiro remained where she was, as though moving toward them would constitute an admission. “What did she say?” Ace asked. Mai looked at Kiro. Kiro’s attention fixed on her despite every effort to appear occupied by the map. Mai allowed one beat of silence. Then: “She is on her way.” The facility pulsed faintly above the table. The Safehouse no longer felt empty. It felt like the moment before a circuit closed. --- ## CHAPTER 3 — FOUR Reyes arrived eleven minutes later. She had already been on the Watson side of the city when Mai’s message reached her. Ace knew because Kiro had checked the time three times without once appearing to look at it. The first had been while rearranging the facility map. The second while telling Mai that the equipment procurement chain should be treated as suggestive rather than definitive. The third had involved no visible interface at all. Kiro had simply gone still for half a second, eyes shifting toward the Safehouse entrance before returning to a storage-delivery record she had already read twice. Ace remained beside the main table and said nothing. She was capable of restraint. Occasionally. Mai stood behind Kiro, one hand resting on the edge of the technical station. She had also noticed every check. Unlike Ace, she possessed the discipline not to look delighted about it. The outer lock recognized Reyes before she touched the panel. The door opened. Reyes stepped inside wearing a dark jacket over practical street armor, red hair tied back far enough to keep it clear of her face. She carried no visible rifle, which meant it was either secured in her vehicle or concealed with enough care that the distinction did not matter yet. Her gaze moved once through the room, finding Ace, Mai, Kiro, the active projection and the conspicuous absence of everyone else. Then she looked directly at Kiro. Not first. Directly. Kiro’s hands stopped over the display. The moment lasted only long enough to become undeniable. Reyes closed the door behind her. “You found something.” Ace smiled. “Hello to you too.” Reyes glanced at her. “You only ask me here this quickly for work, food or exceptionally bad judgment. There is no food.” “There is food.” “There is always food. Nobody is eating it.” Ace considered this. “Fair.” Reyes crossed the room. Mai met her halfway and kissed her cheek. Ace waited until Reyes turned, then stepped into her space without warning and wrapped both arms around her waist. Reyes looked down. Ace looked up. “You took eleven minutes.” “You timed me?” “Kiro did.” Kiro did not turn from the display. “I was monitoring response latency.” Reyes’s eyes moved toward her. “Were you?” “The message contained operational urgency.” “It said, ‘Safehouse. Militech. Come armed.’” Ace released Reyes and stepped back. “Concise.” “It also said not to stop for food,” Reyes continued. Mai looked at Ace. Ace lifted both hands. “We have food.” “That part was mine,” Mai said. Reyes’s gaze remained on Kiro. Kiro finally turned. Nothing in the contact between them was tentative. Their eyes met with the familiarity of an argument resumed rather than introduced. Reyes took the final few steps toward her. “Kiro.” “Reyes.” Ace waited. Nothing else followed. She looked at Mai. Mai did not look back. Ace cleared her throat. Both women ignored her. Reyes examined Kiro’s face for one quiet second longer than the greeting required. “When did you last sleep?” Kiro’s expression changed immediately. Ace covered her mouth with one hand. Mai looked down at the table. “That is not relevant.” “It became relevant when you answered like that.” “I slept.” “When?” “Recently.” Reyes nodded once. “So yesterday.” Kiro folded her arms. “That is an aggressive interpretation of recently.” “It is the accurate one.” “You have been in the building for less than a minute.” “And you are already arguing instead of answering.” “I answered.” “No. You created a category.” Ace made a small, involuntary sound. Kiro pointed at her without looking away from Reyes. “Do not.” “I said nothing.” “You are vibrating.” “I am small. Energy has fewer places to go.” Reyes’s mouth shifted. It was not quite a smile. Kiro saw it anyway. The tension in her shoulders changed—not leaving, but redistributing into something warmer and considerably less manageable. Mai stepped beside the projection. “Before Ace becomes impossible, we should begin.” “I am already impossible.” “Yes.” Reyes removed her jacket and laid it over the back of a chair. Beneath it, the armor was close-fitted and light enough for speed, heavier along the ribs and shoulders. A sidearm rested where her hand could reach it without crossing her body. Kiro’s gaze flicked over the arrangement. Reyes noticed. “Problem?” “No.” “That was fast.” “I know your loadout.” “I changed the shoulder panel.” “I noticed.” Ace leaned toward Mai. “Response latency excellent. She undressed your loadout before you finished taking off the jacket.” Kiro’s head snapped toward her. “That is not what happened.” Reyes glanced down at the armor Kiro had already inventoried. “Close enough.” Mai placed two fingers against Ace’s lips. Ace smiled beneath them. Reyes moved to the table. “Show me.” Mai expanded the facility map until it filled most of the projection space. The industrial district appeared first: fragmented leases, service roads, buried utilities and the long low structure hidden behind shell ownership. Kiro layered the procurement chain over it, then added the clean administrative network and the disciplined absence behind it. Reyes listened without interrupting. That alone differentiated her from most people Ace had brought into technical planning sessions. Reyes did not pretend to understand what had not yet been explained, but neither did she demand that Kiro flatten every concept into something comfortable. Kiro walked through the missing support ecology, the suspended credentials, the shielded hardware and the facility that stopped existing digitally after its public-facing systems. Reyes watched the building. “So we do not know what is inside.” “We know enough to believe the useful network is local,” Kiro said. “That is not what I asked.” Kiro stopped. Ace felt the first small spark of familiar friction. Reyes pointed at the facility footprint. “We know what the company says the building does. We know what hardware entered. We know the useful traffic does not leave. Do we know the internal layout?” “No.” “Personnel count?” “Partially.” “Security strength?” “Only what the shell company reports.” “Which means no.” “It means partially.” “It means their public count is useful only if they are telling the truth.” Kiro’s eyes narrowed. “Yes.” Reyes nodded. “Then we do not know what is inside.” Kiro stared at her for half a beat. Then she turned back to the projection. “No.” The word held no surrender. It held alignment. Mai expanded the known exterior. “The facility presents as a materials-reliability and industrial-impact research site. Security is visible but not excessive. That is unlikely to reflect the interior.” “Any large deliveries after the shielded hardware?” Reyes asked. Kiro pulled up the records. “Several. Most are concealed behind mixed industrial classifications.” “Vehicle access?” “Two service gates. One main loading bay. One smaller enclosed transfer entrance here.” Reyes studied the angle of the roads. “Which one has the least visible traffic?” “The smaller transfer entrance.” “Then it may have the most serious control.” Kiro nodded. “I thought the same.” Their eyes met again. This time the recognition was purely professional for almost two seconds. Then Kiro realized how close Reyes had moved to the projection, their shoulders nearly aligned. She shifted half a step. Not away. Simply enough to make the movement noticeable. Ace noticed. Mai noticed Ace noticing and gently touched the back of her collar before she could say anything. Ace turned her head as far as the collar allowed. “I was not going to.” “You were.” “You cannot prove that.” “I know you.” “So does everyone in this room. That is why this is unfair.” Reyes ignored them. “What does Rogue want?” “The actual development stage of the heavy-assault-vehicle interdiction project,” Mai said. “Not the system?” “The stage.” Reyes looked toward the contradictory timeline documents. “Meaning she does not care whether we can steal it.” “She explicitly prefers that we do not.” Ace crossed her arms. “Rogue has become very limiting.” Reyes continued. “She wants to know whether it can work.” “Whether it is close enough to working that people need to plan around it,” Mai corrected. Reyes read the promotional description. Her expression became flatter with each line. “‘Decisive denial envelope.’” Ace pointed at her. “Exactly.” “What does it do?” “No one agrees,” Kiro said. “Some files imply kinetic defeat. Some describe electronic immobilization. One appears to describe directional energy without identifying either a viable source or an effect mechanism.” Reyes looked at her. “So it stops a heavy assault vehicle by presenting several incompatible threats until the driver becomes confused.” Kiro’s mouth twitched. “That is the best-supported mechanism so far.” There it was. The first shared strike against the project. Small, dry and perfectly timed. Ace looked at Mai again. Ace whispered, “This is material.” “It is planning.” “It can be both.” Reyes shifted her attention to the hardware records. “If the project is real enough to have a physical unit, where is it?” “We do not know,” Kiro said. “Possibly inside. Possibly elsewhere. The visible assembly may only be a presentation shell.” “And what do we know?” Mai answered. “Militech is spending enough money to make the uncertainty strategically relevant. To answer Rogue, Kiro must reach the useful network physically. We cannot assume she can influence the building before that.” Reyes looked at Kiro. “Hostile feedback?” “Assumed.” “Forced lock?” “Yes.” “Bad disconnect?” “Yes.” “And you will keep going after you should stop.” Kiro became still. “You have not seen the network.” “I have seen you.” Reyes did not sharpen the line or soften it. Kiro’s fingers stopped over the display. “That does not mean I will lose judgment.” “No. It means the next layer may look worth more than your condition.” “It may be.” “Yes. Somebody else still has to decide whether you can pay that price.” “You volunteered quickly.” “Ace volunteered me.” “Only because I cannot stay beside you,” Ace said. “Mai has the whole operation. I have the parts trying to reach the room.” Mai stepped closer to the display. “Reyes protects your immediate space and supports Ace when pressure shifts. You report what the system changes, confidence first. Reyes decides whether to move on information she cannot see.” Kiro studied her. “You would do that?” “Yes,” Reyes said. “Why?” “Because I know the difference between you guessing and you warning me.” Kiro looked away first. Mai moved the facility model aside. “Four phases. Approach. Entry. Access. Extraction. Recon comes first. No contact with Militech systems and no repeating passes until the building recognizes the pattern.” Kiro opened her mouth. “No,” Mai said. Reyes’s mouth twitched. Provisional roles appeared over the table. Ace held the forward physical axis, close enough to remain inside the operation rather than becoming a separate one. Reyes controlled the rear and lateral geometry until they reached the access point; after Kiro connected, Kiro’s immediate space became her first responsibility. Mai owned timing, route integrity, mission scope and extraction. Kiro owned the invisible architecture and reported what changed before explaining why. “Assume I cannot open anything,” Kiro said. “The development network may not touch building security.” “Physical entry remains independent of Kiro,” Mai said. Ace smiled. “Finally, a sentence I can use.” Mai brought up a short list of disconnect thresholds rather than letting the discussion become a catalogue of everything the network might do. “Motor loss, repeated language, persistent sensory replacement or interface attack reaching autonomic response,” Kiro said. “I may not recognize motor loss first.” Reyes nodded. “If your hand stops working, you are done.” “I report network condition,” Kiro said. “Reyes reports your physical condition,” Mai said. “I call withdrawal. If communication with me is cut, Reyes calls it.” Kiro turned toward Reyes. Reyes accepted the authority without triumph. “What if I am seconds from the answer?” Kiro asked. “Then you tell me,” Mai said. “I will account for what the answer is worth. You will not define that value alone while the system is inside your nervous system.” The resistance in Kiro’s face eased. “All right.” Mai looked at all three of them. “Clear the main room.” Ace straightened. “Now?” “We need to test the transition into fixed defense.” Kiro frowned. “We do not know the room.” “We know the requirement.” Mai collapsed the facility map. They folded the main room into a temporary problem. The couch shifted toward the kitchen side. Chairs moved against the wall. Ace and Reyes carried two folding ballistic screens out from storage while Mai marked lanes across the reinforced floor with removable tape. Several heavy polymer crates became broken cover. An old maintenance frame and a narrow gap between cabinets created a second approach. The main worktable became Kiro’s fixed access point. Nothing appeared automatically. Every obstacle had weight, scraped the floor and would have to be put back when they finished. Ace looked across the improvised geometry. “What are we building?” “A room nobody likes,” Mai said. “Specific.” “One fixed access point, three approaches and an extraction route narrow enough to become inconvenient.” Reyes adjusted one screen to break the direct line from the main doorway. Ace took the other end without being asked. Kiro walked the resulting space. “This is generous.” “The actual room will be worse,” Mai said. “Good. The model should not make promises.” Reyes tested the screen with one hand. “It moves if someone hits it.” “So does most cover,” Mai said. The arrangement did not resemble a real room. It resembled the dangerous parts of several rooms assembled by hand. That was enough. Ace smiled. “I like this room.” “You like every room after somebody points out it is unsafe,” Mai said. “It is not universally true.” Mai placed a handheld display on the edge of the main worktable. “Kiro, this gives you a basic local feed. Doors, sensor states and movement markers. Nothing predictive.” Kiro picked it up. “What generates the markers?” “I do.” “That means they are not system-derived.” “They are not supposed to be. We are testing communication, not whether I can impersonate Militech software.” Kiro accepted that. Mai had prepared a simple sequence of icons and status changes she could trigger manually. A door could open or close. A camera could disappear. A movement marker could appear with high or low confidence. It was crude. That made it useful. No one could mistake it for the real thing. Ace took a rubber training blade from the equipment they had brought into the cleared space. Reyes cleared her sidearm, verified the chamber with Mai and fitted the dedicated laser-training assembly. “You may need range,” she said. Ace tested the balance of the practice blade. “I have you.” The words came without calculation. Reyes looked at her. “Do not make that an excuse to cross every open lane.” “No promises.” “Then I will mark the floor beside you.” “Affectionately?” “Correctively.” Kiro settled onto the stool at the main worktable. “That is not a reassuring distinction.” “It is to Ace,” Mai said. Mai walked the space once more. “Kiro stays on the terminal. Reyes owns the immediate room. Ace breaks pressure before it reaches them. I call movement and extraction.” “And the threats?” Ace asked. Mai pointed toward three small target lamps she had placed beyond the improvised approaches. “When one lights, assume movement. When it turns red, the threat has a clear line.” Ace stared. “That is disappointingly reasonable.” “We can ask Brenda to construct something unnecessarily dangerous when she returns.” “Excellent.” Mai looked at Kiro. “Do not follow Ace with your eyes. Stay on the feed.” Kiro glanced toward Ace. “I was not going to.” “You were already doing it.” “That was before the exercise.” Reyes moved into position beside the main worktable. Close enough to reach Kiro. Far enough not to obstruct her. Kiro noticed the distance immediately. Ace noticed Kiro noticing. Mai raised one finger before Ace could speak. Ace closed her mouth. “First run,” Mai said. She touched the handheld control. The lamp behind the main doorway turned amber. Kiro saw the matching marker on her screen. “Movement, front approach.” Reyes shifted to cover the line. The light turned red. Ace moved. She crossed the doorway, struck the target with the training blade and continued two steps farther than necessary. Mai lit the second approach. Kiro saw it. Her attention remained on Ace for half a second too long. “Second—” The lamp turned red. Reyes had already begun following Ace’s movement. The angle beside the cabinets opened behind her. Mai ended the run. “Kiro is dead.” Ace turned. “I was winning.” “You were leaving.” “The target was still active.” “It was a lamp.” “It knew what it did.” Kiro looked at the red light beside the cabinets. “I called it late.” “Yes,” Mai said. Reyes lowered the training pistol. “And I followed Ace too far.” Ace pointed at herself. “Because I was winning.” “Because you were outside the space I could cover.” Mai reset the lamps. “Again.” This time Ace shortened her movement. She struck the first target and returned before the second approach activated. Kiro called the status change immediately. “Possible movement, cabinet side. Low confidence.” Reyes adjusted without fully committing. Mai lit the main doorway instead. Reyes corrected cleanly. Then Mai reached over and knocked a metal tool from the edge of the main worktable. It hit the floor behind Kiro with a sharp crack. Kiro turned instinctively. The main lamp went red. Reyes crossed Kiro’s space, caught her at the waist and pulled her away from the exposed side of the bench. The movement lasted less than a second. Kiro stopped speaking. Mai ended the run. Ace lowered the blade very slowly. Reyes released Kiro. “You froze.” “I did not.” “You stopped calling.” “For less than a second.” “Long enough.” Kiro looked down at the place where Reyes’s hand had been. Then back up. “It was an unexpected physical displacement.” “I moved you out of the line.” “I know.” Reyes watched her face. “You could warn me.” “If there is time.” “There was time.” “There may not be next time.” Kiro’s voice sharpened. “Then I need to know how you intend to move me before we are inside the actual room.” Reyes held her gaze. “Fine.” She stepped closer again. “Stand here.” Kiro moved away from the stool. Reyes placed one hand against her side and the other lightly above her elbow. “First toward me. Then behind the cover. Do not fight the first movement.” Kiro looked down at Reyes’s hand. “That sounds simple while nobody is shooting.” “It remains simple while somebody is shooting.” “That is not how shooting works.” “It is how moving you works.” Kiro’s breathing changed. Barely. Reyes noticed. Her grip remained practical. That did not make it neutral. “Ready?” Kiro swallowed. “Yes.” Reyes moved. Fast. Kiro came against her before Reyes redirected her behind the folding screen. The screen shifted slightly when Reyes’s shoulder touched it, steel feet scraping over the concrete. Real weight. Real imbalance. Nothing in the room corrected itself for them. Kiro recovered. “Again.” Ace’s eyebrows climbed. Mai looked at her. Ace lifted both hands. “Nothing.” Reyes repeated the movement. This time Kiro knew the direction and resisted less. “Again,” she said. On the third repetition, Kiro moved with her. Reyes no longer had to pull her balance back into line. Kiro reached the cover already facing the correct direction, one hand finding the edge of the screen without looking. Reyes released her. “That.” Kiro looked up. “Yes.” Neither stepped away immediately. Mai walked back to the control. “Third run.” Ace inhaled. “Do not,” Mai said. “I am standing silently.” “You are standing loudly.” Ace returned to the first approach. Kiro sat at the terminal. Reyes positioned herself beside her. Mai began. The first marker appeared. Kiro called it. Reyes shifted. Ace moved through the line Reyes opened and returned before the second lamp changed. Mai triggered a false status on Kiro’s display without lighting any target. “Possible movement, east side. Low confidence.” Reyes did not overcommit. The target behind Ace turned amber. Reyes covered the crossing before Ace asked. Ace struck and fell back. Mai changed the extraction marker on Kiro’s screen. “Primary route closed,” Kiro said. “Service exit available.” “Confirmed,” Mai answered. Nobody argued. Mai waited another ten seconds, then stepped beside Kiro and tapped twice against the main worktable. It was the agreed signal for interface trouble. Kiro’s right hand tightened around the edge. Reyes saw it. “Kiro.” “I have it.” “Look at me.” Kiro remained focused on the display. Reyes did not raise her voice. “Kiro.” Kiro looked. The delay was small. Still measurable. Reyes checked her pupils, her hand and her orientation. “Continue.” Kiro returned to the feed. Mai let the run continue another eight seconds. “Extract.” Kiro put the display down and stood. Ace cleared the service-side gap. Reyes waited for Kiro to move, then stayed between her and the active approaches. Mai followed last. They crossed the marked exit line. The exercise ended because Mai said it ended. No lights changed automatically. No walls disappeared. They were simply four people standing among dragged screens, stacked crates and an old main worktable. Ace lowered the practice blade. “That worked.” “It was usable,” Mai said. “Your praise overwhelms me.” “It should not.” Reyes looked at Kiro’s right hand. The tension was already easing. “You responded late.” “To the trouble signal.” “To me.” “I responded.” “Late.” “Half a second.” “Yes.” Kiro looked at her. Ace expected another argument. Instead Kiro nodded. “I will improve it.” Reyes’s expression softened. “So will I.” The answer changed the balance. Not _you failed_. Not _I was right_. Both. Kiro’s shoulders lowered. Mai began returning the crates to storage. “We need physical reconnaissance before further drills.” “When?” Reyes asked. “Tomorrow night, assuming Kiro verifies the exterior signal picture without contacting anyone else.” “I can.” Mai looked at her. “Without contacting anyone else.” Kiro sighed. “Yes.” Reyes glanced between them. “What did you do?” “Nothing,” Kiro said. Ace smiled. “She looked once from three directions.” Reyes turned toward Kiro. “That sounds like three times.” “It was one coordinated inquiry.” “You argued that?” “It was technically accurate.” Reyes stared. Kiro folded her arms. Then one corner of Reyes’s mouth lifted. Kiro tried not to smile. Failed. The four of them returned the room to its ordinary state together. The barriers had to be carried. The crates had to be stacked. The old maintenance frame caught against the cabinet and required Ace to kick its base twice before Reyes lifted the other end and freed it. Nothing happened because a control had been touched. The room changed because they changed it. When the last screen was folded against the wall, the space looked plain again. But Ace could still see the structure they had built inside it. Mai at the point where information became decision. Kiro holding the invisible architecture. Reyes protecting the physical space around her while reaching outward toward Ace. Ace at the moving edge, no longer required to cover every opening herself. It was not effortless. It was not complete. It was real. Mai headed toward the kitchen end of the room. “We will review equipment and transport.” Ace followed. At the edge of the cleared space, she looked back. Kiro and Reyes had not moved. Reyes picked up her jacket. Kiro watched her. “You really came armed because Mai wrote it.” Reyes put one arm into the sleeve. “She said Militech.” “That was enough?” “She also said you had found something.” Kiro’s expression shifted. “So that was the urgent part.” Reyes pulled the jacket into place. “That was the part most likely to become urgent.” For once, Kiro did not have an immediate answer. Reyes stepped closer and straightened the edge of Kiro’s rolled sleeve where it had twisted during the drill. Her fingers brushed the signal-path tattoo beneath the fabric. Kiro looked down. Then up. “Sleep tonight,” Reyes said. “That is not operational planning.” “It is now.” “You cannot put sleep into the mission plan.” Mai called from the main room. “I already did.” Kiro closed her eyes. Ace laughed beyond the doorway. Reyes started after them. Kiro caught the back of her jacket between two fingers. Reyes stopped. Kiro released the fabric, but the request had already been made. “Thank you.” Reyes turned. “For coming?” “For not pretending the risk is smaller than it is.” Reyes studied her face. “I would not do that to you.” Kiro nodded. “I know.” Reyes touched two fingers briefly to Kiro’s wrist. “Sleep.” “You are ruining the moment.” “You were going to use the moment to avoid agreeing.” “That is speculation.” “It is pattern recognition.” Kiro’s mouth curved. “Fine.” “Say it.” “I will sleep.” “Tonight.” “I understood the implied parameter.” “Say it.” Kiro stared at her. Reyes waited. “I will sleep tonight.” “Good.” Reyes withdrew her hand and followed the others. At the doorway, she looked back once—not checking whether Kiro obeyed, only leaving the look there for her to choose. Kiro remained beside the cleared training space for three seconds. The folding screens stood against the wall. The crates were stacked. A strip of old tape marked the place where Reyes had pulled her into cover. The real room would be worse. The real network would not stop because Mai ended the exercise. And Reyes would be beside her. Kiro followed. The operation had not begun. The pressure already had. --- ## CHAPTER 4 — HALO While the others cleared the Safehouse for rehearsal and prepared the following night’s recon, the courier run was already carrying three absences east. The road east of Night City had a way of removing unnecessary arguments. Not ending them. Simply stretching the distance between each exchange until even Panam had time to decide whether a response deserved fuel. The courier truck moved through dry country beneath a white afternoon sky, suspension working steadily over patched pavement and old impact damage. Dust followed them in a long pale wake. The city had fallen behind hours earlier, reduced first to towers in the mirrors, then haze, then the knowledge that it remained somewhere beyond the horizon making poor decisions without them. Panam drove. This had never been in question. Brenda occupied the passenger seat with one boot braced near the lower edge of the dash and a tablet balanced against her thigh. The route manifest remained open in one corner. A message thread occupied most of the display. Shammy sat behind them in the widened rear section, long legs angled around equipment cases and sealed cargo containers. Her hair drifted gently around her shoulders despite the truck’s still interior air, responding to the rhythm of the road in ways no suspension system had been designed to explain. Panam glanced toward Brenda. Then at the road. Then toward Brenda again. “You have read that six times.” Brenda did not look up. “It changed.” “The message?” “The context.” “It is a picture of a coolant manifold.” “A very important coolant manifold.” “Is it doing something new?” “No.” “Then the context did not change.” Brenda enlarged the image. Aureate II’s newly refurbished engineering compartment filled the screen. The manifold gleamed under fresh inspection lights, polished enough that it probably had not yet learned what kind of ship it belonged to. Part of Iris’s hand appeared at the edge of the image, one dark nail resting near a diagnostic panel. Beneath it, Iris had written: **No leaks. No pressure instability. One technician already claims the sound is “probably normal,” so I have assigned someone competent.** Brenda’s mouth curved. “She is having a wonderful time.” Panam kept her eyes on the road. “She threatened somebody in the first sentence.” “Technically the second.” “That is what wonderful looks like for Iris?” “That is what relaxation looks like.” Shammy leaned forward between the seats. “Her ship is breathing differently.” Brenda turned halfway around. “You can tell from the picture?” “No.” Shammy considered. “From Iris.” “She sent eight words about a manifold.” “Fourteen,” Panam said. Brenda looked at her. “You counted?” “I was trapped at a border inspection while you read it aloud three times.” “I did not read it aloud three times.” “Twice aloud. Once under your breath.” Shammy’s hair lifted slightly with her amusement. Brenda returned to the message thread. Above the manifold picture were other fragments of Aureate II’s first post-refit voyage: A sunrise caught across the forward observation glass. A table secured for the first proper evening meal aboard. A short video of an automatic door refusing to close until Iris stepped toward it, at which point it obeyed immediately. A photograph of Iris standing on the bridge with her arms folded while two crew members behind her appeared to be reconsidering their professional choices. Brenda had saved that one separately. Twice. She had replied throughout the day with images from the courier route: Panam examining a fuel invoice with open hostility. Shammy holding three different snack packages and apparently listening to all of them before choosing one. A faded roadside sign that promised clean rooms, hot food and reliable braindance connections, of which Panam had declared perhaps half of one claim technically accurate. Brenda had also sent Iris a close view of the truck’s secondary regulator after repairing a minor pressure fault at the first stop. Iris’s response had arrived less than a minute later. **You are supposed to be on a courier run, not adopting another vehicle.** Brenda had answered: **It made a noise.** Iris: **So do you. I have not rebuilt you this week.** Brenda had spent several minutes composing an answer and then deleted all three versions because Panam kept leaning sideways to read them. The truck hit a long rough seam in the road. Shammy’s hair rose and settled around her again. Brenda glanced back. “Does that feel strange?” “What?” “The hair.” Shammy gathered a few pale strands between her fingers. They slipped free and resumed floating with their own slow intent. “Not usually.” “That was not a no.” “It feels like knowing where the edge of my skin is, except farther away.” Panam looked into the rearview mirror. “That explanation did not help.” “It helped me,” Shammy said. “You already understood it.” “Yes.” Panam sighed. Shammy's hand settled against the back of her seat for a moment, fingers close enough to brush Panam's shoulder when the truck shifted. Panam did not look back. She leaned into the contact anyway. The route ahead divided around the remains of an old freight checkpoint. One lane disappeared beneath windblown debris and the rusted frame of a security barrier. Panam took the other without slowing. The sealed cargo behind Shammy shifted against its restraints. Not enough to matter. Shammy turned toward it anyway. “We should stop soon.” “The cargo?” Brenda asked. “Panam.” Panam’s hands tightened almost imperceptibly on the wheel. “I am fine.” Brenda looked at Shammy. Shammy looked at Panam. Panam looked at the road. “No,” Panam said. “No what?” Brenda asked. “Whatever that was.” “I did nothing.” “You looked at each other.” “We often do.” “Not like that.” Shammy’s hair tilted gently toward Panam. Panam noticed in the mirror. “Stop involving your hair.” “I am not.” “Your hair disagrees.” Brenda smiled and returned to the tablet. A new message notification appeared. Her expression changed before she opened it. Panam saw that too. “Manifold?” “No.” “Door?” “No.” “Somebody used the wrong fork and Iris has declared martial law?” Brenda opened the message. It was a photograph from Aureate II’s observation deck. Iris stood near the glass in a dark fitted jacket, one hand resting against the rail. Beyond her, ocean stretched beneath a sky turning gold at the edges. The angle suggested a crew member had taken it rather than Iris herself. She was not smiling. Iris rarely smiled for photographs unless Brenda was behind the camera. But her posture was loose. Her eyes were directed toward the horizon rather than toward whoever held the device. She looked rested in a way she almost never allowed herself to look in Night City. The accompanying text was brief. **You would like this view.** Brenda’s thumb stopped above the screen. Shammy’s attention moved from Panam to her. The hair around her shoulders settled. Panam waited. Brenda enlarged the picture. Then returned it to normal size. Then enlarged it again. “You have read that four times,” Panam said. “It is five words.” “Exactly.” Brenda lowered the tablet. The road continued beneath them, long and empty. “I would.” Panam glanced at her. “What?” “Like the view.” “I assumed.” Brenda looked out through the windshield. Dry scrub. Broken fencing. The distant skeleton of a transmission tower. Heat moving above the road in transparent waves. Not ocean. Not Aureate II. Not Iris. “She should have gone with Iris,” Panam said. Brenda’s head turned sharply. “I wanted to come.” “I know.” “Shammy needed—” “I did not need you,” Shammy said from behind them. Brenda turned farther. Shammy’s expression remained soft. “I wanted you here.” “That is different.” “Yes.” Brenda looked between her and Panam. Panam kept her gaze forward. “You can want to be here and still wish you were there.” “That is inefficient.” “Feelings usually are.” “I have noticed.” The road began climbing toward a low ridge. Panam eased the truck into a slower gear. Brenda held the tablet against her thigh. “Iris needed that voyage.” “Yes,” Panam said. “She needed to see Aureate II after the refit. Properly. Not one systems test at a time while somebody waits for her signature.” “Yes.” “And somebody had to make sure you two did not deliver the cargo to the wrong continent.” Panam looked at her. “We are driving east.” “Exactly. Dangerous beginning.” Shammy leaned forward again. “I know which continent we are on.” “See?” Panam said. “Redundant expertise.” Brenda smiled, but it did not last. She looked down at Iris’s photograph. The gold light across the observation glass made the ship seem farther away than the actual distance between them. “I miss her.” The words arrived quietly enough that the truck almost carried them away. Panam did not answer immediately. Neither did Shammy. Brenda continued before either could make the admission gentler than it was. “I knew I would. Obviously. Two weeks is not…” She stopped and looked at the image again. “It is not even long.” “No,” Panam said. “But the Safehouse was already wrong before we left. Then she left in the other direction. And every time something happens, I reach for her before I remember she is not beside me.” Shammy’s hair began to move. Not violently. It lifted from her shoulders in slow, luminous arcs, pale strands rising around her head and spreading outward. The road light caught them until each strand seemed edged in soft silver. Brenda did not notice yet. Her attention remained on Iris. “She sends me everything,” she said. “The doors. The manifold. A crew member who apparently believes containment seals are a matter of interpretation. I know exactly how the voyage is going.” Panam’s gaze flicked toward the rearview mirror. Then back to the road. A smile appeared. Small. Dangerous. Brenda kept speaking. “And it makes it worse.” Shammy’s hair rose higher. The strands formed a wide, imperfect halo around her head, drifting outward as though Brenda’s longing had altered the gravity inside the truck. Shammy looked at Brenda with such open tenderness that the effect became almost painfully sincere. Panam reached slowly toward the center console. Brenda remained unaware. “I am proud of her,” she said. “She looks like she belongs there. She does belong there. I would never ask her not to go.” Shammy’s halo brightened in the afternoon light. Panam’s fingers found her phone. She angled it toward the space between the seats. Shammy noticed. Her eyes shifted toward Panam. Panam raised one finger to her lips. Shammy’s hair responded with a small additional lift. Panam took the picture. The shutter sound was disabled. Brenda kept going. “I just…” She exhaled. “I would like one night where I do not have to sleep without her.” Panam took a second picture. This time Brenda heard the tiny artificial focus tone. She stopped. Her eyes narrowed. “What did you do?” “Nothing.” “You moved like a person doing something.” “I adjusted the route.” “With your phone?” “Modern truck.” Brenda turned toward Shammy. Then froze. Shammy sat behind them surrounded by a nearly perfect halo of pale floating hair, face warm with concern and affection. Brenda stared. Shammy looked upward as though trying to see the full shape. “Oh.” Panam took a third picture. Brenda snapped around. “Panam.” “That one had your expression.” “Delete it.” “No.” “Panam.” “No.” “You photographed me during an emotional systems failure.” “You were not failing.” “I admitted vulnerability in a moving vehicle.” “Yes.” “That has historically been considered unsafe.” “Not by anyone who likes you.” Brenda held out her hand. “Phone.” Panam increased speed slightly as the truck crested the ridge. “You are going to need a longer arm.” “I can reach the controls.” “And I can stop the truck.” “Shammy.” Shammy’s halo tilted toward Brenda. “Yes?” “Help.” “With what?” “The phone.” Shammy looked at Panam. Panam looked back through the mirror. Shammy considered both sides. Then her hair slowly curved toward Brenda as though sympathy possessed direction. Panam laughed. “That is not a vote.” “It may be,” Shammy said. Brenda climbed halfway out of her seat. Panam pointed toward the road. “Sit down.” “Delete the photograph.” “No.” “You took it without consent.” “I took a picture of Shammy.” “I am in it.” “You are foreground context.” “I am the entire emotional crime scene.” Shammy leaned forward far enough to see the phone’s screen. Panam angled it toward her. Brenda stopped trying to reach across. Shammy studied the image. Her expression softened further. “It is beautiful.” Brenda looked betrayed. “You are a glowing witness for the prosecution.” “It shows how much you love Iris.” “It shows me making a face while your hair attempts sainthood.” Shammy touched the halo around her. “I do not think hair can become a saint.” “Yours is submitting paperwork.” Panam laughed again. Brenda sank back into her seat. “Delete it.” Panam’s thumb moved across the screen. Brenda saw. “You are sending it.” “Yes.” “To whom?” Panam did not answer. Brenda grabbed her tablet. The message notification appeared almost immediately. A new image had entered the thread with Iris. Panam had captured the moment perfectly. Brenda sat in the passenger seat turned halfway toward the rear, tablet still in one hand, face open in a way she would normally have hidden before anyone could preserve it. Behind her, Shammy watched with quiet affection, pale hair suspended around her head in a broad halo illuminated by the road light. The edge of Panam’s grin appeared in the corner of the image through the mirror. Beneath it, Panam had written: **Your fiancée is coping magnificently.** Brenda stared at the message. “You used my thread.” “You left it open.” “That is not permission.” “You told Iris I could contact her if something important happened.” “This was not what I meant.” Shammy leaned between the seats to see the tablet. “It was important.” “You are both impossible.” “Wrong group,” Panam said. “Ace is somewhere else.” Brenda began typing. Stopped. Deleted it. Typed again. The message changed to **Iris is replying** before Brenda had decided what defense she intended to mount. Three small dots remained on the screen. Brenda watched them. Panam watched Brenda. Shammy watched both. Her halo had begun to settle but remained visible, soft arcs still framing her head. The response arrived. First, a heart reaction appeared beneath the photograph. Then: **I miss you too. More than I intended to admit before dinner.** Brenda went still. A second message followed. **Shammy, your halo is beautiful.** Shammy’s hair rose again immediately. Panam made a delighted sound. Brenda covered her face with one hand. “This is now self-reinforcing.” Shammy smiled. A third message appeared. **Panam, send me the original. Brenda will attempt to destroy the evidence.** Panam replied before Brenda could move. **Already backed up.** “Traitor.” “Professional.” Brenda reached for the phone again. Panam held it against the far side of the steering wheel. “Passenger discipline.” “You violated passenger dignity.” “You did that yourself.” “I was speaking privately.” “In a truck with two other people.” Shammy leaned between the seats. “And with Iris, once Panam pressed send.” Brenda looked at her. “You are supposed to be the gentle one.” “I am being gentle.” Panam grinned at the road. “That was the gentle version.” “Privacy is contextual.” Kiro would have approved of the phrasing. That only made it worse. Brenda looked at Iris’s message again. The embarrassment remained. So did the warmth beneath it. She touched the photograph and enlarged Shammy’s face. The halo was absurd. Tender. Impossible to fake. So was Brenda’s own expression. She looked like a woman who had stopped defending herself from being known for one unguarded minute. Iris would understand exactly what she was seeing. That thought hurt less than the distance. Brenda typed slowly. **I am handling this separation with grace and maturity. Ignore all hostile documentation.** Iris answered: **Of course.** Then: **Come back to me safely.** The humor left Brenda’s face. She rested her thumb against the words. **Always. You too.** The response came without delay. **Always.** Panam did not look at the tablet. She did not need to. The truck descended the far side of the ridge toward a roadside service compound whose illuminated sign leaned at an angle severe enough to suggest structural pessimism. Panam signaled and moved toward the exit. Brenda looked up. “Why are we stopping?” “Shammy said we should.” “That was fifteen minutes ago.” “Yes.” “You argued.” “I was wrong.” Shammy’s hair settled around her shoulders in a final soft fall. Brenda looked back at her. “You knew she needed a break?” Shammy nodded toward Panam. “She was beginning to hold the road too tightly.” Panam guided the truck into a space near the outer edge of the compound. “I was fine.” Brenda unfastened her harness. “That phrase has been suspended until further review.” Panam turned off the engine. The sudden silence made the ticking metal beneath the hood sound loud. For a moment, none of them moved. Then Shammy reached forward and placed one hand on Panam’s shoulder and the other on Brenda’s. The truck’s cabin warmed around the contact. Not in temperature. In pressure. Presence. A gentle emotional weight binding three people temporarily far from home and from the people whose absence traveled with them. Brenda placed her hand over Shammy’s. Panam did the same after one brief hesitation performed solely for reputation. “We are getting food,” Panam said. Brenda nodded. “Good.” “And coffee.” “Better.” “And nobody is discussing the photograph with the cashier.” “I was not planning to.” Shammy opened the rear door. “Can my hair discuss it?” Panam looked at her. Brenda stared. Shammy stepped down from the truck, halo gone, expression entirely innocent. Panam waited until she was outside. Then looked at Brenda. “She has been spending too much time with Ace.” “There is no safe amount.” They climbed out. Dry wind crossed the parking area, carrying dust, hot metal and the smell of food whose exact origin was better left unexamined. Shammy stood beside the truck stretching toward the sky, hair moving naturally now. Brenda’s tablet chimed once more. She looked down. Iris had sent another photograph. The same view from Aureate II’s observation deck, now without Iris in the frame. Ocean, sunset and the dark curve of the rail. The message beneath it read: **Saving your place.** Brenda held the image close for one quiet second. Then she followed Panam and Shammy toward the lights. The road still had days left in it. The voyage did too. Distance remained distance. But it no longer felt like empty space. It felt occupied from both ends. By the time the truck returned to the highway, Night City was sliding toward evening. Back in Watson, the recon clock was beginning to move. --- ## CHAPTER 5 — BLIND SPOT The Militech facility looked exactly like a place nobody would remember driving past. Reyes distrusted it immediately. It sat near the outer edge of Santo Domingo’s industrial belt, where Night City lost interest in pretending every building needed an identity. Low warehouses pressed against service roads. Fabrication yards hid behind rusted fencing and newer surveillance. Freight lines crossed beneath old power structures. Corporate logos appeared only where ownership wanted to be noticed. The suspected R&D site carried none. A small illuminated sign beside the outer gate identified the property as belonging to **Westbridge Materials Assessment**. The name was printed in clean grey lettering above a geometric logo designed to suggest engineering competence without committing to any recognizable field. Behind the sign stood a long two-story structure made of pale composite panels and reinforced concrete. A narrow administrative wing faced the road. The deeper section extended toward a fenced service yard, its roof broken by cooling housings, shielded vents and equipment structures that looked more substantial than the declared business required. No Militech red. No visible armed patrols. No automated turrets mounted above the gate. No reason for most people to slow down. Reyes watched it through the tinted side window of a parked utility vehicle three hundred meters away. “Too clean,” she said. Ace sat behind the wheel wearing a dark work jacket over light armor, black hair tucked beneath a cap that made her look less like a legendary merc and more like someone who had arrived to repair a compressor and intended to bill extra for inconvenience. She looked through the windshield. “The walls?” “The story.” Mai occupied the rear seat beside Kiro, a compact display resting across her knees. They had parked among contractor vehicles outside a closed machine-parts depot. The depot’s security lighting had failed in two places and flickered in a third, producing exactly the kind of neglected darkness that made stationary observation possible without appearing theatrical. Kiro wore no visible interface rig beyond a thin local receiver clipped near her collar and a set of modified glasses whose lenses periodically changed tint as she moved between spectrum layers. She had slept. The fact showed in the steadiness of her hands, though Reyes still checked once before returning her attention to the building. Now Kiro looked through the facility rather than at it, attention moving across frequencies that left the building visually unchanged. “There is nothing clean about the signal edge,” she said. Reyes turned slightly. “You said it was silent.” “It is.” “That sounds clean.” “No. Silence can be clean. This is being held down.” Ace glanced at the mirror. “Difference?” Kiro adjusted the receiver. “A clean silence is absence. No systems, no traffic, nothing trying to leave. This has weight.” “Signal weight,” Ace said. “Yes.” “Which weighs how much?” Kiro looked at her reflection in the mirror. “That question is violence.” “Still waiting for the unit.” Mai enlarged the passive spectrum map. The facility’s public-facing systems appeared as a shallow cluster of ordinary emissions: - office-network traffic routed through Westbridge’s registered provider, - external security cameras reporting to a private vendor, - utility telemetry, - vehicle-access signals, - municipal fire and environmental compliance channels. All of it looked correct. None of it looked Militech. Behind the administrative layer, the map remained dark. Kiro traced the edge of the property with one finger. “Everything public stays public. Nothing crosses inward.” “Could there be nothing inward?” Reyes asked. “Yes.” “But you do not believe that.” “No.” “Why?” Kiro hesitated, searching for language that would not require Reyes to accept signal weather as faith. “The outer systems behave like they have been instructed not to notice the rest of the building.” Reyes waited. Kiro continued. “The camera vendor receives status reports from fourteen devices. Power records show at least twenty-three active exterior and transitional security loads.” “Meaning nine devices do not report externally.” “Or more. The building-access system records the administrative doors and both vehicle gates. It does not acknowledge any of the internal partition points visible in the construction plans.” “Construction plans can be wrong.” “They are.” Reyes’s eyes moved to her. Kiro tapped the display. “Not outdated. Simplified. Internal power use changes in places where the official layout shows uninterrupted wall.” “Hidden rooms?” “Hidden transitions. Maybe rooms.” Mai expanded the registered floor plan. The administrative wing contained offices, a reception area, two meeting rooms, washrooms and a laboratory corridor. The deeper structure was described as open testing space divided by movable industrial partitions. Reyes looked at the exterior. The roofline did not support the plan. She had been watching the building for forty-three minutes. Long enough to see where personnel entered, where vehicles slowed and how the exterior cameras handed movement from one field to another. The structure was not open inside. People moved as though it contained choke points. A technician had entered through the main administrative door and disappeared for nine minutes before emerging through a side access less than thirty meters away. Too long for a direct corridor. Too short for meaningful work. An internal checkpoint. Probably more than one. “The plan lies physically too,” Reyes said. Kiro turned toward her. “Where?” Reyes pointed through the windshield. “Watch the side entrance.” Nothing moved near it. Ace rested both hands loosely against the steering wheel. “We have been watching it.” “No. Watch the people before they reach it.” They waited. A minute later, a woman in grey work clothes crossed from the employee parking area toward the administrative wing. She carried a sealed tool case in one hand and an open drink container in the other. She passed the main door. Continued along the building. Reached the smaller side entrance. Before stepping into the camera’s clearest angle, she shifted the tool case to her opposite hand. The drink stayed where it was. The case moved away from the wall. The door opened. She entered. Kiro frowned. “What?” “She knew where the scan field was,” Reyes said. “The camera?” “Not the camera.” Ace leaned closer to the windshield. “Weapon scan?” “Possibly. Material scan. Explosive detection. Something extending from the wall. She moved the equipment case through the center of the field and kept the drink near her body.” Mai studied the exterior plan. “The registered access system shows only a badge reader.” “It has more.” Kiro looked through a different spectrum layer. “I cannot see an active scan.” “You are too far.” “No. If it broadcasts normally, I should see something.” “Then it does not broadcast normally.” Kiro’s expression sharpened. “Local only.” Reyes nodded. Their eyes met. The conclusion landed cleanly between them. The side door belonged to the interior system. Kiro leaned toward the window, then stopped herself before moving far enough to change the vehicle’s silhouette. Reyes noticed the correction. “You listened.” “I understand concealment.” “You tried to put three receivers on the roof.” “They would have looked like utility hardware.” “They would have looked like three receivers painted to resemble utility hardware.” “The paint was accurate.” Ace spoke without looking back. “It was very good paint.” Mai’s voice remained calm. “We are not revisiting the receivers.” Kiro settled back against the seat. “I was not.” “You were looking at the roof.” “I can look at roofs without deploying equipment.” Reyes glanced at her. “Can you?” Kiro narrowed her eyes. “Yes.” Reyes returned her attention to the facility before the warmth at the edge of her expression became too visible. The first observation period had begun before midnight. Mai had divided it into movements rather than fixed positions. No vehicle remained long enough to become part of the scenery. No person crossed the same camera field twice in the same role. Kiro’s passive spectrum work used receivers already hidden inside ordinary devices rather than the equipment she had wanted to distribute around the block. Ace and Reyes would inspect the physical perimeter from two angles. Mai and Kiro would move to a second vehicle closer to the service side. Then all four would regroup and compare what each layer had revealed. No probing. No entry. No one touched the administrative network. Kiro had repeated the rule in a tone suggesting she considered it unnecessarily personal. Mai had accepted the repetition as binding. A service truck approached the main gate. Ace straightened slightly. The vehicle carried Westbridge markings and an ordinary municipal freight tag. It slowed, transmitted credentials and waited. The outer barrier opened. It rolled inside. The barrier closed behind it. Nothing unusual. Then the truck stopped in the service yard rather than continuing toward the loading bay. Two security workers emerged from a recessed doorway. Not guards, according to their clothing. Too coordinated for maintenance staff. One circled the vehicle. The other approached the driver’s side and held a portable unit near the window. The driver presented something. Not a standard credential. The security worker examined it, returned it and stepped away. Only then did the interior loading door begin to open. Reyes watched the sequence. “Two-stage entry.” Mai nodded. “Outer credentials prove the vehicle belongs on the property. Human verification controls access to the actual facility.” “Portable device?” Ace asked. “Could be biometric confirmation,” Kiro said. “Or challenge-response stored outside the public gate system.” “Can you read it?” “Not from here.” Reyes watched the first security worker inspect beneath the vehicle. The inspection was efficient and real. No bored gesture for a camera. No casual mirror pass. The worker checked the wheel housings, rear frame, cargo seals and underside. “Those are not contractors,” Reyes said. Ace followed the movement. “Militech?” “Trained by someone.” “That is almost everyone worth worrying about.” “No. Contractors learn procedures. Those two expect procedures to fail.” Mai stored the observation. “Internal security team concealed as facility personnel.” “Probably.” Kiro zoomed the passive signal trace around the truck. A brief cluster appeared as the driver presented the unknown credential. Then vanished. “There.” Mai looked at her display. “What?” “A burst.” “From the portable device?” “Maybe. Very short range. It did not leave the property.” “Can you identify the protocol?” “No.” “Could you record enough to analyze later?” Kiro’s fingers moved. “I recorded everything.” Reyes glanced at her. “Without touching it?” Kiro looked offended. “I can listen.” “Good.” “You say that as though you expected me to lick the signal.” Ace looked into the mirror. “Would that work?” “No.” Kiro paused. “Not on this.” Mai looked at her. Kiro folded her hands in her lap. “I am listening.” The service truck disappeared inside. The loading door closed. The building resumed its forgettable shape. Reyes continued watching. People made secure facilities visible in ways architecture could not. They changed pace near controlled boundaries. They stopped carrying drinks. They adjusted clothing where hidden scanners required clean silhouettes. They looked at doors before badges cleared. They acknowledged cameras they had been trained to ignore. Westbridge employees crossed the outer administrative layer like workers. The people going deeper crossed it like personnel entering a place where mistakes acquired ownership. A man left through the side entrance twenty minutes later. He wore a plain office jacket and carried nothing. He reached the employee lot, opened a compact car and sat behind the wheel. He did not start it. Instead, he removed a small black case from inside his jacket, placed it in the center console and waited. The car’s systems remained dark. No cabin connection. No personal device handshake. After forty seconds, a green indicator appeared on the case. Only then did he start the car. Kiro leaned forward. “Physical isolation procedure.” “Explain,” Ace said. “He carried something through the boundary. The case verified it had not been exposed to an unauthorized connection before the vehicle systems activated.” “Data?” “Could be.” “Could be a sandwich,” Reyes said. Kiro looked at her. “In a shielded integrity case?” “Militech may take lunch seriously.” “They do not.” “How do you know?” “The procurement trails are too sad.” Reyes nodded as though Kiro had provided legitimate evidence. Ace watched them through the mirror. Mai saw her watching and tapped one finger once against the back of Ace’s seat. Ace returned her eyes to the facility. Nothing had happened. That was the problem. The longer the building remained quiet, the more deliberate the quiet became. Mai checked the time. “Move.” Ace started the utility vehicle. They left without looking toward the facility again. --- The second position lay west of the property beside an all-night freight café whose primary business appeared to be coffee strong enough to remove regulatory hesitation. Mai and Kiro entered first. Ace and Reyes continued past on foot, dressed as workers crossing between yards at the end of a late shift. Ace carried a compact tool bag. Reyes wore her jacket open enough to appear unhurried and closed enough to conceal the armor beneath. The street smelled of hot wiring, dust and industrial coolant. Traffic moved intermittently: freight haulers, maintenance vans, two motorcycles carrying people who had no visible reason to be awake and one automated street sweeper working around a crater it had apparently classified as permanent infrastructure. Ace walked beside Reyes. Neither looked directly at the facility. “How many?” Ace asked. “Visible?” “Yes.” “Four exterior camera fields on this side. Two overlap the service road. One watches the roof access. One is pretending to watch the fence.” “Pretending?” “It is aimed too high.” Ace adjusted the tool bag against her shoulder. “Hidden lower camera.” “Or pressure detection along the fence.” “Would you cross it?” “No.” “Would I?” “Yes.” Ace smiled. “You know me.” “You are looking at the fence like it insulted your family.” “It is a very confident fence.” They continued. The service side revealed more of the building’s true scale. Cooling units stood behind acoustic barriers. A secondary power enclosure occupied more ground than Westbridge’s registered equipment load justified. Thick conduit entered the deeper structure through separate shielded channels rather than the common utility junction. Ace noticed the power system. “Kiro will like that.” “Kiro likes anything trying to hide a pulse.” “Mai likes her liking it.” Reyes looked toward her. Ace kept walking. “Observation.” “Of the building?” “Among other things.” Reyes’s expression flattened. Ace waited. Nothing came. She looked up at her. “You can ask.” “I know.” “You are not going to.” “No.” “Very Reyes.” “Ace.” “Yes?” “Watch the road.” Ace looked forward just before a security vehicle emerged from a side lane. Not marked. Dark bodywork. Reinforced suspension. Two occupants. It moved slowly past them. Ace’s posture changed by almost nothing. The tool bag remained against her shoulder. Her stride stayed even. Her face held the faint tired irritation of a contractor being forced to walk farther than promised. Reyes shifted closer to the curb, placing herself between Ace and the vehicle without making the movement protective enough to attract attention. The passenger looked at them. Ace looked back with exactly the wrong amount of interest for someone hiding. Not fear. Not challenge. A brief glance asking whether the vehicle was about to make her walk around it. The passenger lost interest. The vehicle continued. Reyes waited until it turned the next corner. “You looked at them.” “They looked first.” “You are not twelve.” “I was not offended. I was establishing authenticity.” “As what?” “A worker who thinks their driving is irritating.” “You did.” “Thank you.” “That was not praise.” “Still taking it.” They reached a vending unit outside a closed fabrication office. Ace stopped and inserted a credchip. Reyes leaned against the wall beside her, gaze using the reflective panel rather than the street itself. The machine considered Ace’s payment, rejected it, reconsidered and dispensed a bottle that was neither of the options she had selected. Ace stared at it. Reyes watched the reflection. “Hostile electronics.” “It knows.” “Do not stab it.” “I am working.” Ace opened the bottle. It smelled medicinal. She took one sip and looked betrayed. Reyes’s mouth moved. Ace held it toward her. “You try.” “No.” “Coward.” “Professional judgment.” Across the road, the facility’s service fence extended behind the acoustic barriers. A section near the rear corner looked weaker than the rest. Older posts. Less visible lighting. No obvious camera. A narrow drainage channel passed beneath it. Ace watched through the vending unit’s reflection. “There.” “I see it.” “Entry?” “No.” “Too obvious?” “Designed to look neglected.” Ace drank again and regretted it. “What do you see?” Reyes studied the line. “The ground is wrong.” “Pressure layer?” “Maybe. No weeds against the fence. Nothing collecting in the drainage channel. Somebody clears it regularly.” “Could be maintenance.” “Then the posts would have been replaced.” Ace looked more closely. The old posts created the appearance of low priority. The ground beneath them had been disturbed in a narrow repeated line. Not footsteps. Something beneath the surface had been serviced. “Buried detection.” “Likely.” “Can we disable it?” “Probably.” “Should we use it?” “No.” Ace smiled. “Why not?” “Because anyone who disables it confirms they chose the route designed to catch people who think they are clever.” “That is insulting.” “It is effective.” “I dislike effective insults.” Reyes looked into the reflective panel. “Main service route will be harder.” “Also less expected?” “Expected differently.” “That sounds like a yes.” “It sounds like we need the other side.” Ace finished the drink only because throwing it away immediately would admit defeat. She dropped the empty bottle into the recycler. The unit rejected it. Ace stared. Reyes pushed away from the wall. “Leave it.” “It started this.” “Ace.” Ace placed the bottle carefully on top of the machine. “We are not done.” They continued walking. From the café window across the district, Kiro saw them pass through the edge of her local optical feed. “She is arguing with a vending machine,” she said. Mai did not look up from the facility map. “Is she drawing attention?” “No.” “Then it may be part of the cover.” Kiro zoomed the feed. “Reyes is pretending it is not happening.” “That is also part of the cover.” The café’s interior contained six booths, a counter staffed by a tired woman with chrome fingers and two freight drivers asleep upright over untouched meals. The lighting was too bright for privacy and too indifferent to prevent it. Mai and Kiro sat near the rear beneath a wall display showing weather conditions for highways nobody in the room intended to use. Two coffees rested between them. Mai had ordered both. Kiro’s remained untouched because she had become interested in the facility’s power rhythm. “Still no deep traffic,” she said. “But the draw changes when people cross that side entrance.” “By how much?” “Not enough to represent machinery. Enough to represent a local security sequence.” “Scanning?” “Maybe. Internal doors. Decontamination. Signal isolation.” Mai watched the exterior movement data. “Can you separate the administrative load from the deeper structure?” “Not cleanly. They share utility input before splitting inside.” “That may tell us where the internal boundary sits.” “Yes.” Kiro overlaid the timing of door events, power fluctuations and the short-range burst recorded from the service truck. A shape began to emerge. Not a room. A process. Outer credentials opened public access. A local human check verified identity. A second system confirmed the object or person carried no unauthorized connection. Only then did the interior boundary permit entry. “They are not just keeping the inner network from connecting out,” Kiro said. “They are keeping outside networks from being carried in.” Mai looked toward her. “Personal devices?” “Probably disabled or surrendered. Tools moved through isolated verification. Maybe hardware certificates generated per shift.” “How does data leave?” Kiro traced the man with the black case through the timing records. “Physically.” “The case?” “Likely one route. Not enough for full project replication.” “Could be selected reports only.” “Yes. Internal development stays local. Approved summaries leave.” Mai looked at the contradictory documents Rogue had provided. “That would explain the narrative split.” Kiro nodded quickly. “Engineering reality remains inside. Management receives curated exports. Consultants may be working from the curated layer or building on top of it.” “Or they know exactly what is missing.” “Yes.” The thought pleased neither of them. Kiro adjusted the receiver. A faint pulse touched the spectrum display and disappeared. She froze. Mai noticed immediately. “What?” Kiro held one hand up. The café noise remained around them: ventilation, cutlery, a freight driver snoring badly enough to suggest internal damage. The signal did not return. Kiro replayed the local capture. “There was a carrier.” “From the facility?” “I do not know.” “Public system?” “No.” “Direction?” Kiro triangulated from the vehicle receiver they had left active at the first position and the device concealed in Ace’s tool bag. The lines narrowed. Facility service side. “Inside.” Mai’s attention sharpened. “External communication?” “No data.” “What, then?” “A timing pulse. Very low power. Directional.” “To what?” Kiro followed the probable angle. It did not point toward Militech infrastructure. It pointed toward a tall, narrow communications mast serving several industrial tenants two blocks south. The mast carried public relays, emergency services and licensed private channels. Nothing directly associated with Westbridge. Kiro checked the pulse against the mast’s activity. “No response.” “Then why transmit?” “Clock alignment. Authentication window. A one-way reference. Maybe the inner system receives trusted time without establishing a return path.” “Would that compromise the air gap?” “Not if it only listens.” Mai considered it. “One-way intake.” “Yes.” “Can we use it?” Kiro’s eyes brightened. “Possibly.” Mai held up one finger. Kiro’s expression fell. “We are observing.” “I know.” “You are already designing an injection.” “I am identifying a theoretical weakness.” “Quietly.” Kiro lowered her hands. “It may not accept data.” “Good.” “That was not my conclusion.” “It is mine for tonight.” Kiro looked toward the front window. Ace and Reyes had disappeared from the visible street. The receiver in Ace’s tool bag continued to move. Kiro followed it around the facility’s western edge. “They are approaching the false weak point.” “Reyes identified it?” “She slowed.” “Then yes.” Kiro watched the physical track and the invisible signal edge at once. Reyes moved like someone who understood that security systems were built to catch intention as often as bodies. She did not approach the fence directly. She did not pause near the neglected section. She altered their route at the preceding intersection, turning down an access lane that gave them a plausible reason to pass the area without choosing it. Ace remained beside her. Kiro felt something in her own posture loosen. Mai saw that too. “You trust her read.” Kiro’s answer came before defense could complicate it. “Yes.” Mai’s gaze stayed on the display. “She trusts yours.” Kiro looked at her. “That is different.” “How?” “She should not yet.” Mai finally turned. “Why?” “Because she cannot see what I am seeing.” “That is why trust matters.” Kiro looked back at the spectrum. “Trust without verification is bad architecture.” “People are not architecture.” “That is not always true.” Mai’s mouth curved. “No. But Reyes is not asking you to be infallible. She is asking you to tell her how certain you are.” Kiro watched the receiver trace move. “She acts very quickly.” “Yes.” “If I am wrong, she will be wrong at speed.” “She knows.” “That should bother her more.” “It probably does.” Kiro glanced at Mai. “She does not show it.” “Neither do you.” “I explain extensively.” “That is not the same as showing fear.” The words reached too cleanly. Kiro’s attention returned to the facility. For several seconds, she said nothing. Mai let the quiet remain. Then Kiro murmured, “The signal edge changes near them.” Mai looked at the display. “How?” “Ace’s receiver is picking up a passive sweep.” “From the fence?” “Broader.” Kiro adjusted the triangulation. “Reyes was right. The weak section is watched from beneath.” “Pressure?” “Capacitive field, maybe. Low enough not to advertise itself. It changes shape when a conductive mass moves near the channel.” “Could they cross without triggering it?” “Probably.” Mai waited. Kiro exhaled. “We should not.” “Why?” Kiro highlighted the field. “Because the system is designed to be defeated.” Mai’s eyes narrowed. Kiro continued. “It has obvious gaps. If somebody maps it, they can find a clean path. But the pattern of the gaps creates a corridor.” “Leading where?” “To the drainage crossing.” “The apparent weak point.” “Yes.” “So avoiding detection guides the intruder into a different detection system.” Kiro looked almost offended on behalf of systems generally. “It is smug.” Mai nodded. “Reyes will appreciate that description.” The café door opened. Ace entered alone. She crossed to the counter, purchased two sealed drinks and waited with the expression of someone whose night had been ruined by commercial hydration. She did not look toward Mai or Kiro. The worker placed the drinks down. Ace took them and left. Kiro watched through the external feed. “Where is Reyes?” “Not visible,” Mai said. Kiro switched angles. Nothing. Her attention accelerated. “She separated.” “Planned?” “No.” Mai looked at her. “How do you know?” “They were together twenty seconds ago.” “That does not answer the question.” Kiro searched the passive layers. Ace’s tool-bag receiver moved north. Reyes carried no transmitter linked to Kiro’s equipment. They had deliberately avoided giving everyone traceable local hardware. Kiro hated the decision now. “She is off the feed.” Mai remained calm. “She is Reyes.” “That is not telemetry.” “No.” “It is not location.” “No.” “It is not—” The café’s side door opened beside their booth. Reyes stepped inside. Kiro stopped. Reyes sat opposite her. “You were saying?” Kiro stared. Mai took a slow drink of coffee. “You changed route.” “Yes.” “Without telling me.” “I was not in communication with you.” “That is the problem.” “It was the plan.” “The plan involved moving through known observation sectors.” “I found an unknown one.” Kiro’s irritation lost some force. “Where?” Reyes placed a small grease-stained maintenance leaflet on the table. To anyone watching, she had joined two acquaintances to complain about machinery. Her finger rested against a printed diagram of the surrounding industrial utilities. “Northwest corner. No visible camera. No buried fence field. Ground traffic avoids it.” “Why?” “Because the roof watches it.” Kiro pulled up the angle. Reyes continued. “Not a conventional camera. The roof structure over the cooling enclosure has a clear view of the entire corner. The housing is too high for the equipment beneath it and turns three degrees every time a heavy vehicle passes the service road.” “Acoustic sensor?” Mai asked. “Maybe. Optical. Thermal. Whatever it is, employees know not to stand beneath the line.” Kiro searched the spectrum. “I cannot see it.” Reyes looked at her. “That does not mean it is not there.” Kiro’s eyes sharpened. “I know.” No argument. Only immediate integration. Kiro added the roof housing to the map and drew its probable field from Reyes’s observation. The line intersected the apparently unwatched corner, the side service route and part of the false weak fence. The security design became clearer. Nothing stood alone. The obvious cameras guided attention away from passive systems. The apparently weak route invited technical defeat. The roof watched the space an intruder would enter after defeating it. Reyes watched the shape form. “That is why the patrol vehicle passed us.” Ace arrived through the main café entrance and placed one sealed drink in front of Reyes. “I bought the wrong one.” “You bought two.” “They were both wrong.” Reyes opened it. Ace sat beside her. Kiro looked at them. “You separated without telling anyone.” Ace pointed at Reyes. “She separated. I was abandoned with commerce.” Reyes drank. “You needed to carry the receiver away from where I was looking.” Kiro frowned. “You used my receiver as a moving reference.” “Yes.” “You could have told me.” “Then you would have watched me instead of the signal edge.” Kiro opened her mouth. Closed it. Ace looked delighted. Mai did not intervene. Reyes leaned one forearm against the table. “What did you find?” Kiro told her. The hidden capacitive field. The intentionally defeatable gaps. The corridor leading to the drainage route. The directional timing pulse from the inner facility. Reyes listened. When Kiro finished, Reyes tapped the roof housing marked on the map. “This sees the corridor.” “Yes.” “And the building sends or receives something directional.” “Receives, probably.” “Can it be turned off?” “Everything can be turned off.” Mai looked at her. Kiro amended. “Whether it remains useful afterward is a separate question.” Reyes studied the property. “The side entrance is real.” “The local scan?” “Yes. Employees change how they carry equipment before entering. The inner team expects the boundary.” “The loading bay too,” Mai said. “Two-stage verification. Human check after outer credentials.” Reyes nodded. “The rear fence is a trap.” Ace opened the second drink, smelled it and gave it to Kiro without tasting it. Kiro accepted it automatically. Mai watched the exchange. “What about the north side?” “More secure than it looks,” Reyes said. “Less foot traffic. Better sight lines. Patrol route crosses it irregularly.” “Irregularly?” Kiro asked. “Deliberately.” “How can you tell?” “Regular patrols become predictable. Truly random patrols become inefficient. This one varies within a controlled window.” Kiro processed that. “Like frequency hopping.” Reyes looked at her. “Yes.” The comparison pleased both of them for different reasons. Ace leaned back against the booth. “So we have a building that hides its real doors behind normal doors, keeps the useful network inside, carries selected data out physically, and offers a weak fence specifically to insult me.” “Correct,” Mai said. “I want to go in.” “We are still observing.” “We have observed that I want to go in.” Mai ignored her. Kiro pulled the facility model into a combined layer. Signal absence. Physical movement. Power transitions. Known cameras. Suspected passive fields. Human checkpoints. The roof sensor. Vehicle procedures. The building remained partly blank. But the blankness now had boundaries. Reyes looked at it. “The useful space begins behind the side entrance and loading boundary.” “Probably,” Kiro said. “Not the administrative wing.” “No. That is costume.” “Access point?” “Unknown.” “Likely near the deepest local power concentration.” Kiro highlighted three possible internal zones. “One beneath the central testing floor. One adjacent to the cooling infrastructure. One here, near the secondary power enclosure.” Reyes studied the building geometry. “The last one is easiest to isolate physically.” “And therefore most likely?” Ace asked. “No. Most obvious to anyone planning from outside.” Mai nodded. “We do not choose until we have interior evidence.” Ace crossed her arms. “That usually requires being inside.” “Yes.” “Progress.” Kiro zoomed in on the side entrance. “If we can reach the local boundary, I may be able to identify the inner network through maintenance leakage.” “May?” Reyes asked. “The system is quiet from here. It will not be quiet from a wall away.” “And if it is?” “Then they have spent more money than the procurement records admit.” “Would that surprise you?” “No.” “Then plan for it.” Kiro looked at her. “You say that as though planning can create information.” “It creates decisions for when information fails.” “That is a very physical way to define planning.” “It keeps people alive.” “So does information.” “Yes.” Their eyes held. No friction this time. Two halves of the same answer recognizing the other without needing to win. Ace looked down at the table, hiding a smile badly. Mai saw it. She let it remain. Reyes shifted the map toward herself. “Entry cannot use the false weak point. Main gate requires credentials and human verification. Loading bay requires a vehicle and inspection.” “Side entrance?” Mai asked. “Smaller team. Less physical exposure. Strong internal boundary.” “Harder to enter.” “Probably.” Ace smiled. “Good.” Reyes looked at her. “Not good.” “Interesting.” “Also not good.” “Workable?” “After more observation.” Ace’s smile faded slightly. “How much?” “At least one shift change. We need to know whether the side entrance handles the same personnel both directions and whether the interior security team rotates visibly.” Mai checked the time. “Shift transition begins in forty minutes.” Kiro looked at her. “We are staying?” “Yes.” Ace glanced toward the café counter. “I may need food.” Reyes opened the sealed drink Ace had bought. “You had food at home.” “I was emotionally occupied.” “By what?” Ace looked toward Kiro. Kiro pointed at her. “No.” Ace looked innocent. “I said nothing.” “You are thinking loudly again.” The freight driver in the nearest booth woke, looked around and returned to sleep without changing position. Mai divided the next observation period. Ace and Reyes would take the vehicle and watch the staff exit. Mai and Kiro would remain near the café long enough to confirm whether the inner signal boundary changed during shift turnover. Then they would leave. No extension. No one approached the facility. No additional passes. Kiro opened her mouth. Mai looked at her. Kiro closed it. Reyes stood. “Come on.” Ace slid out of the booth. Kiro’s attention followed Reyes before returning to the spectrum. Reyes noticed. She paused beside the table. “Kiro.” “What?” “If the signal state changes, give me certainty first.” “I always do.” “No. You give explanation first.” Kiro considered objecting. Then looked at the map. “All right. High, medium or low confidence before the detail.” Reyes nodded. “And if you disappear again,” Kiro added, “I need to know before you do it.” “I did not disappear.” “You ceased being represented in every layer available to me.” “That is not the same thing.” “It is to my nervous system.” The honesty arrived before Kiro could hide it inside technical language. Reyes became still. Ace looked at Mai. Mai watched Kiro. Kiro’s expression shifted as she realized what she had said. She began to retreat into explanation. “The operational problem is—” “I understand,” Reyes said. Kiro stopped. Reyes’s voice softened only slightly. “I will tell you next time.” Kiro looked at her. “You cannot always.” “No.” “But when you can.” “Yes.” The agreement settled between them with more weight than the exchange should have carried. Reyes touched two fingers against the table near Kiro’s hand. Not quite contact. Close enough that Kiro could choose it. Kiro moved her hand the remaining distance. Their fingers met briefly. Then Reyes stepped away. Ace followed her toward the door. Kiro watched them leave. Mai waited until the café door closed. “You told her.” Kiro returned her hand to the receiver. “I described a situational-awareness gap.” “Yes.” “That is not—” Mai’s expression stopped her. Kiro sighed. “I told her.” “And she listened.” “Yes.” The answer was quiet. The facility pulsed at the edge of the passive display. Still closed. Still silent. But no longer shapeless. --- Shift change began seven minutes late. The delay originated inside the building. Kiro saw it first. “High confidence,” she said into the encrypted short-range comm. “Internal access state is holding outbound personnel behind the boundary.” In the parked vehicle, Reyes lifted her head. “Reason?” “Unknown. Public doors remain available. Inner power draw changed two minutes ago.” Mai watched from the café window. “Continue.” A group of six employees appeared inside the administrative lobby but did not leave. They waited without speaking. One checked the time. Another removed a personal device from a shielded wall compartment but did not activate it. Reyes watched through compact optics. “They are waiting for release.” Kiro tracked the power transition. “Internal system is reconciling something.” “Security event?” Ace asked. “Low confidence. Could be data-transfer closure. Could be shift credential handoff.” A light above the side entrance changed from white to amber. None of the waiting employees reacted. Thirty seconds later, the directional timing pulse appeared. Once. Twice. The inner power draw dropped. The side-entrance light returned to white. The waiting employees began leaving. Kiro’s eyes sharpened. “There.” Mai looked at the layered record. “What did it do?” “The inner system closed its state before personnel carried devices out. The timing pulse aligned the boundary cycle. Then the external layer released them.” “Physical data-control window,” Mai said. “Yes. The inside does not remain continuously permissive even for authorized people.” Reyes watched the employees cross the lot. Each activated a personal device only after reaching her vehicle or passing a marked line near the pedestrian gate. “They leave disconnected,” she said. Kiro nodded though Reyes could not see it. “The boundary is real.” A second group emerged through the side entrance. Different clothing. No visible Westbridge markings. They moved toward two unmarked vehicles parked separately from the staff lot. Internal security. Reyes counted them. “Six visible. Probably more inside.” “Militech?” Ace asked. “They move like corporate tactical personnel trying not to look tactical.” “Which is yes.” “Likely.” The final person through the side entrance was the woman with the sealed tool case. She stopped beneath the wall scanner, placed the case inside a small recessed compartment and waited. The compartment closed. Twenty seconds later, it reopened. She removed the case and continued outside. Kiro recorded the sequence. “Transfer sterilization.” “Or verification,” Mai said. “Yes.” “Can you exploit it?” Kiro inhaled. Mai added, “Later.” Kiro exhaled. “Possibly.” The incoming shift arrived in smaller groups. Administrative workers through the main door. Technical personnel through the side entrance. A maintenance vehicle through the loading bay. Every person crossing the inner boundary passed through a process absent from Westbridge’s public records. Reyes watched how the new security personnel distributed themselves. No one took an obvious guard position. One disappeared toward the loading bay. One remained near the administrative wing. Two crossed through the side entrance. The others moved around the building’s exterior before entering separately. “They do not rotate as one team,” she said. “Why?” Ace asked. “So nobody outside sees the full number entering or leaving together.” Mai stored the pattern. “Security strength intentionally obscured.” “Yes.” The facility’s night shift settled. Exterior activity declined. Signal silence returned. This time it no longer looked empty. It looked sealed. Mai closed the live record. “We have enough.” Ace looked toward the facility. “For tonight.” “For planning.” Kiro removed the receiver glasses. Her eyes remained fixed on the building without them. “I can feel the edge now.” Reyes turned in the passenger seat to look back at her through the vehicle’s rear window. They had regrouped two blocks away beside a closed freight yard, the facility visible only as roof lights beyond other structures. “What does that mean?” Reyes asked. Kiro searched for the answer. “It means the silence has a shape.” “Useful shape?” “Yes.” “Entry shape?” Kiro glanced at Mai. Mai allowed the answer. “Yes.” Reyes looked toward the hidden building. “What is inside?” Kiro’s mouth curved without humor. “Weather.” Ace started the vehicle. “Finally.” Kiro looked at her. “That was not an invitation.” “It usually is.” Mai brought up the route home. “We confirmed the facility. We confirmed the internal boundary, physical data controls, concealed security and a local system that does not acknowledge Militech’s wider network.” “And the fence insulted me,” Ace said. “We will include that in Rogue’s report.” “Thank you.” Reyes continued watching the distant roofline. “We still do not know the room.” “No,” Mai said. “We do not know the access point.” “No.” “We do not know how many armed personnel remain inside.” “No.” Ace pulled onto the service road. “But we know we have to go in.” Mai enlarged the utility map one last time. “The drainage crossing beneath Militech’s own fence is the funnel,” she said. “We do not touch it. The municipal service line approaches from outside their designed perimeter and reaches the older substructure from the northwest. That is our route.” Reyes studied the line. “And the part where their cameras learn our faces?” “Low-profile maintenance meshes,” Mai said. “Enough to spoil clean biometrics without making four supposed contractors look masked. If the meshes fail, we accept partial exposure and leave before they get a second angle.” Ace looked toward the hidden facility. “So we are going in politely blurred.” “We are going in without advertising fear.” Mai looked at the four of them reflected faintly in the windows. Kiro’s attention remained on the signal silence behind them. Reyes remained oriented toward the physical threat surrounding it. Ace was already measuring entry as movement. Mai held all three vectors together. “Yes,” she said. The facility disappeared behind a freight warehouse. No alarm followed them. No patrol vehicle turned onto the road. No signal reached outward to mark their departure. Westbridge Materials Assessment returned to being a forgettable building at the edge of an industrial district. But they had seen where its employees changed the way they carried their tools. They had seen where personal devices went dark. They had watched security personnel enter without uniforms and data leave inside sealed cases. Kiro had found the pressure behind the silence. Reyes had found the danger behind the ordinary doors. Between them, the blind spot had acquired edges. Now Mai could build a route through it. And Ace could begin deciding which parts would need to break. --- ## CHAPTER 6 — PHYSICAL LAYER The route into Westbridge Materials Assessment began in a drainage ditch that smelled like hot metal and old rain. Thin maintenance meshes lay over the upper halves of their faces, transparent at conversational distance and just disruptive enough to deny a clean biometric read. They were not masks. That was the point. Westbridge expected contractors, not ghosts. Ace stood ankle-deep in black water and looked up at the underside of the industrial district. “This is elegant.” Mai crouched beside an open municipal junction box above the ditch, checking the physical route against the service plans on her tablet. “It is concealed.” “It is wet.” “Those qualities are not mutually exclusive.” Reyes stepped down from the concrete edge behind them without splashing. Her rifle remained folded and secured close against her back, compact enough not to catch on the narrow service structures ahead. A suppressed sidearm rested in a chest holster. Red hair had been braided tightly and tucked beneath the collar of her dark field jacket. Kiro came last. She stopped on the edge and examined the water. “No.” Ace looked up at her. “It is shallow.” “That is not the problem.” “What is?” Kiro pointed at something moving beneath the surface. Ace looked down. A pale shape disappeared between her boots. She became very still. Reyes leaned over the edge. “Rat?” “Too long,” Kiro said. Ace stepped out of the water in one fast movement. Mai did not look up. “The municipal report lists nonhazardous biological activity.” “Municipal reports lie,” Ace said. Kiro lowered herself into the ditch without touching the water more than necessary. Reyes offered a hand. Kiro looked at it for half a second, then took it. Reyes steadied her through the descent and released her once both boots reached the narrow strip of dry concrete beside the runoff channel. Ace watched the dark water. “Nonhazardous to what?” “No one specified,” Mai said. The four stood beneath a freight bridge two blocks north of the Militech side facility. Above them, heavy vehicles moved through the night in irregular waves, their weight passing through the support pillars as low physical pressure. The ditch followed an old municipal utility line between industrial properties, nearly invisible from the road and partially covered by steel decking where newer yards had expanded over it. Westbridge had no registered connection to the channel. That was the reason Mai had chosen it. The facility’s public plans showed modern cooling and power entering through the eastern service side. Older municipal records—pulled from an archive predating Westbridge’s shell ownership—showed a drainage and inspection route continuing beneath the property before turning toward a decommissioned pumping station. Most of the route had supposedly been sealed twelve years earlier. The utility maps said the remaining section ended outside the fence. The district’s current thermal picture disagreed. Something beneath Westbridge still moved heat toward the old channel. Not enough for primary cooling. Enough for overflow, maintenance drainage or emergency pressure relief. Enough to justify physical access. Kiro adjusted the strap of the compact insulated equipment case against her back. The case contained no active transmitter. Nothing that could announce her to the facility before she reached its inner architecture. She disliked it intensely. Without a live connection to Safehouse systems, without distributed receivers and without even the low-level local mesh she normally carried, Kiro moved through the district with most of her signal awareness deliberately amputated. A thin passive detector remained clipped inside her jacket. It could tell her that something transmitted nearby. It could not reach out. It could not ask questions. It could not help Ace open a door. Reyes saw Kiro touch the detector for the fourth time. “It is still there.” “I know.” “You keep checking.” “I am verifying.” “By touching the same place?” “The case shifts when I move.” “It has not shifted.” Kiro looked at her. “How do you know?” “I have been watching it.” The answer interrupted whatever argument Kiro had prepared. Reyes turned toward Mai. “Route?” Mai closed the junction box and stood. “Under the decking. Seventy meters south. The inspection branch should be behind a maintenance plate in the east wall.” “Should?” Ace asked. “The record is twenty-four years old.” “That is a long time for a should.” “It is a short time for reinforced concrete.” Ace accepted that. Mostly. They moved beneath the steel decking in single file. Mai led through the utility route because the problem was still geometry rather than opposition. Ace stayed close behind her, head lowered beneath cross-bracing and pipes. Kiro followed Ace. Reyes took the rear, pausing at each opening long enough to ensure the darkness behind them remained empty. The route narrowed after thirty meters. Industrial runoff gave way to a dry maintenance shelf bordered by old conduit. Some lines had been cut and capped. Others still vibrated faintly with district power. Kiro’s detector touched her collarbone once. She stopped. Reyes stopped behind her. “What?” “Carrier.” “Facility?” “Unknown.” Mai turned back. Kiro held one finger against the detector, reading the simple tactile output through the casing. “Low power. Directional. Short duration.” “The timing pulse?” Mai asked. “Maybe.” Ace checked the time. “Early.” “Forty-six seconds.” “Does that change anything?” Kiro waited for the signal to return. It did not. “Not yet.” Mai looked toward the dark channel ahead. The timing pulse they had observed during shift turnover had repeated during two additional periods after they returned to the Safehouse. Not regularly enough to function as a public clock. Regularly enough for Kiro to establish that the inner system used it to align restricted access cycles. Tonight’s plan did not rely on controlling that pulse. It relied on using the facility’s response to it. Every time the local system reconciled its internal state, several physical processes entered a brief verification hold: - inner credentials stopped changing, - data-transfer compartments sealed, - personnel movement paused, - and some local sensors shifted from active classification to state confirmation. Not blindness. Nothing so generous. A short interval in which the system cared more about proving its own integrity than interpreting unusual physical noise at the outer utility edge. Mai had allocated ninety seconds. Kiro believed they might have one hundred and twelve. Reyes had planned for sixty. Ace had asked how much concrete she could remove in forty. The answer had not reassured anyone. They reached the east wall. Old moisture staining ran down the concrete. Three capped pipes protruded near floor level. Above them sat a rectangular steel maintenance plate half-hidden behind a newer support column. Ace crouched. “There.” The plate had been painted over several times. No handle. Six corroded fasteners. A manufacturer’s stamp barely visible beneath the top layer. Mai compared it to the old service plan. “Correct position.” Reyes moved past Kiro and took the nearest rear angle. The route behind them curved twice before reaching open drainage. No direct line. Poor sound travel. One person could hold it. Kiro stood beside Mai. “Thermal difference.” Mai touched the wall. “Behind the plate?” “Yes. Slight airflow too.” “Active route.” “Or a warm sealed cavity.” Ace removed a compact mechanical driver from her bag. “No signal answer?” Kiro looked at the plate. “None.” “Finally, my field.” Ace attached the driver to the first fastener. Mai caught her wrist. “Wait for the next alignment pulse.” Ace stared at her. “We are beside the wall.” “Yes.” “With the tool ready.” “Yes.” “And we are waiting.” “Yes.” Ace looked toward Kiro. “Can you make the pulse happen?” “No.” “Could you?” “Yes.” Mai looked at Kiro. Kiro added, “Not without transmitting.” Ace sighed and sat back on her heels. They waited. The industrial district continued above them. A freight hauler crossed the bridge. Somewhere inside the utility route, water dripped at an irregular interval that Ace disliked immediately. Reyes remained at the rear angle. Kiro stood close enough to the wall that one shoulder nearly touched it, attention focused on the passive detector. Without active overlays, the stillness in her face looked more physical than usual. She could not disappear into information. She had to wait for it to touch her. Mai watched the time. The next expected pulse window opened. Nothing happened. Ten seconds. Twenty. Ace looked at Kiro. Kiro lifted one hand. Thirty-six seconds into the window, the detector pressed once against her collarbone. “Now.” Ace moved. The first fastener came free without noise beyond a low mechanical strain. The second resisted. Ace shifted the tool angle. Reyes looked over her shoulder. “Twenty seconds.” “I know.” The second fastener turned. The third snapped. Ace caught the broken head before it hit the concrete. Mai held out a magnetic strip. Ace placed it there and continued. Kiro felt another faint signal layer appear beyond the wall. Not transmission toward them. Internal activity changing shape. “State hold active,” she said. “High confidence.” “Forty seconds,” Reyes said. Ace removed the fourth fastener. The fifth rotated halfway, then stopped. She reversed the tool. Nothing. “Problem?” Mai asked. “Corrosion.” “Time.” “I know.” Ace changed bits, drove through the fastener head and caught the fragment. The sixth came free. “Seventy,” Reyes said. Ace gripped the edge of the plate with a narrow pry tool. It did not move. “Sealed,” she whispered. Mai touched the lower seam. “Paint?” “No. Pressure gasket.” Kiro leaned closer. “Airflow increased when the fasteners released.” “Then it opens inward,” Ace said. Reyes checked the route. “Ninety.” The state hold would begin releasing. Ace inserted two thin wedges, one above and one beside the latch point. She applied pressure slowly until the metal flexed. A soft internal click. The plate shifted toward them half a centimeter. Ace caught it and eased it outward. Warm air passed through the gap. The detector at Kiro’s collar pulsed rapidly. She stepped back. “Local equipment.” “How close?” Mai asked. “Very.” “Alarm?” “Unknown.” Reyes looked at the darkness behind them. “Move.” Ace opened the plate enough to expose a narrow inspection duct. Not a tunnel. Not a comfortable route. A rectangular channel just wide enough for one person to crawl through beneath a run of insulated pipes. Warm condensation coated the lower surface. Dim maintenance lighting showed deeper inside, weak and amber. Ace looked into it. “Elegant.” Kiro looked over her shoulder. “Wet.” “Still.” Mai checked the plate’s inner edge. A simple mechanical contact sat in the frame. Ace had opened it. The contact remained depressed by a small spring arm linked to the plate. Opening the panel should have released it. Someone had modified the mechanism so maintenance access would not automatically report unless the plate moved beyond a wider angle. Mai inserted a thin polymer shim before opening it further. The contact stayed closed. “Someone still uses this,” she said. Kiro looked into the duct. “Or wants the option.” Ace went first. She slid inside on forearms and knees, practice forgotten beneath actual armor and equipment. The duct turned after five meters, forcing her to rotate one shoulder beneath the pipes. Warm water soaked one sleeve. She continued. Mai followed, passing her tablet and compact weapon ahead before entering. Kiro crouched before the opening. The duct seemed to narrow around the idea of her equipment case. Reyes unfastened it from her back. “I have it.” Kiro turned. “You need your rifle.” “I can carry both until the turn.” “It cannot strike the pipe.” “I know.” “The outer casing is insulated, not impactproof.” “I know.” “There are two latch points that—” “Kiro.” Kiro stopped. Reyes held the case securely against her chest. “I know how important it is.” The words were quiet. Kiro looked at the case. Then at Reyes. “Yes.” She entered the duct. Reyes followed last, pulling the maintenance plate inward until Mai’s shim held the contact and the opening settled nearly closed behind them. The interior swallowed the district noise. Only breathing, fabric against metal and the distant mechanical pulse of the building remained. Kiro crawled behind Mai. The duct pressed close around her shoulders. No local network became visible through the passive detector, only scattered equipment noise and the low directional carrier buried somewhere deeper in the facility. She disliked the absence more now that walls surrounded them. Reyes remained behind her. Close enough that Kiro could hear the controlled rhythm of her breathing. At the first turn, Reyes passed the insulated case forward. Kiro reached back blindly. Their hands found each other before the case. Reyes’s fingers closed around Kiro’s wrist long enough to guide her to the handle. “Got it?” “Yes.” Reyes released her. Kiro pulled the case forward. The duct rose gradually, then ended at a vertical maintenance shaft fitted with an old ladder. Newer pipes had been installed around it, reducing the space. Ace waited at the top beneath a closed access hatch. Mai crouched on the ladder below her. Kiro stopped at the base. Reyes settled behind her. Ace pressed one ear against the hatch. Nothing. She looked down. “Locked from above.” “Electronic?” Mai asked. “Mechanical latch.” “Can you reach it?” Ace inserted a flexible probe into the seam. “Probably.” Kiro touched the shaft wall. The passive detector fluttered. “Something active beyond.” “Security?” Reyes asked. “Building controls. Local. Very close.” “Can it see the hatch?” “I cannot tell.” Mai examined the shaft. An old manual service label remained bolted beside the ladder. Most text had worn away. One symbol indicated that the hatch opened into an equipment space requiring hearing protection. “Mechanical room,” she said. “Useful?” Ace asked. “Potentially.” “Occupied?” “Unknown.” Reyes shifted the rifle case against her back. “I can hear a motor.” Kiro listened. Beyond the hatch, a low rotary vibration rose and fell. Cooling or power conditioning. Enough noise to conceal entry. Enough equipment to create unseen angles. Ace worked the probe. A latch moved above them. She held it. Mai checked the time. The facility’s internal state had fully resumed. No more verification hold. From this point, every physical change mattered again. Ace eased the hatch upward one centimeter. Warm mechanical air descended into the shaft. No alarm. She raised it farther. A blue-white service light cut across her face. Ace looked through the gap. The room above contained three large coolant circulation units, a wall of power-conditioning equipment and a narrow maintenance walkway. No visible personnel. One camera. Mounted high above the far door. Its field did not cover the hatch directly. The layout was too convenient. Ace looked at Reyes. “Camera watches the exit, not this.” “Because the hatch is not supposed to open from below,” Reyes said. “Or because something else watches it,” Kiro added. Ace examined the frame. No visible sensor. Mai pointed to a small dark disc beneath the nearest coolant pipe. “Acoustic.” Reyes looked up. “Active?” Kiro held the passive detector near the gap. “No transmission.” “Local processing,” Reyes said. “Probably.” Ace studied the motor rhythm. The acoustic sensor would hear an unfamiliar hatch movement unless the surrounding machinery covered it. She watched the nearest circulation unit. Its vibration peaked every nine seconds as the pump load shifted. Ace counted once. At the next peak, she lifted the hatch. The motor swallowed the movement. She rolled onto the walkway and caught the hatch before it struck its stop. Mai followed. Kiro passed the equipment case up, then climbed. Reyes came last. Ace lowered the hatch on the next pump cycle. The four crouched behind the nearest circulation unit. The mechanical room smelled of coolant, ozone and clean industrial surfaces. Westbridge’s public building disappeared here. No shell-company labels. No ordinary maintenance tags. Every component carried coded internal markings stripped of manufacturer identification. Service panels required local physical keys. Power lines disappeared through shielded channels toward the center of the facility. Kiro looked at the passive detector. Several local carriers now pressed against it. Not one coherent network. Many small systems. None willing to announce identity. “We are inside the real boundary,” she whispered. Mai examined the far door. It had no visible handle on their side. A flush plate sat beside it. No badge reader. No keypad. Ace moved closer without crossing the camera field. “Opens automatically?” “From the other side, perhaps,” Mai said. Kiro studied the power channel near the plate. “Local control.” “Can you open it?” “No interface.” “Can you find one?” “Not here.” Reyes mapped the room. One door. The hatch behind them. Camera above the door. Acoustic sensor near the hatch. No space to hide if someone entered. “We cannot stay.” Mai looked at the camera. Its lens angle covered the door and most of the walkway, but the nearest coolant unit created a wedge of dead space beneath it. They occupied that wedge. “To reach the door, someone crosses the field,” she said. Ace already had a small optical loop device in hand. Kiro shook her head. “If the camera processes locally, repeating the image may fail behavior analysis.” “How fast?” “Unknown.” “Can you blind it?” “Physically.” Ace looked at Reyes. Reyes unfolded the compact rifle. “No.” Ace smiled. “I did not ask.” “You looked.” “Good communication.” Reyes studied the mounting bracket. The camera housing sat behind a transparent protective dome. Shooting it would create noise and confirm intrusion. Blocking it externally might trigger tamper detection. Mai looked at the coolant system. A thin plume of cold vapor escaped from a pressure-control valve every time the pump load peaked. The vapor drifted upward toward the camera field but dissipated before reaching it. She pointed to the valve. “Kiro.” Kiro followed the line. “If the purge duration increased, condensation would obscure the lens.” “Alarm?” “Maybe environmental fault. Maybe maintenance alert.” “Better than camera loss.” Ace moved toward the valve while remaining beneath the unit’s bulk. The control assembly was mechanical with a simple local override lever sealed beneath a wire lock. She looked at Mai. Mai checked the pump timing. “Two cycles. No more.” Ace broke the wire lock without letting the fragment fall. At the next load peak, she held the override. Cold vapor burst across the room. It rose in a thick white sheet. The camera disappeared behind condensation. Kiro watched the passive carriers. “Camera state changed.” “Alarm?” Mai asked. “Not yet.” Ace crossed. The door plate contained no external access, but the seam revealed a manual emergency release behind a narrow cover. She opened it, turned the recessed spindle and felt the internal lock withdraw. The door moved inward. Ace slipped through. Reyes followed, rifle ready. Mai brought Kiro across as the second purge cycle covered the camera. Ace released the valve. The vapor thinned. The four stood in a narrow service corridor beyond the mechanical room. The door closed behind them. Kiro’s detector pressed repeatedly against her collarbone. She drew in a breath. “What?” “More systems.” “Useful?” Mai asked. “Too many.” The corridor looked nothing like the public floor plan. Reinforced doors broke the walls at irregular intervals. Each carried only a coded physical label. Ceiling-mounted sensors watched the intersections. No windows. No decorative surfaces. No company branding. The air itself felt controlled. Reyes moved to the near corner and looked through a small angled mirror rather than exposing her head. “Empty.” Mai brought up the simplified interior model built from power use, exterior movement and old construction records. None of the corridor geometry matched it. “We proceed south,” she said. “Secondary power concentration should be below or beyond the test floor.” Kiro touched the wall. “There is a local bus inside this conduit.” “Can you access it?” “Not without opening the panel.” “Worth it?” “Not yet.” Ace looked down the corridor. “Physical first.” Kiro did not enjoy hearing her own earlier limitation reflected back at her. She accepted it. They moved. Ace took the front. Not far. Three to five meters ahead, enough to read each corner and stop the first physical threat without breaking the four-person structure. Reyes remained behind Kiro at first, covering the rear while tracking Ace’s movement through partial sight lines. Mai held the center, route map in one hand and suppressed sidearm in the other. Kiro listened with her detector and with the parts of her nervous system that had learned to interpret the pressure of nearby electronics even without a proper interface. The first door opened before they reached it. Ace stepped into the wall shadow. A technician emerged carrying a sealed diagnostic case. He looked toward the corridor. Reyes saw his shoulders change before his face did. Recognition of something wrong. He had expected an empty passage. Ace crossed the distance. One hand caught his wrist before it reached the alarm strip inside his sleeve. The other closed against the side of his neck. She turned him into the wall without impact, folded his arm behind him and lowered him to the floor as his balance disappeared. Reyes covered the open doorway. No one else inside. Mai caught the diagnostic case before it hit. Kiro watched Ace check the technician’s breathing. Alive. Unconscious. Ace removed the local badge from his collar. “Useful.” Kiro crouched beside the case. “Do not open that.” Ace looked at her. “I was not.” “You looked.” “Everyone is using that against me tonight.” The open doorway led to a small equipment room lined with sealed storage compartments. A local terminal sat dark against the far wall. Kiro’s attention fixed on it. Mai saw the shift. “Not our target.” “It may identify the local architecture.” “Can you access it without committing?” Kiro entered the room and examined the terminal physically. No wireless emissions. No exposed port. A recessed optical interface sat beneath a sealed cover. She looked at the technician. “His badge may wake it.” Mai checked the corridor. “How long?” “To identify the network segment? Seconds.” “Do it.” Reyes dragged the technician inside and positioned herself at the doorway. Ace remained in the corridor’s forward shadow. Kiro held the badge near the terminal. The screen activated. No name. No welcome. A blank authentication field appeared, followed by a request for a physical token. The badge was only half the credential. Kiro looked at the sealed diagnostic case. Ace smiled. Kiro pointed at her. “Do not.” Mai placed the case on the work surface. “The token may be inside.” “It may also report tampering.” “Can you inspect the seal?” Kiro removed a small optical reader from her equipment case and examined the diagnostic unit without opening it. The seal contained an integrity circuit. Local only. Breaking it would change state when next connected to an authorized station. “Not here,” she said. Mai looked at the unconscious technician. “Biometric?” “Possible.” Reyes glanced back. “His right hand.” The technician wore a dark conductive patch across two fingers. Not medical. A removable short-range authentication surface. Kiro lifted his hand carefully and placed the patch against the terminal. The screen changed. A local equipment index appeared. Kiro’s eyes moved quickly. “Maintenance segment.” “Useful?” Mai asked. “Limited.” She scanned the route map displayed on the terminal. No facility blueprint. Only service zones, equipment identifiers and pending maintenance tasks. Several zones remained inaccessible under the technician’s credentials. But one entry mattered. **ISOLATED COMPUTE ENVIRONMENT — THERMAL LOOP B** Kiro opened the maintenance record. A cooling-pressure irregularity had been logged three days earlier. The location identifier did not match the public floor plan. It sat deeper toward the secondary power concentration. “There.” Mai leaned over her shoulder. “Access route?” “Not displayed. But the thermal loop runs through service junction C-seven.” Kiro searched the local index. The junction lay one corridor south and one level below. Ace listened from the doorway. “Then we go.” Kiro copied the maintenance identifiers into the isolated storage inside her equipment case. No transmission. No wider access. The terminal logged the technician’s badge activity. They could not erase it without deeper control. A trace existed now. Small. Explainable. Until someone noticed the technician unconscious beside the wrong terminal. Mai checked the time. “We have begun the detection clock.” Kiro closed the session and returned the conductive patch to the technician’s hand. Ace took the badge. They left him inside the equipment room, secured but breathing, the door closed without locking. The corridor ahead divided. The service-junction route required crossing an exposed intersection watched by two ceiling sensors. Kiro examined them. “Optical and thermal.” “Local processing?” Reyes asked. “Yes.” “Can the badge suppress them?” “No. Staff are supposed to be seen.” Mai looked at the corridor doors. One led into a small materials lab. Another into storage. They could wait for legitimate movement and cross behind it. They could physically disable the sensors. Or Ace could move faster than the system’s classification threshold and hope it interpreted her as a fault. Ace liked the third option. Mai did not ask. A low vibration passed through the floor. Kiro froze. The passive detector changed pattern. “What?” Mai asked. “Internal state update.” “Related to us?” “Unknown.” A light above the corridor behind them changed from white to amber. Reyes looked back. The same color they had seen during shift closure. But no timing pulse had preceded it. A door near the mechanical room locked. Then another. The facility was beginning to restrict movement. Not alarm. Not yet. A local irregularity had entered the system. The maintenance terminal. The open service hatch. The coolant purge. Something had become visible enough to trigger correlation. Mai looked at the exposed intersection. “We cross now.” Ace moved first. She stayed close to the wall until the final meter, then cut through the sensor field at a low diagonal rather than running straight beneath it. Reyes followed, rifle held tight. Mai crossed behind her. Kiro entered last. The thermal sensor above the junction rotated. Too quickly. It had classified the first three movements as one pattern. Kiro became the anomaly. “Move,” Reyes said. Kiro moved. The sensor tracked. Reyes stepped back into the field, placing her own thermal profile between Kiro and the ceiling unit. The sensor hesitated, forced to reconcile overlapping bodies. Kiro cleared the intersection. Reyes followed. The light above the corridor changed amber. Then red. Mai did not look back. “Faster.” They reached a stairwell secured by a local badge reader. Ace presented the technician’s badge. The panel remained dark. Kiro checked the conductive patch information she had copied. “Badge alone is insufficient inside.” “Hand?” Ace asked. “We did not bring him.” “Poor planning.” Reyes covered the corridor. “Can we open it physically?” Ace examined the frame. Electromagnetic lock. Reinforced hinges. No visible emergency release. “Eventually.” “How long?” Mai asked. “Loud or quiet?” “Quiet.” “Too long.” The corridor behind them activated in sequence. Red lights moved closer. Not general alarm illumination. Access-state indicators. The facility was closing zones around the irregularity. Kiro crouched beside the reader and opened the shallow service cover beneath it with a manual tool. Inside sat no network port. Only power, local control and a sealed optical line. She looked at Mai. “I can interrupt the lock state.” “Will it open?” “Maybe.” “Will it report?” “Yes.” “It is already reporting.” Kiro cut the local control power. The electromagnetic lock remained engaged on backup. Ace looked at her. “Militech.” “Yes.” Reyes fired once. The suppressed shot struck the lock housing at an angle, cracking the ceramic protection without penetrating the door. Ace inserted a wedge into the damaged seam and drove it deeper with the heel of her hand. Reyes fired a second time. The housing shifted. Ace twisted the wedge. The magnet tore free of its mount with a low metal scream. The door opened. They moved into the stairwell. Reyes closed it behind them, but the lock no longer held. “Two levels?” Ace asked. “One,” Kiro said. “Thermal loop is below.” Ace descended. The stairwell camera turned toward them. Reyes covered it with a magnetic obscuring patch as she passed. No point pretending now that the facility had seen nothing. They still had not triggered a full tactical alarm. That distinction remained valuable. At the lower landing, the door opened with the stolen badge. A different security layer. Less restrictive because personnel reaching the stairwell were assumed to be authorized. The assumption lasted exactly as long as systems remained separate. Kiro felt the local networks beginning to compare information. “Correlation is increasing.” “How long?” Mai asked. “Until they know our location?” “Yes.” “I do not know.” Reyes looked at her. “Confidence.” “High that they know there is an intrusion. Medium that they know the correct zone. Low that they know how many people.” “Good.” Kiro looked toward her. Reyes had acted on the information rather than asking for explanation. The agreement from the café had survived contact with the real building. Kiro’s breathing steadied. The lower corridor carried heavier shielding. No public materials-lab pretense. The walls were lined with service access for cooling, power and optical transfer. Floor markings identified clean-equipment routes. Several recessed compartments resembled the sterilization unit used at the side entrance. Kiro’s detector pressed continuously now. “We are beside it.” “The development network?” Mai asked. “One of them.” “Access?” Kiro moved toward the nearest optical-transfer compartment. It remained closed. A small local indicator showed green. “No. This is one-way intake or controlled transfer.” “Can you use it?” “Not without authorized media.” Ace checked the next junction. “Movement.” Footsteps approached from beyond the corner. More than one person. Reyes moved beside her. Mai guided Kiro toward a recessed maintenance alcove. There was not enough space for all four. Ace and Reyes remained outside. Three facility security personnel entered the corridor. Plain dark work uniforms. Compact weapons already drawn. They had not reached full alarm posture, but they expected resistance. The first saw Ace. Ace moved before he completed the identification. She crossed inside his weapon line, drove his wrist upward and struck beneath the jaw. The weapon fired once into the ceiling, the sound compressed but not hidden. Reyes shot the second guard’s forward leg before he could angle past Ace. The third moved toward cover. Kiro saw the access-state light above the door beside him change. “Right door opening,” she said. Reyes trusted it. She fired at the edge of the doorway before it moved. A fourth guard recoiled behind it, forced back by the shot. Ace turned the first guard into the third, disrupting both. Reyes shifted her aim away from Ace’s movement without hesitation and took the fourth guard’s weapon hand as it reappeared. Not effortless. Ace crossed farther than Reyes expected. Reyes had to step twice to preserve the line. Ace glanced once over her shoulder to verify the coverage. Reyes was there. Ace finished the movement. The corridor fell quiet. One guard remained conscious, gripping the wounded leg. Another breathed hard against the wall. The others did not move. Reyes covered the far door. Ace checked the nearest bodies. “No general alarm yet.” Kiro listened to the network pressure. “It is coming.” Mai pointed down the corridor. “C-seven.” They moved. The service junction sat behind a heavy door identified only by its thermal-loop code. This reader accepted the stolen badge. No hand token. The door opened. Inside, coolant lines surrounded a narrow technical space and several isolated service terminals. Kiro stopped at the threshold. The pressure against her detector changed completely. Not scattered systems. Depth. Layer beneath layer, close enough now that the absence had become almost physical. The useful network was here. Or near enough that one of the terminals could reach it. She entered. Reyes followed and immediately mapped the room. Two doors. The one they had used. A second exit at the far side, currently locked. One ceiling camera. Two service recesses. A waist-high technical bench built into the central coolant structure. No windows. Poor fields. A room nobody liked. Mai closed the door behind them. The ceiling camera began turning toward the bench. Kiro touched the maintenance terminal before opening her case. The stolen service identity gave her just enough authority to hold the camera on its previous empty-room frame. Its status light remained steady. No loss alarm. No obvious loop long enough to become suspicious. “Camera is static for now,” she said. Mai checked the readout. “For how long?” “Until another system asks why.” “Then work.” “Can you access it?” Kiro placed her equipment case on the technical bench and opened it. Inside, insulated components unfolded into a compact local interface rig: optical bridge, isolated processing core, physical disconnect, biometric monitoring leads and a neural link designed to prevent the facility from touching anything beyond what Kiro deliberately exposed. She examined the first terminal. Maintenance only. The second carried a deeper optical route. Its physical seal had already been broken by authorized service work. Kiro opened the cover. Inside, the interface architecture matched nothing in Militech’s public systems. “Yes.” The answer changed the room. Ace took the forward door. Mai checked the extraction route and remaining time. Reyes moved beside Kiro. Not behind her. Beside. “How long?” “I still do not know.” “First threshold?” Kiro connected the isolated bridge without activating it. “Five minutes for orientation.” “Second?” “Ten for useful structure.” “And after?” “I tell you.” Reyes looked at her. Kiro amended, “With confidence.” “Good.” Ace listened at the door. “People moving on the level.” Mai turned to Kiro. “Find the project. Determine the development stage. No expansion beyond that objective.” Kiro secured the neural link against her temple and neck. “I know.” Mai held her gaze. Kiro exhaled. “I know.” Reyes checked the monitoring leads. Kiro watched her hands. “You remember the disconnect sequence?” “Yes.” “Primary release first. Not the bridge.” “I know.” “If the interface locks, the bridge stays powered until—” “Kiro.” Kiro stopped. Reyes’s hand rested lightly against the side of her neck, fingers near the manual release. “I know.” The room seemed smaller around the contact. The corridor outside no longer mattered for one suspended second. Kiro looked at her. The history between them carried every argument, every crossing, every earlier moment when one had known more than the other wanted seen. This was not new trust. It was old trust being asked to bear more weight. “If I stop answering,” Kiro said, “do not assume I cannot hear you.” “I will not.” “If I repeat myself—” “I pull you shallow.” “If I lose motor control—” “I call Mai and disconnect.” “If I say I am almost there?” Reyes’s expression did not soften. “I ask whether you are still making a clean decision.” Kiro’s mouth moved faintly. “That will irritate me.” “I know.” “Good.” Reyes withdrew her hand. Kiro missed the contact before the absence had fully formed. She looked at the terminal. Mai took position where she could see both doors and Kiro’s monitoring readout. Ace remained at the forward line. Reyes placed herself between Kiro and the main entrance, rifle ready, one hand still close enough to reach the physical disconnect. Kiro activated the bridge. The local terminal woke. No company logo. No user layer. A blank white field appeared, then folded inward around a sequence of machine identities, physical access certificates and isolated trust states. The system reached toward the bridge. Kiro reached back. For the first time, the building noticed her directly. The door light outside changed from amber to red. Somewhere deeper in the facility, locks began closing in sequence. Reyes heard them. One. Then another. Then another. Kiro’s eyes lost focus. Her breathing slowed. The white terminal field reflected across her face. “I am in,” she said. And the facility began to close around them. --- ## CHAPTER 7 — LOCAL WEATHER The network did not open. It folded around Kiro. The white field on the service terminal narrowed into a corridor of machine identities, access states and local trust certificates. Each layer verified the bridge, rejected it, accepted part of it, then demanded proof that the accepted part had not changed during the previous verification. No welcome screen. No architecture map. No central system offering to be understood. Militech had built the environment under the assumption that everyone inside it had permission to be dangerous. Kiro approved. The thought lasted less than a second. Then the first behavioral monitor noticed that the maintenance terminal was asking questions in the wrong order. She moved before it could decide why. The bridge presented a valid service identity taken from the terminal’s own recent history. Kiro wrapped herself inside its expected diagnostic sequence, following the path of a cooling-loop inspection rather than forcing a new route. The system allowed her one level deeper. Behind her, the access room disappeared. Not literally. She still felt the bench beneath her forearms, the link against her temple and the monitoring leads pulling faintly at her skin when she breathed. Reyes stood somewhere to her right. Mai remained behind the readout. Ace held the corridor beyond the main door, both katanas already drawn. Those facts remained. They simply became farther away than the machine identities in front of her. The development environment assembled itself through function rather than appearance. Kiro did not see a city. Not exactly. She experienced unfinished structures arranged beneath completed surfaces. Raw subsystem logs formed narrow service passages with exposed supports beneath them. Above those ran polished executive layers, clean and brightly labeled, carrying performance claims unsupported by anything below. Project-management paths connected sections that engineering had never joined. Simulated outcomes floated over empty interface points as though confidence could replace wiring. It resembled a district still under construction while advertising screens already showed people living there. Somewhere inside it sat the answer Rogue wanted. Kiro moved through the maintenance identity. The cooling-loop route reached a local infrastructure index. Most branches remained hidden, but hidden systems still consumed resources. They requested time. They produced heat. They recorded failures in places maintenance personnel could reach. She followed the failures. A subsystem marked only by an internal code had requested additional cooling during three simulation runs. A second had generated vibration above structural tolerances. A third had been removed from the active test schedule after producing inconsistent target-classification results. None carried the project name. They did not need to. The shape between them already matched the fragments Rogue had collected. Heavy-assault-vehicle interdiction. Real enough to consume power. Real enough to break components. Not necessarily real enough to work. Kiro reached toward the first subsystem archive. The network moved away. A local trust process examined the service identity and recognized that cooling maintenance did not require access to performance logs. Kiro released the request before rejection became suspicion. The corridor behind her closed. Not permanently. A warning. The system remembered what people tried to touch. “Kiro.” Reyes’s voice arrived through distance. Clear. Close. Kiro translated it back into the room. “Yes.” “Status.” “Orientation complete.” “How deep?” “First internal layer.” “Physical?” “Functional.” “That was not what I asked.” Kiro’s fingers tightened slightly against the bench. Reyes noticed. Of course she did. Kiro forced more attention into her body. Hands responsive. Breathing controlled. Vision occupied by the interface but not replaced. “No impairment.” “Time?” Kiro accessed the bridge clock. “Two minutes, eleven.” Reyes did not remind her that orientation had been estimated at five. The silence carried the observation anyway. Kiro returned to the archive. She could not enter through performance logs. So she followed the maintenance effect backward. The subsystem that had requested cooling had also generated a parts-replacement order. The replacement order connected to inventory. Inventory connected to physical fabrication. Fabrication records required dimensional verification. Dimensional verification carried project classification because somebody eventually had to confirm that the replacement part fit the thing Militech claimed to be building. The project identifier appeared for less than a second. Kiro caught it. **HAVIP-3** Not a name. A branch. Three. Meaning at least two others had existed or still did. She copied the identifier into the isolated working memory of her bridge. No export yet. Nothing crossed into the storage core until she understood what would trigger integrity checks. She searched for HAVIP-1 indirectly. No active files. Old references remained in procurement reversals and canceled access requests. HAVIP-2 appeared in simulation-support schedules. HAVIP-3 dominated current fabrication. Three versions of the same promised system. Or three different systems management had forced beneath one title. “Kiro,” Mai said. Kiro surfaced enough to answer. “Three development branches.” “Parallel?” “Possibly sequential. One archived, one simulation-heavy, one receiving physical fabrication.” “Which is current?” “Three.” “Confidence?” “Medium.” “Why not high?” “Management references still combine them.” Mai absorbed that. “What do you need?” “Architecture.” “Time.” “Eight minutes.” Reyes’s voice came immediately. “You estimated ten for useful structure.” “I have useful structure.” “Then why eight more?” “To determine whether the branches converge.” The corridor door outside opened. Reyes fired once. The suppressed report reached Kiro as a physical vibration through the bench. Reyes moved. Kiro felt her absence before hearing it. Not gone. Shifted. The right side of the room became empty in a way the interface could not explain. Kiro’s breathing changed. The network noticed. A biometric-linked bridge process adjusted signal depth automatically. Kiro stopped it. She had built the bridge to support her. Not decide for her. “Main corridor,” Ace said over the comm. “Two.” “Hold,” Mai answered. Reyes fired again. Then came the harder physical sounds from beyond the door. A weapon striking steel. Boots skidding across the corridor floor. The clean metallic snap of a katana turning a barrel away from its intended line. A body hit the wall. Ace moved through the corridor like pressure given direction, forcing Militech security to deal with her at a distance where rifles became awkward lengths of machinery and her blades became the only geometry that mattered. Kiro remained connected. The local security environment changed state. One access door lost authorized status. Another entered manual hold. A corridor sensor shifted from routine monitoring to anomaly classification. Kiro saw it from inside the development architecture because the same physical-security state had requested confirmation from an isolated personnel-tracking process. The systems were not fully separate. Militech had kept the data apart. Not the building. “Kiro,” Reyes said. Her voice was closer again. Kiro exhaled. “I see local access states.” “Useful?” “Security corridor outside. Door three entering lock. Movement approaching from south service route.” Reyes turned. Kiro could hear the small change in her equipment. “How many?” The local system showed three credential transitions. Then a fourth identity appeared without a standard personnel signature. “Three confirmed. Possible fourth.” “Confidence?” “High three. Low fourth.” Reyes moved without asking for the source. The room’s physical map reconstructed itself through sound and network state. Reyes left Kiro’s right side and took the far-door angle. Ace remained outside the main entrance. Mai shifted behind Kiro, close enough that the monitoring display entered peripheral awareness. The south service-route door unlocked. Not opened. Someone on the other side had valid local authority. Kiro reached through the maintenance identity and held the cooling-loop fault active. The fault requested a safety check. The door controller delayed opening while the building reconciled whether the adjacent equipment zone required isolation. Three seconds. Perhaps four. “Kiro?” Mai asked. “Delaying south door.” “You can control it?” “No. I can make another system ask it questions.” Ace made a quiet sound over the comm. “Very Kiro.” The door began to open. Reyes fired through the widening gap. The first security officer fell backward before entering. The others stopped outside the line. The possible fourth credential disappeared from the local state. Not a person. A carried security device. Reyes shifted position. “Kiro. Door.” “Opening authority remains external. Local hold unavailable.” “Can it close?” “Not cleanly.” “Dirty?” Kiro touched the maintenance safety layer again. The cooling fault escalated. A pressure-protection process ordered all adjacent fire barriers to test closed state. The south door hesitated. Then began sliding shut. The officer outside tried to block it with a boot. Reyes fired low. The boot vanished from the gap. The door sealed. A red manual-override warning appeared in the local system. Kiro released the false cooling escalation before the process propagated far enough to trigger a full equipment shutdown. The network turned toward her. Not physically. Attention redistributed. The cooling-loop service identity had now requested access behavior inconsistent with ordinary maintenance. A correlation process opened. It compared: - the earlier terminal activation, - the unexplained camera condensation, - the broken stairwell lock, - the maintenance fault, - and the corridor-door behavior. Separate irregularities began becoming one event. Kiro withdrew from the cooling identity. The route collapsed behind her. “Lost local door influence,” she said. Reyes returned to her side. “How long until they know the room?” “Unknown.” “Kiro.” “Medium confidence they already know the level. Low confidence they know this room.” Reyes looked at Mai. Mai checked the corridor state. “Ace?” “Main approach clear for now.” “Fall back to the near junction. Do not pursue.” A pause. Then Ace: “I was not pursuing.” Mai did not answer. Ace returned toward the access room. Kiro felt the shift through local credential failures before hearing her steps. Security identities disappeared from one corridor and reappeared farther away as personnel retreated to reorganize. The building was learning. So was she. She moved deeper. Without the maintenance identity, she needed another path. HAVIP-3’s fabrication records contained a project-management reference. Project management did not live inside engineering logs, but selected summaries crossed between them through controlled export packages. Kiro found the export boundary. The system represented it as a series of sealed, one-directional transfers. Engineering data entered a staging area. Automated processes removed raw failures, uncertain classifications and unresolved interface notes. Management received milestone language. Kiro watched one conversion. **TARGET CLASSIFICATION FAILURE RATE: 31.4% UNDER MULTISOURCE INTERFERENCE** became: **ADAPTIVE CLASSIFICATION MODEL REQUIRES CONTINUED ENVIRONMENTAL OPTIMIZATION** A structural instability warning became: **REVISED MOUNTING ARCHITECTURE IMPROVES MODULARITY OPTIONS** A canceled integrated test became: **DEMONSTRATION SEQUENCE RESCHEDULED TO ALIGN WITH EXPANDED CAPABILITY SET** Kiro stopped moving. Even inside the network, the audacity carried force. “Kiro?” Reyes said. “They are laundering failure through vocabulary.” Ace had returned to the main door, one katana held low and the second angled beside the frame. “Consultants.” “Automated first. Human-edited after.” Mai leaned closer to the monitoring display. “What does the engineering layer say?” “Subsystem development. No integrated proof.” “And the management layer?” “Prototype integration progressing.” “Can both refer to the same current branch?” “Yes.” “Then Rogue’s contradiction is internal.” “Yes.” “Copy the conversion chain.” Kiro began preparing the evidence. The export boundary resisted broad collection. It allowed finalized packages to leave but prevented raw engineering material from being attached. The bridge could copy each side separately, but taking both with their transformation metadata risked activating data-loss protection. She could take the technical truth. Or the lie built from it. Rogue needed the connection. Kiro looked for the human editor. Someone had approved the conversion. Approval meant identity. Identity meant access history. She followed the signature into a project-oversight layer. The architecture changed again. Engineering had looked unfinished but honest. Oversight looked complete because it contained almost nothing capable of contradicting itself. Milestones. Budget states. Executive risks. Demonstration targets. A physical prototype-status tracker glowed near the center. Kiro reached it. **PRESENTATION UNIT — ASSEMBLY 84%** Not integrated prototype. Presentation unit. The term appeared only in the internal status field. The external summary called it: **FULL-SCALE PROTOTYPE PLATFORM** Kiro copied both. Her pulse accelerated. Reyes’s hand touched the inside of her wrist. Not restraining. Checking. Kiro had not heard her move. “Breathing,” Reyes said. “I am breathing.” “Faster.” “I found the physical unit.” “Does it work?” “It is eighty-four percent assembled.” “That was not what I asked.” Kiro almost snapped back. Stopped. The distinction mattered. “Unknown.” Reyes’s fingers remained against her pulse. “Good.” Kiro opened the assembly subrecords. Mechanical base structure complete. Sensor housings installed. Primary internal routing incomplete. Effect-mechanism module listed as **representative mass assembly**. No live power architecture. No operational signal bus. No integrated control core. The thing in the photograph was not a weapon. It was weight arranged to make the outside look correct. Kiro’s excitement sharpened. “Mock-up.” Mai’s voice remained controlled. “Confidence?” “High that the current presentation unit is nonfunctional. Medium that no separate integrated unit exists.” “Why only medium?” “References to off-site test packages.” “Can you access them?” “Not stored here.” “Can you verify that they exist?” “Not yet.” Reyes’s fingers left Kiro’s wrist. The absence registered immediately. Kiro pushed deeper into the oversight layer. Off-site test packages appeared as imported result summaries with no raw data attached. Some referenced HAVIP-2. Others carried no branch designation. The claimed performance exceeded what HAVIP-3’s current architecture could plausibly produce. Possible explanations multiplied: - earlier tests using a different system, - simulations described as imported testing, - component tests generalized into full-system claims, - or a more advanced platform located elsewhere. Kiro opened one result. The metadata had been scrubbed. Too cleanly. No test location. No hardware serials. No sensor-source identifiers. Only outcomes. A heavy assault vehicle stopped at range. Another immobilized during approach. A third classified and defeated in a simulated urban environment. Kiro examined the file structure. The results had been generated from a model. Not recorded from hardware. “Simulation,” she said. Mai answered immediately. “All of them?” “These three.” “Confidence?” “High.” “Any real test evidence?” “Searching.” The correlation process found the oversight-layer access. A containment barrier formed around the identity path Kiro had borrowed. She broke the path before it closed. The sudden transition pulled part of her visual field sideways. The room tilted. Reyes’s hand was against the side of her neck before Kiro fully felt the movement. “Kiro.” “I have it.” “Look at me.” “Not yet.” Reyes’s grip changed. Not stronger. More present. “Kiro.” The network continued shifting. If Kiro looked away now, she might lose the route into the imported test archive. The archive might contain the only real evidence of integration. “I need ten seconds.” “Are you choosing cleanly?” “Yes.” The answer came too fast. Reyes heard it. “So did I.” Kiro’s irritation flared. The flare clarified her. Hands still responsive. Language intact. The visual tilt already stabilizing. She could look. Kiro turned her eyes toward Reyes. Red hair pulled back. Face still. Attention entirely on her rather than the corridor, the rifle or the network she could not see. Reyes checked both pupils. “Again,” she said. “I am oriented.” “Where?” “Access room. Local development network. You are on my right. Mai behind. Ace at the forward door.” Ace spoke from the doorway. “Correct and flattering.” Reyes ignored her. “Motor?” Kiro moved both hands deliberately. “Responsive.” “Continue.” Reyes released her neck. Kiro returned to the archive. The route had narrowed. Not lost. She entered through the simulation package rather than the oversight identity. The system expected analytical processes there. Kiro shaped herself like one. The imported tests divided into folders: **MODEL VALIDATION** **COMPONENT RESPONSE** **INTEGRATED EFFECT PROJECTION** The wording mattered. Projection. Not demonstration. The full-system outcomes existed only as calculated results. Component-response records were real. A sensor array had tracked a heavy vehicle under controlled conditions. A power-delivery component had produced a short output burst. A mechanical platform had tolerated static load. No record showed all three operating together. No integrated effect mechanism existed in tested hardware. Kiro copied the structure. “Subsystems real,” she said. “Integrated capability projected.” Mai responded. “Development stage?” “Pre-integration.” The word settled into the room. Rogue’s question had an answer. Part of one. Mai did not celebrate. “What contradicts it?” “Executive material. Physical presentation unit. Imported summaries.” “Anything technical?” Kiro searched. “One branch may have existed before the current architecture.” “HAVIP-2?” “Yes. Simulation-heavy, but some references suggest a different effect mechanism.” “Could it have reached integration?” “Unknown.” “Can you establish whether it was abandoned?” “Maybe.” Reyes looked at the timer. “Kiro.” “I know.” “Time.” “Nine minutes, forty-eight.” “You said ten for useful structure.” “I have useful structure.” “And now?” Kiro stared at the HAVIP-2 archive boundary. It sat beneath an old access-control format, partially detached from the current system. Archived but not deleted. The kind of place where failed ideas remained dangerous because nobody had fully decided they were dead. “Six minutes.” Reyes’s expression hardened. “Why?” “Because branch two may explain the test references.” “Or?” “Or prove there is another system.” Mai answered before Reyes could. “Four.” Kiro tried to turn toward her and remembered the interface occupied most of her vision. “Mai.” “Four minutes. Then withdrawal begins regardless of branch status.” “That may not be enough.” “It is what exists.” Kiro looked at the archive. The system looked back. Outside, a new access state appeared. The main corridor divided into two controlled sections. Security teams stopped approaching directly. They were beginning to seal routes instead. Kiro saw three doors change. Then the stairwell. Then the service junction behind their intended extraction route. “Mai.” “What?” “They are not pushing the room.” Mai looked at the local access map Kiro had managed to expose through the bridge. “They are containing the level.” “Yes.” Ace leaned just far enough beyond the doorframe to read the empty corridor, then withdrew before the next angle could acquire her. “How rude.” Reyes moved toward the far door and tested it. Still locked. “Alternate exit?” Kiro searched the building-state layer. The far door led into another technical corridor, but local authority had placed it under containment hold. “I may open the second door through thermal emergency.” “Can you?” Mai asked. “Not from the current identity.” “Then do not split focus.” Kiro’s frustration rose. The branch archive waited. The building closed. The project’s actual development stage had become visible but not clean. Exactly enough truth to prove that more existed beyond it. Reyes returned to her side. “Four minutes.” Kiro looked toward her without fully surfacing. “You agree with Mai.” “Yes.” “You have not seen the archive.” “No.” “It may contain the only real test lineage.” “Yes.” “And you still agree.” “Yes.” “Why?” Reyes rested one hand against the bench near Kiro’s, not touching. “Because you already found the answer Rogue asked for.” “A qualified answer.” “Real answers usually are.” Kiro almost smiled. Almost. The containment process advanced another layer. The network’s attention focused on the bridge. Not yet identifying Kiro. Identifying difference. A maintenance terminal behaving like analysis. An export process reading raw engineering data. An archived identity crossing current oversight. Local weather turning into a storm. Kiro opened HAVIP-2. The archive resisted. Old encryption. Old trust chain. Partially disconnected from current identity systems. She could break it. Breaking it would be visible. Reyes’s hand remained beside hers. Mai watched the clock. Ace listened at the door, blades motionless despite the footsteps gathering beyond the next junction. Kiro entered. The archive opened into darkness. Not emptiness. Deletion. Most primary files had been removed. What remained were references, personnel transfers, canceled hardware orders and one surviving executive review. Kiro reached for it. The network closed around the bridge. Her vision filled with white. The room vanished. Reyes’s voice arrived from very far away. “Kiro.” She did not answer. Not because she could not hear. Because the executive review had opened. One line appeared before the containment layer obscured it: **HAVIP-2 TERMINATED FOLLOWING FAILURE TO PRODUCE STABLE FULL-SCALE EFFECT. SELECT MODEL OUTPUTS RETAINED FOR CONTINUING PROGRAM JUSTIFICATION.** Kiro copied it. The system struck the bridge. Pain arrived as light behind her eyes. Her right hand locked. Reyes caught it before the fingers folded against the terminal edge. “Kiro.” Kiro forced breath into her body. “Branch two terminated.” “Look at me.” “Stable effect failure.” “Kiro.” “Model outputs reused—” Reyes’s hand pressed against the side of her neck. The familiar grounding point. Voice close. Body close. Real room waiting beyond the white field. “Look at me.” Kiro turned. The movement felt like crossing distance. Reyes came into focus. Not all at once. Eyes first. Then face. Then the line of her shoulders between Kiro and the main door. “Motor loss?” Reyes asked. “Right hand temporary.” “Current?” Kiro tried to move it. Two fingers responded. Then the others. “Returning.” “Language repeating?” “No.” “You repeated the branch result three times.” “I was reporting.” “You were looping.” Kiro wanted to argue. The network struck the bridge again. The white field fractured. Mai watched the evidence counter, the containment curve and the tremor beginning in Kiro’s right hand. They had the engineering state, the failed branch, the presentation unit and enough provenance to answer Rogue. What remained could close the ugliest evidentiary gap. It could also keep Kiro inside until Militech owned the bridge. Kiro looked toward her through the white interference. For one second Mai saw the request beneath the fixation: let me finish this; let the cost mean something; do not make me leave the answer here. Mai loved her enough not to grant it. “Withdraw.” “I have the archive.” “I know.” Mai did not look away. “Withdraw now.” Kiro looked back toward the remaining data. One more reference path blinked beneath the terminated review. A current showcase package had imported HAVIP-2 model outputs into HAVIP-3 capability projections. The exact chain. Proof that the supposedly successful results being prepared for presentation came from the failed branch’s simulations. She reached. Reyes caught her wrist. Not hard. Enough. “Kiro.” “Five seconds.” “No.” “I can prove the presentation claims use failed model data.” “You already know.” “Knowing is not evidence.” “Are you choosing cleanly?” “Yes.” Reyes held her gaze. Kiro heard her own breathing. Too fast. Felt the right hand still recovering. Felt the pull of the unresolved reference stronger than the room. The honest answer changed. “No.” Reyes released her wrist only to move her hand to the manual disconnect sequence. “Begin controlled withdrawal.” Kiro looked at the blinking chain. Then at Reyes. Then past her, to Mai. Mai held the line and accepted whatever Kiro would feel about it later. The choice hurt more because both of them were right. Kiro released the archive. The route folded shut. She began withdrawing the bridge identity layer by layer, preserving what had already crossed into isolated storage. The network followed. Not attacking blindly. Trying to determine where she ended. “Local trace active,” Kiro said. Mai watched the storage core. “Can you preserve the copy?” “Yes.” “Can you preserve the route?” “No.” “Leave it.” Kiro closed the oversight layer. Released the export identity. Collapsed the maintenance path. The containment process reached the bridge boundary and attempted to lock it in place. Kiro cut the analytical process loose. The bridge shuddered. Her body followed. Reyes’s hand returned to her neck. “Stay here.” “I am here.” “Where?” “Access room.” “Who?” “Reyes.” “Again.” “Reyes.” The name became the shortest path out. Reyes was touching the layer the network could not imitate: pressure, voice, warmth beneath the jaw, the exact angle of fingers Kiro already knew. Kiro withdrew the final machine identity. The service terminal went dark. The bridge remained powered. “Primary release,” she said. Reyes’s other hand moved to the correct control. “On your call.” Kiro checked the storage integrity. Evidence secured. Engineering logs. Management conversion. Presentation-unit status. Branch-two termination. Enough. Not everything. Enough. “Now.” Kiro found Mai through the collapsing white field. The lost chain still burned behind her eyes, but Mai had set the boundary before the network could turn uncertainty into ownership. Kiro gave the smallest possible nod. Mai answered with one of her own and did not soften the order. Reyes released the neural interface first. Mai killed the bridge a fraction later. The white field vanished. The room returned too quickly. Kiro swayed. Reyes caught her at the waist and shoulder, pulling her away from the terminal before her knees fully failed. The contact brought Kiro against her. Close. Solid. Physical space replacing architecture. Kiro’s hands found Reyes’s jacket. One gripping. One still weak. Reyes held her upright. Kiro's forehead found the line beneath Reyes's jaw for one breath before either of them acknowledged the position. Reyes only tightened her hold enough to make falling unnecessary. “Breathe.” “I am.” “Again.” Kiro breathed. The room sharpened around the edges. Mai disconnected the storage core and sealed it inside the insulated case. Two security officers reached the main doorway almost together. Ace moved into them before either could establish a firing line. One katana struck the first weapon aside hard enough to drive its barrel into the frame. Her second blade flashed beneath the officer’s raised arm, cutting through an armor seam and forcing the body sideways into the second attacker. Ace stepped with the collision. Too close for either rifle to recover. The first officer tried to draw back. Ace rotated beneath the trapped weapon, drove one shoulder into the chest plate and sent the officer into the corridor wall. The second found enough space to turn the barrel toward her. Reyes fired past Ace’s movement. The shot broke the second officer’s weapon-side shoulder before the muzzle completed its arc. Ace finished the first engagement with the flat of one blade beneath the jaw, then vanished back inside the doorway as return fire tore through the corridor space she had occupied. The building lights changed. White to amber. Amber to red. A general security tone began somewhere beyond the room. Not loud. Worse. Controlled. The facility had stopped investigating irregularities. It had confirmed intrusion. Mai secured the case against her own back. “Can she move?” Reyes did not answer for Kiro. She looked down. “Kiro?” Kiro tested her legs. “Yes.” “Clean answer.” Kiro steadied herself against Reyes rather than stepping away too soon. “Yes. I can move.” Reyes waited one second longer. Then loosened her hold without removing it entirely. Kiro remained close enough to feel her breathing. The network was gone. The memory of it remained. So did the memory of choosing Reyes’s judgment over the final path. Ace looked back from the doorway, both blades dark beneath the emergency lights. “Touching. We are surrounded.” Kiro drew herself upright. “How surrounded?” Ace smiled. “There she is.” Mai opened the local access map preserved from the dive. The primary extraction route showed locked states through three successive zones. The stairwell was sealed. The mechanical-room corridor had moved under tactical control. The far door remained available only through emergency override. Mai studied it. “Kiro found us another route.” Kiro looked at the map. “I did?” “You found enough of the building to build one.” Reyes shifted her rifle into position while keeping her body between Kiro and the main entrance. Ace wiped one katana against the fallen officer’s jacket, returned to the room and took position beside the far door. “Then we should leave before Militech sends someone with better discipline and shorter weapons.” The far-door control changed state. Locked. Unlocked. Locked again. The building was testing it. Kiro watched the pattern. A remnant of the local security architecture still made sense in her head. “They are cycling containment zones.” “Can we use it?” Mai asked. Kiro looked at Reyes. Reyes waited. No pressure toward a particular answer. Only readiness. Kiro turned back to the map. “Yes.” Confidence returned with the word. “High?” Mai asked. “Medium now. High after the next cycle.” Ace angled one blade beside the seam of the far door and kept the other low against her leg. “Good enough.” Reyes covered the line. Mai took the center. Kiro stood between them, one hand still tingling from the network lock. The four-person structure formed again around motion: Ace taking the first hostile angle, Reyes holding the long line, Mai choosing the route, Kiro giving them the timing. Outside the access room, Militech security changed position. Inside, Kiro counted the containment rhythm. Three. Two. One. The far door unlocked. “Now.” Ace opened it and entered first, twin katanas defining the narrow space before anyone beyond could turn it into a firing lane. Reyes covered her movement. Mai guided Kiro through. The room behind them sealed. And the local weather broke into open pursuit. --- ## CHAPTER 8 — BREAK CONTACT The far corridor opened into a place that had not been built for people. Cooling trunks crossed the ceiling at shoulder-breaking heights. Shielded conduits covered both walls. Narrow service platforms occupied the floor wherever machinery had not claimed it first, leaving a path that turned twice before disappearing behind a bank of power-conditioning units. Ace entered at speed. Not blindly. Her first katana passed through the doorway before the rest of her, blade angled to catch anything waiting close against the frame. The second stayed low beside her leg, ready for the opposite line. Nothing moved. “Clear near,” she said. Reyes crossed behind her and took the longer angle with her rifle. Mai guided Kiro through the doorway, one hand at her upper arm until Kiro’s balance proved itself. The access room sealed behind them. The lock engaged with a heavy internal impact. Kiro looked back. “We cannot reopen that from this side.” Ace glanced at the door. “Good.” “How is that good?” “Nobody follows through it.” Reyes looked along the service corridor. “They will use another route.” “Yes,” Ace said. “But they will be annoyed.” Mai brought up the fragmentary local map recovered during the dive. It did not show walls in any reliable way. Kiro had captured access states, equipment zones, thermal loops and containment boundaries. The result looked less like a floor plan than an argument between several kinds of infrastructure. Mai rotated it. “The corridor turns east, then divides.” Kiro focused on the display. “One branch runs toward the secondary power enclosure. The other returns toward the test floor.” “Which gets us out?” Reyes asked. “Neither directly.” Ace looked over her shoulder. “Excellent beginning.” “The power branch reaches an emergency-pressure corridor,” Kiro continued. “It should connect to the older utility structure.” “Should?” Ace asked. Kiro gave her a tired look. “The network did not provide architectural reassurance.” Mai enlarged the power branch. “How certain?” “Medium that the corridor exists. Low that it remains physically open. High that the test-floor route is already under tactical control.” “Power branch,” Mai decided. Reyes looked at Kiro. “Condition?” Kiro flexed her right hand. The movement had returned, but not evenly. Her smallest finger lagged behind the others. “Functional.” “Vision?” “Stable.” “Nausea?” “Low.” “Balance?” Kiro started walking. Reyes caught the back of her harness before the first step completed. “That was not an answer.” Kiro looked down at the hand holding her. “I demonstrated.” “You demonstrated that you can initiate movement.” “Which is usually the first requirement.” “Stand still.” “We are being pursued.” “Mai.” Mai did not look away from the map. “Ten seconds.” Kiro closed her eyes briefly. Reyes moved in front of her. “Follow my finger.” She raised one hand. Kiro tracked it left, right, upward and down. “No doubling,” Kiro said. “You hesitated left.” “The light changed.” “It did not.” Kiro looked toward Mai. Mai’s expression offered no support. Ace remained at the forward angle, listening to the corridor beyond the first turn. “You should probably let Reyes finish,” she said. Kiro stared at her. Ace lifted one shoulder. “I enjoy continuing to exist.” Reyes checked Kiro’s pupils once more. “Walk to Mai.” Kiro did. Three steps. Turn. Three back. Her balance held, though the return turn took more attention than it should have. Reyes saw it. Kiro saw Reyes seeing it. “I can move.” “Yes.” “That sounded almost surprised.” “It was not.” “You have the face.” “I have one face.” “No, you have at least seven. That was number four.” Ace looked back. “What is number four?” “Concern disguised as professional disappointment.” Reyes’s mouth moved at one corner. Kiro pointed. “That is number six.” “What is six?” Ace asked. “Knowing I am right and refusing to make it easy.” Mai closed the map. “Can she move?” Reyes looked at Kiro rather than answering immediately. “Yes. Keep her away from fast turns and do not make her change levels without support.” “I am standing here,” Kiro said. “I know.” “You can address me directly.” Reyes did. “Keep yourself away from fast turns and do not change levels without support.” Kiro exhaled. “Better.” A light beyond the first bend changed from red to white. Kiro’s head turned. “Containment cycle.” “Meaning?” Ace asked. “A local boundary opened.” “For us?” “For someone.” Boots struck metal beyond the turn. Several. Reyes moved past Kiro and set herself near the inside wall. Mai drew her disruptor pistol. Ace’s attention sharpened. “How many?” Kiro listened to the remaining structure in her head. She no longer had the network. Only the remembered rhythm and the physical sounds moving through the corridor. “Unknown.” Reyes looked at her. Kiro corrected herself. “Low confidence: at least three.” Ace smiled without warmth. “Enough.” Mai caught the back of Ace’s field jacket before she could move. “Not beyond the second conduit.” Ace looked down at Mai’s hand. “I know.” “You do not.” “I have learned.” “Recently?” “Possibly during this conversation.” Reyes raised two fingers. Quiet. The approaching team slowed before the bend. They knew the corridor geometry. Ace lowered her center of gravity. The service path gave the Militech personnel one advantage: they could establish a firing line before entering the narrow section. It gave Ace another. There was nowhere for them to spread. The first weapon appeared around the corner behind a compact inspection mirror. Reyes fired. The mirror shattered. The weapon withdrew. Return fire struck the edge of the conduit bank, sparks snapping across the corridor. A second burst cut lower. Kiro caught the change first—not from the network now, but from the rhythm of impacts walking toward Reyes’s cover. “Reyes, right—down!” Reyes dropped on the warning. The burst still clipped the outer plate along her ribs, hard enough to spin her shoulder into the wall and tear one side of the maintenance mesh loose. She swore, sharp and immediate, then drove herself back onto the rifle. “Armor held,” she snapped before anyone could ask. Her next breath came shorter. She pulled her right elbow tighter against the struck plate, changed the rifle to a slightly narrower brace and forced the sight back onto the corridor. “Move.” Ace stayed below the line. The Militech team did not rush. One officer held the angle while another moved toward a narrow maintenance recess on the opposite side. The recess would allow them to widen their line by less than a meter. Less than a meter was enough. Kiro saw the small access light beside the recess turn amber. “Left panel opening.” Reyes shifted her rifle before the panel moved. The maintenance recess opened. She fired once through the gap. Someone struck the interior wall and fell out of sight. The main-angle officer reacted toward Reyes. Ace moved. She crossed the distance beneath the rifle’s firing line, one katana catching the barrel and forcing it into the conduit wall. The second blade cut across the officer’s forearm where armor ended beneath the elbow. The rifle discharged into the ceiling. Ace stepped inside the officer’s balance, turned and sent the larger body across the corridor. The next officer tried to fire over the falling one. Reyes’s shot struck the weapon housing. The barrel jerked sideways. Ace continued through the opening Reyes had created. One blade drove the damaged rifle down. The other stopped against the officer’s throat. “Don’t,” Ace said. The officer froze. A third security worker appeared beyond the bend. Mai fired from behind Reyes. Her disruptor struck the officer’s chest plate in a burst of blue-white current. Armor systems flared, locked and threw the body backward against the wall. Ace struck the second officer beneath the jaw with the hilt of her katana. The body folded beside the first. “Clear,” Reyes said. Ace checked the far angle. “Temporarily.” Mai moved forward. “Thirty seconds. No more.” Reyes fell in beside Ace as they passed the bend, one elbow held a fraction too close to the struck plate. Kiro saw it. “Your right side is shortening.” “Still shooting.” “That was not my measurement.” “Save it for the vehicle.” Kiro followed with Mai close enough to catch her if the floor changed height unexpectedly, but every warning she gave Reyes after that accounted for the injured turn. The downed Militech officer inside the maintenance recess remained conscious. One hand moved slowly toward a belt control. Kiro saw it. “Reyes.” Reyes turned. She did not ask what Kiro had seen. Her rifle moved to the officer’s hand. “Stop.” The hand stopped. Kiro looked at the belt unit. “Local team alert.” Mai crouched, removed the device and crushed its short-range transmitter beneath her boot. The officer stared at her. Mai stood. “You should have listened.” They continued. The corridor divided exactly where Kiro’s captured map suggested it would. The left branch widened toward the central test floor. Emergency lights moved through it in active sequence. Shadows crossed at the far intersection. The right branch descended gradually beneath thicker power conduits. Mai pointed right. Ace went first. Reyes stayed beside her long enough to cover the exposed split, then fell back toward Kiro. Kiro noticed. “You do not have to remain this close.” “Yes, I do.” “I can walk.” “Yes.” “I am not going to collapse because the corridor turns.” “No.” “Then why are you agreeing in that tone?” “Because you are describing minimum function as full recovery.” Kiro stepped over a low conduit crossing the floor. Her rear foot clipped it. Reyes caught her elbow before the mistake became a stumble. Kiro looked at the hand. Reyes looked at her. Neither spoke. Ace’s voice came from ahead. “I did not see anything.” Mai followed. “I did.” Kiro straightened. “The conduit is badly placed.” “It has been there longer than you,” Reyes said. “That does not make it correct.” “Keep moving.” The power branch ended at a heavy service door with a vertical status strip glowing red. Ace examined the seam. “No reader.” Kiro came closer. “Pressure-controlled.” “Can you open it?” “I am no longer connected.” Ace looked at the door, then at her. “I know. But sometimes you look at things and they become embarrassed.” “Doors do not experience shame.” “This one should.” Mai checked the recovered map. “The emergency-pressure corridor is beyond it.” Reyes looked back toward the junction. Movement. Not yet visible. Close. “Time.” Ace examined the hinges. Internal. The frame was reinforced around pressure seals. No mechanical release on their side. Mai traced the conduit running to the control housing. “Local fail-safe should open it if this section becomes unsafe.” “Fire?” Ace asked. “Pressure differential.” Kiro touched the wall beside the status strip. The system vibration came through the surface. “Two sensors. One on each side. It will not open unless the difference exceeds threshold or the downstream corridor reports evacuation state.” “Can we create pressure?” Reyes asked. Kiro looked at the coolant and power infrastructure surrounding them. “Yes.” Mai’s eyes narrowed. “Without damaging the data case?” “Yes.” “The building?” Kiro hesitated. Ace smiled. “Optional.” Mai ignored her. “How?” Kiro pointed to a narrow pressure-relief pipe branching from the main cooling trunk. “That vents into this corridor during thermal overload.” “Can you trigger it physically?” “The manual test valve should be behind that panel.” Ace opened the indicated service cover with the tip of one katana. Inside sat a recessed wheel and a sealed red lever. Reyes watched the junction behind them. “How long?” Kiro read the warning labels. “Twenty seconds after release.” “We do not have twenty.” “We may have ten before the next team reaches the split.” Ace gripped the wheel. “What happens if I turn this?” “Pressure rises.” “How much?” “The system decides.” “I dislike letting systems decide.” “Turn slowly.” Ace turned. The wheel resisted, then moved with a metallic groan. A needle on the mechanical gauge climbed. “More,” Kiro said. Ace turned again. The pipe began to vibrate. Behind them, boots reached the junction. Reyes took position at the corner, rifle aligned toward the left edge rather than the center. The first Militech officer leaned into the angle expecting a direct sight line. Reyes fired through the shoulder plate. The officer disappeared backward. Return fire filled the corridor mouth. Reyes withdrew before it reached her. The gauge climbed. “More,” Kiro said. Ace braced one foot against the wall and forced the wheel another quarter turn. The red lever released. A pressure-relief valve opened overhead. Superheated vapor burst into the service corridor. Mai pulled Kiro behind the conduit bank as the cloud expanded. The door’s status strip changed. Red. Amber. Red again. “It is comparing sensors,” Kiro said. “Convince it,” Ace said. Reyes fired twice toward the junction, forcing the next team to stay behind cover. “Soon.” Kiro looked at the pressure gauge. “The downstream side remains too close.” “Meaning?” Mai asked. “The other corridor is already pressurized.” Ace stared at the door. “It is refusing because both sides are equally bad?” “Yes.” “Very Militech.” A shot struck the conduit above Reyes. She shifted lower. “We need another route.” Kiro looked at the remembered building-state map. The power corridor ran parallel to an equipment cavity behind the wall. The cavity connected to the emergency passage beyond the sealed door, but no personnel access appeared in the network. Because it was not a personnel route. She turned toward the lower service panels. “There.” Mai followed her gaze. “Cable trench?” “Power-bus inspection channel.” Ace moved beside it. The panel reached from floor level to her chest. Four locking clamps. No electronic state. “How wide?” Kiro searched her memory of the maintenance files. “Enough for equipment.” “That was not the question.” “Possibly enough for us.” Reyes fired again. “Use it.” Ace cut the first clamp. The katana edge passed through the thin lock assembly with a clean metallic snap. The second required two strikes. Mai opened the third with a manual tool. Kiro tried the fourth. Her right hand failed to apply full pressure. Reyes appeared beside her, closed one hand over the tool and turned it with her. The clamp released. Kiro looked at their joined hands. Reyes was already moving away. Ace pulled the service panel outward. A dark horizontal cavity extended behind it beneath the power trunks. Thick insulated bus lines occupied the upper half. The lower section offered barely enough clearance for a person to crawl. Heat rolled out. Ace looked inside. “Wet ditch was better.” Kiro crouched. “The lines are shielded.” “Are they safe?” “They are Militech.” Ace looked at her. “That was your answer to whether the interface could hurt you.” “Yes.” “And?” “And you should not touch them.” Ace sighed. “Finally, clear technical language.” Mai removed the data case from her back and pushed it into the cavity. “Ace first. Kiro second. Reyes third. I close.” Reyes shook her head. “I stay last.” “You are supporting Kiro.” “I can support her from behind. You carry the case.” Mai looked toward the junction. The security team was changing approach. One officer fired intermittently while another began moving through the test-floor branch to flank the sealed service door from farther east. Kiro saw the access lights changing. “They are opening another route.” “How long?” Mai asked. “Low confidence. Less than one minute.” Mai accepted Reyes’s revision. “Ace, Kiro, me, Reyes.” Ace entered. The space forced her onto forearms and knees. Both katanas returned to their sheaths across her back, angled tightly enough not to scrape the bus lines above. “Clear,” she said from inside. Kiro followed. The heat intensified around her. The narrow cavity offered no room for the small corrections that had kept her balance stable in the corridor. She crawled carefully, eyes fixed on Ace’s boots ahead. Mai entered with the data case pushed before her. Reyes remained outside. She fired once more toward the junction, then pulled the panel into place behind her as far as the broken clamps allowed. Darkness closed around them. Only Ace’s small hooded light remained. The power bus hummed overhead. Kiro felt the vibration through both arms. Not network weather. Raw current. Physical enough to kill without noticing her identity. “Do not touch the upper lines,” she said. Ace continued crawling. “You mentioned.” “The insulation narrows ahead.” “Useful update.” The channel dipped. Ace passed beneath the first constriction. Kiro followed. Her equipment harness caught against a support bracket. She stopped. Mai nearly reached her boots. “What?” “Caught.” Reyes’s voice came from behind Mai. “Where?” “Back harness.” “Do not pull.” “I know.” Kiro reached behind herself. Her right hand missed the strap. She tried again. The fingers found it but failed to close properly. The remaining weakness had hidden during walking. Here, in the heat and darkness, it returned. “Kiro?” Reyes said. “Working.” “That was not a condition report.” “My right hand is delayed.” “How delayed?” Kiro tried to release the caught strap. The fingers moved without enough strength. “Moderate.” Mai shifted the data case aside. “I can reach her.” “No,” Reyes said. “There is no room for you to turn.” Kiro felt Reyes moving behind Mai. “Do not climb over the power case.” “I am not.” Reyes passed her rifle forward to Mai, then flattened herself enough to slide one arm along the side of the channel. Her fingers reached Kiro’s boot. Then calf. Then the back of her knee. The contact moved upward with deliberate care until Reyes found the caught harness. Kiro became very still. Ace stopped ahead. “Problem?” “Reyes is solving it,” Mai said. Reyes found the twisted strap. “It caught beneath the bracket.” “I know.” “Lift your left shoulder.” Kiro did. “Lower.” She lowered it. Reyes pulled the strap free. The harness released suddenly. Kiro shifted forward and nearly struck the power line above her. Ace reached back, caught her wrist and held her down. “Careful.” “I am aware.” “You almost kissed the electricity.” “I did not.” Reyes’s hand remained against Kiro’s back. “Move.” Kiro crawled forward. Reyes withdrew only when enough distance opened. The corridor outside sounded faintly through the wall. Metal struck the broken service panel. Security had found the route. “They know,” Reyes said. Ace increased speed. The channel turned downward. Not a ladder. A steep equipment slope built for cable access, smooth except for shallow service ridges. Ace looked over the edge. “How far?” Kiro remembered the power-bus route. “Three meters. Maybe four.” “Landing?” “Inspection cavity.” “Can I stand?” “Probably not.” Ace turned onto her back, braced both boots against the side ridges and descended under control. Kiro reached the edge. The slope seemed steeper through eyes still recovering from interface distortion. Reyes saw her stop. “I go below you.” “There is no room.” “There will be after Mai passes the case.” Mai lowered the data case to Ace. Ace caught it. Mai descended next, stopping beside her at the bottom. Reyes moved behind Kiro. “Sit.” “I can descend.” “Sit first.” Kiro lowered herself onto the edge. The channel heat pressed against her face. Reyes placed one hand around Kiro’s waist from behind. The same position they had practiced in the Safehouse. Toward her body first. Then through the line. Kiro remembered before Reyes needed to explain. She leaned back. Reyes controlled the first part of the descent until Kiro’s boots found the ridges. “Left foot lower,” Reyes said. Kiro moved it. “Again.” The second ridge. “Good.” Kiro descended. At the bottom, Mai caught her forearm and guided her into the inspection cavity. Reyes came last. Above them, something struck the channel wall. The broken panel opened. A light entered behind them. Ace drew one katana in the confined space. Mai looked at her. “There is no room.” “There will be when they reach me.” “No.” Reyes recovered her rifle from Mai. “I have the line.” She lay prone beneath the descending channel and aimed upward. The first Militech helmet appeared over the edge. Reyes fired. The helmet disappeared. Return fire struck the side of the slope, too steep for a clean angle. “Move,” Reyes said. The inspection cavity continued beneath the sealed pressure door. Kiro saw its mechanical supports overhead. Beyond them, the channel rose toward another maintenance panel. Ace crawled first. Mai pushed the data case. Kiro followed. Reyes fired one more controlled shot and came after them. They crossed beneath the door while Militech security struggled to use the narrow approach without exposing themselves one at a time. At the far panel, Ace found internal clamps. She opened two. The third jammed. Mai joined her. Together they forced it. The panel fell outward into a dim emergency corridor. Ace rolled through with both katanas ready. Empty. “Out.” Mai passed the case. Kiro emerged next. Her knees touched the floor before she could fully stand. Reyes came through behind her and immediately pulled her upright. “I am fine,” Kiro said. “No.” “I am vertical.” “With help.” “That still counts.” “Not for this assessment.” Mai closed the panel as far as possible. The emergency corridor was wider than the service branch but carried no normal personnel markings. Reinforced doors divided it at intervals. Thin luminous strips along the floor pointed toward two evacuation directions. One led west. The other south. Kiro studied them. “The western route connects to the old utility system.” “Confidence?” Mai asked. “High.” “Distance?” “Approximately eighty meters to a pressure junction. After that, unknown.” Ace looked down the corridor. “Eighty is almost polite.” The lights changed direction. Every floor strip reversed toward the south. Kiro watched them. “Security override.” “They know the western route?” Reyes asked. “They know something opened beneath the pressure door.” Mai looked west. “Then they will expect us to follow the evacuation indicators.” Ace smiled. “We do the opposite.” “We were already doing the opposite.” “Excellent planning.” They moved west. The corridor remained empty for twenty meters. Then a reinforced door ahead began closing. Ace accelerated. “Ace,” Mai warned. “I see it.” The opening narrowed. Too quickly for all four. Ace reached it first and drove one katana horizontally into the track. The blade caught between the door and frame. Metal screamed. The door stopped with less than half a meter remaining. Ace braced both hands against the hilt. The motor continued pushing. “A little help.” Reyes reached her first. She placed one shoulder against the door edge and forced it back several centimeters. Mai pushed the data case through. Kiro followed. The narrow opening required her to turn sideways. Her harness caught again. Reyes saw it. “Left shoulder down.” Kiro obeyed immediately. She passed through. Mai crossed after her. Reyes remained beside Ace. “Go.” Ace looked at the katana trapped in the track. “No.” The blade was hers. Not replaceable by anything Militech had lying nearby. Reyes shifted her rifle behind her back and gripped the door with both hands. “On three.” Ace adjusted her stance. “One.” The motor strained. “Two.” The steel edge crept inward. “Three.” Reyes forced the door back. Ace ripped the katana free. Both crossed. The closing edge scraped across Ace’s cap and tore the right side of the maintenance mesh loose before the door slammed shut behind them. Ace pulled the hanging strip away, then examined the blade. A small notch marked the edge near the tip. Her expression became very still. Reyes saw it. “It can be repaired.” Ace looked at the sealed door. “I know.” The tone promised the door nothing good. Mai touched Ace’s shoulder. “Later.” Ace returned the blade to position. “Later.” They continued. Kiro’s pace began slowing. Not enough to stop the group. Enough that Reyes adjusted to it without comment. Mai noticed. “How far?” Kiro checked the remembered route. “Pressure junction should be beyond the next boundary.” “Can you maintain?” “Yes.” Reyes looked at her. Kiro added, “Medium confidence.” “That is not how condition reports work.” “It is honest.” “What is the uncertainty?” Kiro took another step. “My legs feel delayed.” “Both?” “Yes.” “Worsening?” “Slowly.” Reyes moved closer. Kiro saw it. “I do not need carrying.” “No one said you did.” “You thought it.” “I considered available options.” “I remain an available option.” “For now.” Kiro turned her head toward her while walking. The corridor shifted sideways. Only slightly. Reyes’s hand closed around her waist before balance disappeared. Kiro stopped. Reyes held her upright. Mai looked back. “Condition.” “Vestibular delay,” Reyes said. “Worsening.” Kiro leaned against the wall. “The floor moved.” “The floor did not move.” “I know that now.” Ace returned from the forward angle. “How bad?” Kiro looked at her. “Manageable.” Reyes’s hand remained around her. “Kiro.” “Not clean enough?” “No.” Kiro closed her eyes briefly. The interface attack had left more behind than she wanted. Not damage she could not recover from. Distortion. The physical world arriving fractions out of sequence. She opened her eyes. “I can walk if I maintain contact with something stable.” Reyes shifted her hold. “Use me.” Kiro looked down at the arm around her waist. “That is operationally distracting.” Ace made a sound. Mai looked at her. Ace turned it into a cough badly. Reyes’s expression remained controlled. “Can you walk?” Kiro placed one hand against Reyes’s shoulder. The physical reference steadied the corridor. “Yes.” “Then walk.” They moved. Kiro kept one hand on Reyes. Not gripping. Enough to feel each change in direction before her vision completed it. Reyes matched her pace without making the adjustment visible as sacrifice. Mai stayed behind them. Ace returned to the front. The pressure junction waited beyond the next reinforced boundary. This door stood open. The room behind it contained four large control valves, manual emergency equipment and an old municipal access hatch set into the floor. A single Militech security officer waited beside it. Not alone by choice. Wounded. One arm hung useless beneath damaged armor. A compact weapon remained in the other hand. He saw Ace. Raised it. Reyes could not fire without crossing Kiro’s line. Mai had the angle but not before the officer completed his movement. Kiro saw the floor indicator beside him change. “Down.” Reyes pulled her with her. Mai dropped behind the valve housing. The weapon fired. Ace was no longer in the line. She moved through the officer’s blind side, one blade lifting the weapon while the other struck across the chest armor with the flat rather than the edge. The officer staggered. Ace turned beneath the raised arm and drove the hilt into the back of his neck. He fell beside the hatch. Ace checked him. “Alive.” Mai entered. “Why?” “He was already injured.” “That has not stopped people shooting before.” “He made one bad decision.” Reyes helped Kiro upright. “Then he met you.” “Yes.” Kiro looked at the municipal hatch. Old mechanical wheel. No electronic lock. “Utility route.” Mai checked the map. “This should connect to the drainage branch north of the facility.” “Should?” Ace said. Kiro looked at her. “Reinforced concrete.” Ace smiled. “Short time.” Reyes guarded the corridor while Ace turned the wheel. The hatch opened onto a vertical ladder descending into darkness. Cold damp air rose from below. Ace looked down. “The wet thing again.” “Different wet thing,” Kiro said. “Comforting.” Mai looked at Kiro’s legs. “Can you climb?” Kiro examined the ladder. Downward movement would make the vestibular delay worse. The honest answer took longer than she wanted. “With support.” Reyes stepped toward the hatch. “I go below.” Ace held up one hand. “I go first and clear it.” Reyes nodded. Ace descended. At the bottom, her voice returned through the shaft. “Clear. Four meters. Narrow shelf beside water.” Mai secured the data case to a lowering strap. They sent it down to Ace. Reyes entered next, descending three rungs before stopping. “Kiro.” Kiro sat on the hatch edge and placed both boots on the ladder. Reyes stood below her. “Look at me, not the shaft.” “That makes foot placement harder.” “I will give you the rungs.” Kiro looked down at Reyes. “Left foot.” Kiro lowered it. “Right.” She followed. “Left.” The rhythm became simple. Voice. Movement. Pressure through the ladder. Kiro descended. Halfway down, the room above seemed to tilt away. Her grip tightened. Reyes saw it. “Stop.” “I am stopped.” “Look at me.” Kiro did. The shaft stabilized around Reyes’s face. “Next rung.” Kiro moved. “Again.” At the bottom, Reyes lifted one hand to Kiro’s waist and guided her from the ladder onto the maintenance shelf. Kiro stayed against her for one extra breath. Reyes did not release her too soon. Mai descended last and closed the hatch overhead. Darkness settled. Ace waited beside the water channel with the data case. “Everyone?” “Yes,” Mai said. Above them, the hatch wheel moved. Militech had reached the pressure junction. Reyes looked along the utility route. “Which direction?” Kiro closed her eyes. Not to see the network. To reconstruct what she had already learned. The old municipal route passed beneath the facility, split near the external drainage branch and continued toward the decommissioned pump station. They had entered north of the split. “Left.” “Confidence?” Mai asked. “High.” Ace took the lead. They moved. The maintenance shelf narrowed around the first turn. Water flowed beside them, carrying reflections from Ace’s light in broken strips. Pipes vibrated overhead. The route smelled of rust and mineral buildup rather than Militech cleanliness. Behind them, the hatch opened. Light entered the shaft. Reyes turned, rifle ready. Mai touched her arm. “Do not hold here.” “They will catch us on the narrow section.” “Then we give them a reason not to follow quickly.” Kiro looked at the old pressure lines. One manual bypass pipe crossed above the water channel. Its valve housing showed corrosion and a municipal warning label. She understood what Mai was seeing. “That line feeds the overflow gate.” “Can it flood the shaft?” “Temporarily.” “Enough?” “Yes.” Ace looked back. “Will it flood us?” “Not if we pass the next divider first.” “How far?” “Thirty meters.” Mai pointed. “Move.” They accelerated. Kiro remained attached to Reyes’s shoulder and waist. The uneven shelf forced them close, almost one shared movement rather than two separate people. Ace reached the divider first. An old steel gate stood open above the runoff channel, held by a manual retaining pin. Mai and Kiro passed. Reyes followed. Ace remained beside the mechanism. “Kiro?” “Remove the pin after Mai opens the bypass.” “Which direction does it fall?” “Toward you.” Ace looked at the heavy gate. “Of course.” Mai reached the bypass valve and turned it. Nothing happened. She turned harder. The valve resisted. Reyes moved beside her, keeping Kiro against the wall with one arm. Mai used both hands. Still nothing. Ace listened to Militech entering the route behind them. “Company.” Reyes passed Kiro to Mai. The change of support made the corridor shift again. Kiro gripped Mai’s shoulder. Reyes braced against the valve wheel. The damaged plate bit into her ribs as she leaned in; her breath broke once, sharp and involuntary. Mai shifted to take more of the lower leverage without comment. Together they forced it open. A deep mechanical impact traveled through the pipe. Water pressure changed. The channel beside them rose. “Now,” Kiro said. Ace pulled the retaining pin. The divider gate dropped. She jumped backward as the steel edge struck the channel and sealed against its lower frame. Water surged against it from the facility side. The pressure wave hit seconds later. A heavy wall of runoff and emergency overflow filled the route behind the gate, striking hard enough to shake the old structure. Someone shouted on the other side. A rifle fired. The shot hit steel. The gate held. Ace examined it. “That is better.” “It will not hold indefinitely,” Kiro said. “How long?” “Long enough to become someone else’s problem.” Mai restored Kiro’s arm across Reyes’s shoulders. They continued. The utility route turned twice before opening near the maintenance plate they had used to enter. The plate remained nearly closed. No exterior movement reached them. Ace listened. Reyes checked the passive detector clipped to Kiro’s collar. It remained quiet. Mai opened the plate enough to look outside. The drainage ditch lay empty beneath the freight bridge. “Clear.” Ace went first. Reyes guided Kiro through. The open air felt enormous after the facility. Cold compared with the power channels. Uncontrolled. Real. Mai passed the data case out and closed the plate behind them. No effort to repair the broken fasteners. No time. They moved north beneath the decking. Kiro’s balance improved as the route widened. Her hand remained on Reyes anyway. Reyes did not mention it. The utility vehicle waited where they had left it beneath the abandoned bridge approach, hidden behind a row of damaged construction barriers. Ace reached it first and checked beneath the frame. The torn maintenance mesh still hung from one temple; she stripped the remaining half away and stuffed it into her jacket before touching the vehicle. “No guests.” Mai opened the rear door. “Reyes, Kiro in back. Monitor her. Ace, drive.” Ace looked at her. “You are giving me the vehicle?” “I need to evaluate the data case.” “That sounded almost trusting.” “It is faster than allowing you to argue.” Ace entered the driver’s seat. Mai took the passenger side with the insulated case between her boots. Reyes helped Kiro into the rear. Kiro sat back and immediately closed her eyes. Reyes touched her jaw. “Open.” Kiro opened them. “I was resting.” “Rest while oriented.” “That is not restful.” “It is temporary.” Ace started the vehicle. The engine came alive without alert. She pulled away slowly, keeping contractor speed until the industrial district hid the bridge behind warehouses. No Militech vehicle appeared. No drone rose above the roofline. They passed the first intersection. Then the second. Only after the facility disappeared completely did Ace increase speed. Mai checked the data core. “Storage intact.” Kiro opened one eye. “Of course.” “The housing took an impact in the power channel.” “It is insulated.” “You said it was not impactproof.” Kiro opened the other eye. “Reyes did not drop it.” Reyes looked at her. “You heard that?” “I hear everything important.” “Condition.” Kiro tested her right hand again. “Motor function improving. Vestibular delay remains. Headache increasing.” “Nausea?” “Moderate.” Mai opened a compartment in the dashboard and passed back a sealed medical pouch. Reyes removed an anti-nausea strip and pressed it against the inside of Kiro’s wrist. Kiro watched her. “You carry those?” “Yes.” “For me?” “For people who need them.” “That was not what I asked.” Reyes smoothed the strip into place. “You were the person most likely to need one tonight.” Kiro’s mouth curved faintly. “That is almost an answer.” “It is the one you get.” Ace watched them through the mirror. Mai placed one hand over the mirror and pushed it slightly upward. Ace looked at her. “Road.” “I am on the road.” “Remain there.” The city’s industrial lights moved across the windows. For several minutes, nobody spoke. The operation’s pressure did not disappear. It drained slowly. Ace’s hands remained steady on the wheel, but her attention kept returning to the small notch in one katana’s blade behind her shoulder. Mai lifted the compact isolated reader from the side pocket of the shielded case, seated the data core inside it and kept the whole assembly wedged securely between her boots. No network connection. No external processing. Only files and relationships Kiro had managed to carry out. Reyes continued checking Kiro’s eyes, breathing and hand response. Kiro tolerated it with increasingly elaborate expressions of annoyance. They were alive. The data existed. The facility remained behind them, full of sealed doors, flooded utility sections, wounded personnel and several departments about to discover that their incompatible versions of the project had been stolen together. Ace turned onto a wider road. “Did we get it?” Mai looked at the data. “We obtained an answer.” “That was not what I asked.” Kiro opened her eyes. “Subsystems exist. Some have been tested independently. The current full-scale unit is a presentation shell. No integrated operational test is supported by the evidence.” “So it does not work.” “We cannot say that.” Ace looked at the mirror. “It has no power system.” “The presentation unit has no functional power architecture,” Kiro said. “That does not prove no advanced hardware exists elsewhere.” “The previous branch failed.” “Yes.” “And they reused its simulation results.” “Yes.” “And the current branch is less complete than they claim.” “Yes.” Ace considered. “So it does not work.” Mai looked toward her. “We can say there is no evidence that an integrated system currently works.” “That sounds longer.” “It is also accurate.” Reyes leaned back beside Kiro. “What would prove it?” Kiro’s expression changed. The exhaustion remained. So did the unresolved pattern. “A direct view of the presentation unit. Current engineering staff. Physical interfaces. Demonstration conditions.” Mai opened one file. A showcase scheduling package. Incomplete but genuine. Restricted guest classifications. Funding representatives. Defense procurement observers. Technical advisers. Kiro had captured enough to reveal that the physical unit would soon be presented to selected outsiders. Not enough to show where. Mai read silently. Ace noticed. “What?” “There is a closed showcase.” “When?” “Not specified in this copy.” “Location?” “Removed.” Kiro looked toward the reader. “The package imported the failed branch’s model outputs.” “Yes.” “Then the showcase is where the presentation claim becomes physical.” Reyes looked at her. “You want to go.” Kiro met her eyes. “Yes.” “You nearly lost motor control.” “I am aware.” “You are already thinking about the next room.” “I am capable of thinking while recovering.” “No one said you were not.” “You had the tone.” Reyes’s expression stayed still. “What tone?” “Number four.” Ace smiled at the road. Mai continued reading. “This is not another infiltration target.” Ace glanced at her. “Disappointing.” “The guest categories are corporate.” The vehicle became quieter. Ace understood first. Her smile changed. Not the smile she wore in a corridor with both blades drawn. Something slower. Smoother. Dangerous in an entirely different direction. Mai saw it form in the mirror. “Not yet.” Ace’s voice softened into cultivated innocence. “I said nothing.” Kiro looked between them. “Oh, no.” Reyes frowned. “What?” Kiro leaned her head back against the seat. “The O’Sullivans.” Ace’s smile deepened. Mai returned to the files with the deliberate calm of someone refusing to permit a cover identity to enter the vehicle before its invitation existed. “We do not have access.” “Yet,” Ace said. “We do not have an invitation.” “Yet.” “We do not know the location.” “Yet.” Reyes looked at Kiro. “Why did you say it like a warning?” Kiro closed her eyes again. “Because Amber is a catastrophical social event disguised as a person.” Mai looked toward the rear seat. “That is not entirely inaccurate.” “And Maeve?” Kiro opened one eye. “The reason everyone prepares their numbers twice.” Ace gave a delighted sound. Mai ignored her. Reyes considered the recovered guest categories. “Two adviser positions.” Kiro’s eye closed again. “No.” Ace looked into the mirror before Mai could stop her. “You read that quickly.” “I was assessing the operational structure.” “Of course.” Reyes looked at her. Kiro kept her eyes closed. The anti-nausea strip had begun working. The road no longer shifted beneath the vehicle. Reyes remained close enough that their shoulders touched each time Ace changed lanes. Kiro did not move away. Mai closed the showcase file. “First we recover. Then we analyze. Then we brief Rogue.” Ace’s cultivated expression vanished, replaced by her ordinary grin. “And then?” “Then we decide what the evidence justifies.” The vehicle carried them deeper into Night City. Behind them, Militech would reconstruct the breach from fragments: A maintenance panel opened during an integrity cycle. A camera blinded by coolant vapor. A stolen badge. A terminal identity behaving unlike its owner. A local network breached from inside an air gap designed to prevent exactly that. Security teams stopped by a woman with twin katanas who moved too close for their rifles. Fire lanes broken by a red-haired shooter who understood where Ace would be before Ace reached it. Containment states turned against themselves by a netrunner physically connected inside the building. An extraction route assembled from incomplete architecture by the woman who had decided exactly when the answer was sufficient. Four people. No clean template for how they had worked. No single failure Militech could repair to prevent it happening again. In the rear seat, Reyes touched two fingers to Kiro’s wrist and counted. Kiro opened her eyes. “Still here.” “I know.” “Then why keep checking?” Reyes kept her fingers against the pulse. “Because knowing once is not the same as knowing now.” Kiro looked at her. The answer reached somewhere the network had left exposed. She turned her hand beneath Reyes’s. Their fingers settled together. Not hidden. Not explained. Reyes held on. In the front seat, Ace saw the movement in the mirror. Mai moved the mirror again without looking up. This time Ace did not protest. Her hand found Mai’s briefly beside the insulated case, a touch too low for the rear seat to see and too familiar to require explanation. The Safehouse waited ahead. So did the evidence. The answer Rogue wanted had left Militech inside an insulated case. It was incomplete. Qualified. Real. And beside Kiro, Reyes’s hand remained steady around hers all the way home. --- ## CHAPTER 9 — NO CLEAN ANSWER The Safehouse door recognized them at 03:17. Ace entered first. Not because the hallway required clearing. Because the entire drive home had forced her to sit still while the pressure of the operation remained trapped beneath her skin. The moment the outer lock sealed behind Reyes, Ace crossed the main room, removed both sheathed katanas from her back and laid them carefully on the table. The damaged blade made a small sound inside its sheath. Ace stopped. Mai heard it. “Later.” Ace looked at the weapon. “You said that before.” “It remains true.” “The door knew what it was doing.” “It was a pressure door.” “Intent is not required for guilt.” Kiro crossed behind Mai toward the couch. At the kitchen opening she drifted half a step too far left, corrected before her shoulder touched the wall and continued as though the adjustment had been intentional. She made it as far as the back of the couch before placing one hand against it. The movement was casual enough to fool anyone who had not watched her walk out of the Militech facility with the physical world arriving fractions out of sequence. Reyes was not anyone. “Sit.” Kiro looked at her. “I am standing.” “Poorly.” “The floor is stable.” “You are using the couch to confirm that.” “That is one of its functions.” Reyes took the insulated interface case from Kiro’s shoulder and placed it on the floor beside the couch, separate from the captured data core Mai had carried to the table. Kiro’s hand moved after it. Too late. The remaining delay in her right side made the gesture look like an argument arriving after the decision. Reyes left the case beside the couch, within reach but out of Kiro’s hands. “Sit.” Kiro looked toward Mai. Mai was already lowering the main-room lights. Not dark. Just softer. The bright technical illumination over the table disappeared, leaving warmer light near the couch and kitchen. Kiro sighed. “This feels coordinated.” “It became coordinated when you nearly walked into the kitchen wall,” Ace said. Kiro turned. “I corrected.” “You corrected after the wall moved into your route.” “The wall did not move.” “I know.” Kiro narrowed her eyes. Ace held both hands up. “Reyes has been educational.” Reyes touched Kiro lightly at the waist. Not pulling. Giving her a stable direction. Kiro allowed herself to be guided onto the couch. She sat first. Then, after looking at all three of them, leaned back. “I am not going to sleep.” “No one asked you to,” Reyes said. “You were thinking it.” “I was thinking you should stop holding yourself upright as proof of competence.” “That is significantly more insulting.” “It is also more accurate.” Mai crossed into the kitchen. Cabinet. Water. A sealed electrolyte packet. Something small and salty from the food storage. The ordinary Safehouse rhythm adjusted around someone who had returned hurt enough to require care and well enough to resent it. Ace remained beside the table. She drew the damaged katana. The notch near the tip caught the low light. Small. Precise. Unacceptable. She touched the damaged edge with one thumb, careful not to test it hard enough to open the skin. Mai returned carrying water and food. “Ace.” “I am only looking.” “You are planning revenge against a door.” “It started the conflict.” Mai placed the water in Kiro’s left hand. Before moving away, she pressed her thumb once over Kiro's knuckles—the kind of touch that carried no question because the answer had already been given by bringing her home. Kiro looked at it. “Hydration is not going to resolve interface distortion.” “No,” Mai said. “It is going to resolve dehydration.” Kiro considered this. Then drank. Reyes sat on the edge of the low table facing her, close enough to catch a bad turn and far enough to leave Kiro room to answer honestly. “Eyes.” Kiro kept drinking. Reyes waited. Kiro lowered the bottle. “My eyes remain attached.” “Follow.” Reyes moved two fingers slowly across Kiro’s field of view. Left. Right. Up. Down. Kiro tracked them. The turn toward the left still carried a slight delay. Reyes saw it. Kiro saw her seeing it. “The light changed.” “No.” “You cannot know how I perceived it.” “I know the light did not change.” “That is annoyingly specific.” Reyes lowered her hand. “Right hand.” Kiro flexed it. The fingers closed. The smallest one followed a fraction late. “Again.” Kiro repeated the movement. “Improving.” “Yes.” “That was my word.” “I was agreeing.” “You said it in the assessment voice.” “I have one voice.” Kiro looked at Ace. “How many Reyes voices?” Ace inspected the katana edge. “Seven.” Reyes turned her head. “You discussed this?” “Kiro established the scale.” Kiro pointed toward her. “Number six.” Mai sat beside Kiro and opened the food packet. “Eat.” Kiro accepted it with her left hand. Reyes remained where she was. The Safehouse itself did most of the work: lower light, no music, no unnecessary displays, Mai beside her, Ace polishing steel at the table and Reyes directly ahead. Kiro ate slowly. Her breathing settled. The headache remained. The slight delay remained. But the network no longer pressed behind every closed eye. For several minutes, no one asked her to explain what had happened inside it. That helped more than she wanted to admit. Ace cleaned the katana. When Mai passed behind her, Ace leaned back just far enough for the back of her head to touch Mai's side. Mai's fingers moved once through the uneven black hair at her crown before she returned to Kiro. Mai kept one hand resting near Kiro’s knee without touching. Reyes watched Kiro’s face until watching became less like assessment and more like staying. Kiro's foot shifted until it rested against Reyes's boot, a small physical answer neither of them needed to name. Ace noticed anyway. “Very subtle. At this rate the couch is going to file for privacy.” Kiro did not move her foot. “The couch has no legal standing.” Reyes’s mouth curved. “Good. Saves paperwork.” Mai touched the back of Ace’s collar before the next comment escaped. “Let them breathe.” “I am helping.” “You are collecting evidence.” “Also helping.” The quiet Safehouse did not feel empty now. It felt occupied carefully. Kiro finished half the food packet and placed it on the table. Reyes looked at it. “More.” “I am no longer hungry.” “You were not hungry when you started.” “That supports my position.” “It supports nothing.” Kiro ate another piece. Ace looked up from the blade. “Do you do this to everyone?” “Yes,” Reyes said. “No,” Kiro said at the same time. Reyes looked at her. Kiro corrected herself. “She does this differently to everyone.” Ace smiled. “That sounded almost affectionate.” “It was taxonomy.” “Of course.” Mai watched Kiro’s eyes. “Is the room still shifting?” “No.” “Cleanly.” Kiro took a breath before answering. “Not while I remain still. Fast head movement creates a brief delay. Walking is manageable if I have a stable physical reference.” Reyes nodded. “Headache?” “Persistent. Not increasing.” “Nausea?” “Lower.” “Right hand?” Kiro flexed it again. “Improving.” Mai looked toward the technical table. The data could wait; Kiro’s judgment could not be trusted merely because her sentences were intact. “Ten minutes before we open anything.” Kiro turned sharply enough to regret it. The room dragged after the movement. Reyes’s hand caught her forearm. Kiro closed her eyes. “Still delayed,” Reyes said. “I noticed.” “Ten minutes.” “The captured structure is already decaying in memory.” “The files are not.” “The files do not contain everything I saw.” Mai’s voice remained calm, but the decision belonged to her rather than the clock. “Then speak it. From here.” Kiro opened her eyes. “Now?” “From the couch. No interface. No display required.” Kiro looked toward the insulated data case. Then back at Mai. The compromise was too sensible to attack directly. “That may work.” Ace stopped polishing. Mai took out her tablet but did not activate the main technical display. “Start with the branches.” Kiro leaned back against the couch. Reyes released her forearm only after the movement had stabilized. “HAVIP-1 was early architecture,” Kiro said. “Mostly requirements, exploratory procurement and competing effect concepts. It did not become a meaningful physical platform.” Mai entered the first label. “HAVIP-2?” “Attempted full-scale effect. Different architecture from the current branch. It failed to produce stable results.” “Hardware or model?” “Both existed. The surviving executive review referred specifically to failure at full scale. Most primary records were deleted or removed.” Ace looked up. “Removed where?” “Unknown.” “Deleted by whom?” “Unknown.” “Very clean answer.” Kiro looked at her. “I warned you.” Mai continued. “What survived?” “Model outputs. Selected performance projections. Enough positive results to justify continuing the overall program.” Reyes leaned one forearm against her knee. “They kept the promises after removing the machine that failed to deliver them.” “Yes.” “HAVIP-3?” “The current branch. New sensor architecture. Revised mounting. Different power-delivery approach. Real fabrication.” “Integrated?” “No evidence of successful integration.” “Attempted?” “Some interface work. Some planned combined tests. No complete test chain.” Mai entered the third branch. Kiro watched her write. The act of describing the structure aloud helped pull it out of the network and into language. Things became less alive once given boundaries. Less likely to drag her back. “The presentation unit belongs to three,” she continued. “Mechanical structure nearly complete. Exterior sensor housings installed. Some internal routing is real. Some is representative.” Ace frowned. “Representative meaning fake.” “Representative meaning placed to preserve volume, weight or visible geometry without providing function.” “Fake with engineering vocabulary.” “Yes.” “The effect mechanism?” “Representative mass assembly.” Ace looked toward Mai. “Weight.” “Weight,” Kiro confirmed. “Enough structure to make the platform behave physically like something is installed there.” “But nothing capable of stopping a vehicle,” Reyes said. “Not in the presentation unit records.” “Power?” “No functional live-power architecture shown.” “Control?” “Incomplete.” “Signal bus?” “Not operational.” Reyes looked at Ace. “PowerPoint in armor.” Ace pointed the cleaning cloth at her. “You understand.” Mai studied the branch notes. “The development is real.” “Yes.” “The claimed maturity is not.” “Not as presented.” Ace rested the katana across her knees. “So we tell Rogue it does not work.” Kiro looked at her. “We cannot.” “It has no working weapon inside it.” “The presentation unit has no working weapon inside it.” “The previous version failed.” “Yes.” “The current version has unconnected parts.” “Yes.” “So it does not work.” “We do not know whether a separate test assembly exists.” “Do the files mention one?” “Indirectly.” “Do they show one?” “No.” “Do they show integrated testing anywhere?” “No.” Ace spread her hands. “Kiro.” Kiro’s irritation sharpened. “Absence inside one isolated network does not prove absence across the entire Militech program.” “This was their development site.” “One development site.” “The one hidden from their own network.” “Yes.” “Where they build the presentation unit.” “Yes.” “And store the engineering records.” “Some engineering records.” Ace looked at Mai. “She is defending the imaginary weapon.” “I am defending the boundary of the evidence.” Reyes’s mouth moved faintly. Kiro saw it. “What?” “Nothing.” “You approved.” “I did.” Kiro looked momentarily satisfied. Ace pointed between them. “This alliance is becoming obstructive.” Mai placed the tablet on the couch arm. “Ace is asking what changes tomorrow. Kiro is defining what the evidence can survive saying.” “Which one does Rogue need?” Ace asked. “Both. That is why I am keeping them separate.” Mai stood and crossed to the technical table only after Kiro’s breathing had settled and her eyes tracked without visible strain at ordinary speed. Mai removed the captured data core from its insulated case. She connected it only to the Safehouse’s physically isolated reader. No external network. No automated indexing beyond the local device. The main display remained dim at first. Then three empty columns appeared. Kiro stared at them. Reyes noticed her attention accelerate. “Slow.” “I am looking.” “You changed breathing.” “I became interested.” “That is what I said.” Kiro took another drink. Mai labeled the columns: **ENGINEERING** **PROGRAM** **PRESENTATION** Ace looked at them. “Three versions.” “Yes,” Mai said. “Of ready?” “Exactly.” Kiro stood. Reyes stood with her. “I can walk four meters.” “I know.” “You are coming anyway.” “Yes.” Kiro looked at the hand Reyes offered. Then took it. Not because she could not reach the table without it. Because the physical reference made the movement clean. They crossed the main room together. Ace moved one of the chairs aside before Kiro reached it. Kiro sat. Reyes took the chair beside her. Mai began opening the captured records and controlled the order in which each layer entered the room. The engineering layer filled first. Raw test summaries. Component failures. Cooling requests. Fabrication status. Incomplete interface notes. Nothing dramatic by itself. Together, they formed a project that had moved beyond theory but not beyond fragmentation. Kiro separated the records. “Sensor concepts here.” She moved tracking logs into one group. “Controlled test. Single vehicle. Clean environment. Successful classification under limited conditions.” Reyes read the data. “Interference?” “Poor.” “How poor?” “Thirty-one-point-four percent failure under multisource interference.” Ace looked at the number. “That sounds very bad.” “It is.” Mai opened the program summary derived from the same result. **ADAPTIVE CLASSIFICATION MODEL REQUIRES CONTINUED ENVIRONMENTAL OPTIMIZATION** Ace read it aloud. “Consultants.” “Automated conversion first,” Kiro said. “Human approval after.” Mai placed the raw result beneath the management phrase. The relationship became visible. Failure had not disappeared. It had changed clothes. They opened the structural test. The physical mounting had exceeded vibration tolerances. The program layer called it a revised modularity opportunity. A canceled integrated demonstration had become a schedule realignment for expanded capability. Ace stared at the paired statements. “They did not even need to lie.” “No,” Mai said. “They only needed to change which part of the truth carried the emphasis.” Reyes looked at Kiro. “That is what kept you inside.” Kiro’s jaw tightened. “Partly.” Mai did not interrupt. Ace became still. Reyes continued without accusation. “You found the transformation.” “Yes.” “You wanted the complete chain.” “Yes.” “You already had enough to answer Rogue.” “To estimate.” “You had enough to leave.” Kiro looked at her. “I did leave.” “When your hand stopped responding.” The room quieted. Kiro’s right hand rested on the table. She flexed it once. The smallest finger still followed late. Ace looked down at her katana. Mai kept her attention on Kiro without turning the moment into judgment. Kiro’s voice lowered. “There was one more reference.” “There is always one more reference,” Reyes said. “That does not make it irrelevant.” “No.” The agreement disrupted Kiro’s defense. Reyes leaned back slightly. “It may have mattered.” “Yes.” “It may have proved the showcase package was directly using failed-branch model output.” “Yes.” “It may also have led into another empty chain while the system locked you in place.” “Yes.” Kiro looked at the captured files. “I hated leaving it.” Reyes nodded once. “I know.” “I still do.” “That part may take longer.” “The unresolved path feels louder now than the files we brought out.” Kiro looked past Reyes toward Mai. “You had enough when you called it.” Mai did not soften the answer. “Yes.” “I hated you being right.” “You were allowed to.” Kiro’s mouth tightened. “That almost makes it worse.” “It was not meant to make it easier.” The admission did not make the missing chain smaller. It put the decision back where it belonged. Reyes’s expression softened by a fraction. “That does not mean it contains more truth.” Kiro looked at her. “No.” It took effort to say. More than the technical explanation had. Reyes placed two fingers beside Kiro’s hand on the table. Not touching. Close enough to choose. Kiro moved her hand the remaining distance. Their fingers met. Ace saw. Mai saw Ace see. No one commented. Mai opened the presentation-unit tracker. **ASSEMBLY: 84%** Beneath it: **FULL-SCALE PROTOTYPE PLATFORM** Kiro pointed toward the internal engineering status. “Open the lower field.” Mai did. **PRESENTATION UNIT** The terminology changed depending on who was looking. Reyes read the assembly list. “Mechanical base complete.” “Yes.” “Sensor housings installed.” “Yes.” “Primary internal routing incomplete.” “Yes.” “Effect mechanism: representative mass.” “Yes.” “No control core.” “No.” “No live power.” “No.” Reyes leaned back. “So the physical object is designed to prove that a physical object exists.” Kiro considered it. “Yes.” Ace looked pleased. “PowerPoint in armor.” Mai moved the full-scale platform claim into the presentation column. “The presentation layer does not directly state that every subsystem is operational.” “It implies it,” Kiro said. “How?” “By combining current assembly percentage with performance projections from branch two.” Mai opened the imported model summaries. Successful vehicle stops. Target classification. Projected response times. No hardware serials. No raw sensor provenance. No physical test location. Reyes pointed toward the metadata. “These are simulations.” “High confidence,” Kiro said. “All of them?” “All full-system outcomes we captured.” “Any real tests?” “Component tests.” “Any two components together?” “Limited sensor-to-control emulation. No live effect system.” Ace looked around the table. “Still sounds like it does not work.” Mai nodded once. “It sounds like there is no evidence that an integrated system currently works.” Ace sighed. “That sentence has too many safety rails.” “It needs them.” “Rogue is going to hate it.” “She will trust it.” Kiro looked at the three columns. Engineering did not claim a weapon. Program management claimed an integration process. Presentation implied a near-ready platform. No individual layer contained the entire lie. No individual layer contained the entire truth. Mai folded her arms. “We need one sentence.” Ace raised a hand. “It does not work.” “No.” “It probably does not work.” “No.” “It is expensive and does not work.” “Ace.” “Fine.” Reyes studied the engineering column. “Real parts.” “Yes,” Kiro said. “Real testing.” “Separate testing.” “No proven integration.” “Yes.” “Externally described as late-stage.” “Yes.” “Internally described as what?” Kiro looked at the fabrication records. “Pre-integration.” Mai’s attention sharpened. Kiro continued. “Not concept. Too much physical work exists for that.” “Not integrated prototype,” Mai said. “No.” “Development remains the correct stage.” “Yes.” Ace looked between them. “You have the face.” Mai ignored her. Kiro pulled the three columns closer. The sentence assembled itself from boundaries rather than confidence. “Pre-integration development,” she said. Mai nodded. “Presented externally…” Kiro looked at the showcase material. “…as late-stage prototyping.” The room went quiet. Mai placed the sentence at the center of the display. > **PRE-INTEGRATION DEVELOPMENT PRESENTED EXTERNALLY AS LATE-STAGE PROTOTYPING.** Reyes read it carefully. “Every part is supported?” “Yes,” Kiro said. “Pre-integration because components exist but no complete tested system.” “Yes.” “Development because it has passed concept-only work.” “Yes.” “Presented externally because the strongest claims are aimed upward and outward.” “Yes.” “Late-stage prototyping because that is what Militech wants decision-makers to believe.” “Yes.” Ace stared at the sentence. “It still sounds like consultant language.” Kiro looked at her. “It is accurate consultant language.” “Disturbing.” Mai stored the assessment beside the supporting evidence. “This answers Rogue’s question.” “Not completely,” Kiro said. Reyes looked toward her. Kiro did not retreat. “The answer is defensible. It does not resolve whether a separate advanced test assembly exists.” Mai nodded. “Correct.” “Or whether the showcase unit will receive additional functional hardware.” “Correct.” “Or what Militech intends to demonstrate physically.” “Correct.” Ace looked at the showcase package. “That is the next question.” Mai opened the restricted guest categories. Funding representatives. Procurement observers. Corporate risk advisers. Selected technical consultants. No date. No location. No final attendance list. Only the shape of the event. Reyes read the categories. “They expect outsiders.” “Controlled outsiders,” Mai said. “People selected to repeat the right conclusion.” “Or people whose funding decisions require enough visible evidence to continue.” Kiro’s attention moved across the package. “The showcase is where the three layers have to occupy the same room.” Mai looked at her. “Engineering hardware.” “Program claims.” “Presentation behavior.” “And people who know which parts are missing,” Reyes said. Kiro nodded. “A network can isolate those realities. A physical demonstration cannot keep them entirely separate.” Ace’s expression changed. Slowly. The sharp energy of the corridor disappeared beneath something polished and socially predatory. Mai saw it immediately. “Do not.” Ace looked innocent. “I have not said anything.” “You changed faces.” “I have one face.” Kiro looked toward Reyes. “No, she does not.” Reyes studied Ace. “What happened?” Kiro leaned back carefully. “Amber is trying to enter the room before she has been invited.” Ace smiled. Not fully Amber. Enough to demonstrate the danger. Mai reached over and touched one finger beneath Ace’s chin. “A legitimate invitation does not currently exist.” “Yet.” “We do not know the venue.” “Yet.” “We do not know whether the O’Sullivan identities are on the relevant list.” “Yet.” Reyes looked at the guest categories again. “Two adviser positions.” Kiro closed her eyes. “No.” Ace turned toward her. “You noticed.” “I can read.” “Very quickly for someone recovering.” “I was assessing the package.” “Of course.” Reyes looked from the categories to Kiro. Then to Ace. “What exactly are the O’Sullivans at an event like this?” Kiro opened one eye. “Dangerous.” “That was not a role.” “Amber is a catastrophic social event disguised as a person.” Ace looked delighted. Mai’s expression remained calm. “That is not entirely inaccurate.” “And Maeve?” Kiro looked toward Mai. “The reason everyone rehearses their numbers twice.” Reyes considered that. Then looked at the two adviser positions once more. Kiro saw the thought. “No.” “You keep saying that,” Reyes said. “Because the room is developing intentions.” Mai closed the showcase package. “Not tonight.” Ace looked at her. “We have the right corporate category.” “We have no invitation.” “We have the right cover structure.” “We have no invitation.” “We have two adviser positions.” Mai met her eyes. Ace stopped. Not because the thought had disappeared. Because Mai had reached the boundary before Amber could turn possibility into momentum. “First,” Mai said, “we brief Rogue.” Ace’s ordinary expression returned. “Tomorrow?” “After Kiro has slept.” Kiro opened both eyes. “I can brief Rogue.” Reyes did not even turn. “No.” “I can sit in a booth.” “You nearly lost motor control three hours ago.” “It will be more than three hours by then.” “That is not recovery logic.” “It is time.” Mai intervened. “We brief Rogue after everyone has rested enough to distinguish urgency from residue.” Kiro looked toward the assessment sentence. The unresolved reference still pulled. The showcase package pulled differently. Not like the network. Like an open door. Reyes’s fingers remained against hers. Kiro looked down. The contact was not restraint. It was a reminder that the world outside the pattern remained available. “All right,” she said. Ace’s eyebrows rose. “That was easy.” Kiro looked at her. “No. It was correct.” Reyes’s mouth moved. Number six. Kiro saw it and did not object. Mai saved the analysis to an isolated archive and shut down the reader. The three columns disappeared. The main room returned to warm low light, the dark windows and the evidence of people who had come home too late. Ace’s damaged katana waited on its cloth. Kiro’s equipment case remained closed. The captured data core sat physically disconnected from everything. Mai collected the empty food packet and water bottle. “Couch.” Kiro remained seated. “I am already sitting.” “Somewhere you can lean back.” “I can lean here.” Reyes stood. Kiro looked up at her. “This is becoming repetitive.” “Yes.” Kiro rose slowly. No sudden turn. No attempt to prove speed. Reyes offered her hand. Kiro took it before irritation could turn the simple act into debate. They crossed back to the couch. Ace watched them, then looked at Mai. Mai looked at the damaged katana. “You can begin the repair.” Ace brightened. “With supervision.” Ace’s expression changed. “That word reduces the gift.” “It protects the blade from your mood.” “My mood is precise.” “Your mood wants to punish steel.” “The door remains responsible.” Mai sat beside her at the table and brought the task light closer. Ace adjusted the blade beneath it, then let her shoulder settle against Mai’s arm for one quiet second before beginning. Mai did not comment. She only shifted closer enough that Ace did not have to hold herself apart from the room. At the couch, Kiro leaned back. Reyes sat beside her. Not across. Not watching from a professional distance. Close enough that their shoulders touched. Kiro looked at her right hand. The smallest finger closed almost with the others now. “Improving,” Reyes said. Kiro looked at her. “You did not ask.” “I saw.” “That is worse.” “Probably.” Kiro let her head rest against the back of the couch. The Safehouse remained quiet. Ace’s sharpening stone moved carefully along the katana edge. Mai corrected the angle once. Ace objected. Mai corrected it again. The familiar low friction gave the room shape. Kiro closed her eyes. Reyes did not tell her to open them this time. The room no longer moved. The network waited only in memory. Its final unresolved path was still there, bright and unfinished. But so was the answer they had carried out. Not clean. Not complete. Real. Kiro’s hand shifted on the couch between them. Reyes turned hers palm-up. Kiro placed her fingers there. The delayed smallest finger followed last. Reyes closed her hand around all of them. Kiro kept her eyes closed. For several breaths, neither woman spoke. Then Kiro said, quietly enough that it belonged only to the couch between them, “Stay until I fall asleep.” Reyes did not turn the request into a joke. “Yes.” Kiro’s fingers loosened by one small degree inside hers. No operational justification followed. None was needed. Across the room, Mai looked at the saved assessment on her tablet one final time. > **Pre-integration development presented externally as late-stage prototyping.** Rogue would not like the uncertainty. She would understand its value. And somewhere inside Militech, people were preparing a full-scale machine to look more finished than it was, surrounding it with carefully selected claims and inviting the right outsiders to draw the wrong conclusion. They had answered the question that brought them inside. The remaining question could not be solved through another air gap. It would have to be answered in the room where Militech performed certainty. --- ## CHAPTER 10 — DEVELOPMENT STAGE Rogue let them wait exactly long enough to make the delay deliberate. Afterlife remained loud beyond the booth: music, contracts, arguments and the hard confidence of people selling danger by the hour. Ace and Mai took the inner side of the booth; Kiro sat opposite them with Reyes beside her, close enough to catch any returning balance failure without turning the arrangement into a display. Mai placed the isolated reader on the table between both sides and left it dark. Rogue entered with one glass. Her attention moved over them once. Ace’s repaired katana. The stiffness Reyes still carried along her right ribs. The fading interface mark near Kiro’s temple. Mai’s shielded evidence case. Rogue sat. “Answer first.” Mai brought up one sentence. > **PRE-INTEGRATION DEVELOPMENT PRESENTED EXTERNALLY AS LATE-STAGE PROTOTYPING.** Rogue read it. “Client version.” “Militech has real subsystem development and a full-scale presentation platform,” Mai said. “We found no evidence of a successfully integrated operational system.” “Can I say it does not work?” “No,” Kiro said. Rogue looked at her. “Why not?” “Because the evidence proves no integrated success at Westbridge. It does not prove Militech has never assembled a more advanced test platform elsewhere.” “How likely is that?” “Possible. Unsupported. Not strong enough to alter the classification.” Rogue shifted her attention to Reyes. “Operational translation.” Reyes leaned one forearm on the table and kept the other away from the bruised plate beneath her jacket. “They have real engineers, real parts and enough money to hurt people with the attempt. They do not have a proven vehicle-stopping system in the material we saw.” “Could they field it tomorrow?” “No.” “Next month?” “Not without hiding a hell of a lot more progress than Westbridge contained.” “Six months?” Kiro answered before the silence became guesswork. “Possible only if their unresolved integration problems are substantially smaller than the engineering records suggest.” “Which you believe?” “Unlikely.” Rogue tapped the assessment sentence. “Defend every word.” “Pre-integration,” Kiro said. “Functional and partially functional subsystems exist. No complete platform is shown operating as one system.” “Development?” “Physical fabrication and component testing place it beyond concept work.” “Presented externally?” Mai answered. “Engineering remains cautious. Funding, management and showcase material carry the strongest maturity claims.” “Late-stage prototyping?” “The full-scale assembly percentage and imported performance projections are designed to produce that conclusion,” Kiro said. “The internal state does not support it.” Rogue opened the four stage boxes from the original briefing. **CONCEPT** **SUBSYSTEM DEVELOPMENT** **INTEGRATED PROTOTYPE** **OPERATIONAL VALIDATION** She placed the marker high inside subsystem development, just below the integrated-prototype boundary. “There?” Mai considered it. “Upper edge. Active pre-integration work.” “Not integrated prototype.” “No.” Rogue looked at Ace. “You disagree.” Ace rested both forearms on the table. “I think a machine with no working weapon inside it is a very expensive way to say ‘not working.’” “That is not the same question.” “I know. I dislike the correct question.” Rogue’s gaze returned to the marker. “What evidence would move it across the line?” “A live integrated demonstration,” Mai said. “Complete system telemetry tied to identifiable hardware,” Kiro added. “Or direct inspection showing functional architecture absent from the captured records.” “Which brings us to the showcase.” Mai allowed the package header onto the display, nothing more. A closed presentation. Funding representatives. Procurement observers. Risk advisers. Technical consultants. A full-scale developmental platform promised for direct inspection. Rogue studied it. “That event could change the answer.” “Yes,” Mai said. “Could also be theater.” Ace’s mouth curved. “PowerPoint in armor.” Reyes glanced at the projection. “Still accurate.” Rogue took one drink. “What did the breach cost?” “Westbridge’s route is burned,” Mai said. “The municipal access, terminal history and local bridge method will not work again.” “People?” Reyes answered. “Several wounded. Some dead. They put us in a sealed fire lane and kept pulling triggers.” Rogue’s eyes rested on the stiffness at Reyes’s side. “You?” “Plate caught one. It hurts. I’m still here.” “Ace?” “One damaged blade. Repaired.” “Kiro?” “Temporary motor and vestibular disruption. Recovering.” “Mai?” Mai touched the shielded case. “I carried the evidence and the withdrawal decision.” Rogue understood the second cost without asking her to make it sentimental. “Exposure?” “The maintenance meshes denied clean reads until extraction,” Mai said. “Reyes lost part of hers under fire. Ace’s was damaged at the pressure door. Partial facial capture is likely.” “Enough to identify you?” “Enough to become dangerous if Militech already has a reason to compare us.” Rogue looked toward Ace’s katanas. “They will.” “Yes.” Silence settled for a moment. Then Rogue pointed at Kiro. “You had one more branch.” Kiro’s right hand remained still on the table. “Yes.” “You wanted it after the answer was already defensible.” “Yes.” “Reyes stopped you.” “Mai called withdrawal. Reyes made it physically possible.” The correction came immediately. Rogue’s gaze moved to Mai, then Reyes, then back to Kiro. “And next time?” Kiro did not pretend not to understand. “Mai owns the threshold. Reyes owns my body if I stop choosing cleanly. I report the uncertainty before it becomes an excuse.” Reyes muttered, “That sounded almost fucking sensible.” Kiro turned toward her. “Do not become accustomed to it.” Ace looked between them. “You two have spent an impressive amount of time discussing who gets to put hands on Kiro under pressure.” Reyes did not look away from Kiro. “Operationally.” “Of course.” Ace’s innocence was immediate and fraudulent. “Very professional waist-grabbing.” Kiro closed her eyes. Then opened them again. “If you insist on turning extraction protocol into foreplay, at least let Reyes set her own rate.” Reyes’s mouth moved. “Premium.” Ace pointed between them. “See? Joint assessment.” Kiro looked toward Rogue. “I survived Militech for this.” Rogue’s eyes narrowed by the smallest amount, close enough to amusement to irritate all four of them. “Good. The client gets the stage assessment, the supporting evidence and the limitations. The showcase remains a lead, not an assignment.” Ace leaned back. “Restrictive.” “Professional.” A soft tone sounded from inside Mai’s jacket. Not Afterlife. Not Rogue’s system. A device that normally remained silent unless one of a very small number of cover channels had received authenticated traffic. Mai became still. Ace heard the tone and changed with her. Rogue noticed both. “What channel?” “O’Sullivan holding,” Mai said. She removed a slim isolated device and woke only the header layer. The message was addressed to: **Maeve O’Sullivan** **Amber O’Sullivan** Militech’s corporate mark appeared beneath a formal event-management certificate. Ace moved closer. Kiro stared at the timestamp. Reyes said, “That had better not be retaliation.” “It is not recent enough,” Kiro said. “The signing chain begins before we entered Westbridge.” Rogue held out one hand. “Do not open the package here.” Mai did not. She transferred only the certificate fingerprint and signing metadata to Rogue’s isolated verifier. Rogue checked the issuer, then a second source, then a private event registry whose existence none of them asked her to explain. The result returned clean. “Approved before the breach,” Rogue said. “Released automatically after final guest-category confirmation. Not bait built for you.” Ace read the event title on the unopened header. **CLOSED INDUSTRIAL DEFENSE CAPABILITY SHOWCASE** Below it: **PRIMARY GUESTS: 2** **QUALIFIED TECHNICAL OR OPERATIONAL ADVISERS: 2** Kiro looked at Ace. “No.” Ace had not spoken. “That is becoming unfair.” “You changed expression.” Reyes read the adviser line and swore under her breath. Rogue shut down her verifier. “The invitation belongs to the O’Sullivans. I only confirmed it is real.” Mai locked the holding device again. “We do not accept yet.” Ace looked at her. “Lena.” “Yes.” “Full event plan,” Rogue said. “Then you decide whether walking through Militech’s front door is brave, useful or simply the most elegant stupid thing you have done this month.” Ace smiled. “High bar.” The debrief had produced the answer Rogue wanted. The unopened invitation had produced a different question. This time, nobody had broken a lock to find it. --- ## CHAPTER 11 — A PERFECTLY LEGITIMATE INVITATION The invitation remained sealed while Rogue led them out of the booth and through a staff corridor to a clean side room. Mai carried the O’Sullivan holding device; Rogue carried only her verifier. Ace stayed beside Mai, while Reyes kept Kiro ahead of her through the narrow doorway rather than letting the group bunch in the corridor. Inside, Rogue locked the door. Mai connected the holding device to a physically isolated display. Only then did the package open. The formal header carried Militech’s restrained investor-facing mark rather than the red military branding used when the company wanted fear to arrive first. **CLOSED INDUSTRIAL DEFENSE CAPABILITY SHOWCASE** **Maeve O’Sullivan** **Amber O’Sullivan** **Qualified Technical or Operational Advisers: 2** Ace read the names with open satisfaction. Kiro read the certificate history. Reyes read the restrictions. Mai read why they had been chosen. The approval chain began forty-one hours earlier, well before the breach. A private event contractor had drawn from an existing corporate-relations registry. The O’Sullivan identities had entered that registry months ago through earlier capital, risk and advisory activity. Militech had not connected the invitation to Westbridge. Militech had invited the people it believed Maeve and Amber to be. Rogue confirmed the final certificate one last time. “Legitimate.” “Dangerous,” Reyes said. “Those are not opposites,” Ace replied. Mai opened the recipient profile. Maeve’s selection rested on investment oversight, acquisition-risk evaluation and authority over high-cost technical commitments. She was not being invited as an engineer. She was being invited as the person who could decide whether engineering deserved more money. Ace looked at Mai. “The reason everyone rehearses the numbers twice.” Kiro’s mouth moved faintly. “That remains accurate.” Amber’s profile carried less formal authority and more social reach: private capital networks, strategic introductions, external stakeholder relations and paired-principal access through the same corporate household. Reyes read it twice. “It says almost nothing.” “Exactly,” Kiro said. Ace folded her hands with exaggerated innocence. Rogue looked at her. “Social cruise missile.” Ace brightened. “That one is staying.” Mai did not disagree. The adviser requirements followed. One slot allowed technical architecture, test provenance, signal integration and development-risk expertise. Kiro stopped pretending the criteria had not been written directly toward her skill set. The second allowed field implementation, platform survivability, urban deployment limits and operational-risk assessment. Reyes stared at the list. “Fuck.” Ace looked delighted. “Also accurate. You already proved you can keep one technical adviser upright while shooting around her.” Kiro’s expression tightened. “That description is deliberately suggestive.” “Yes.” Reyes rubbed one hand over her face. “She is going to be unbearable at the event.” Mai read the restrictions. “Only if you continue providing ammunition.” Reyes ignored all three and continued. No personal weapons. Personal network devices isolated on entry. Technical recording prohibited without authorization. Corporate transport or verified private arrival only. A Militech-controlled venue whose location would be disclosed after acceptance. “This is not the last building,” Reyes said. “We do not get to bring the same answers.” “No,” Mai said. Kiro kept her attention on the device-isolation rule for one second too long. Reyes saw it. “No.” “I did not say anything.” “You thought loudly.” “And you heard it from across the table,” Ace said. “Adviser compatibility confirmed.” Kiro looked at Reyes. “This is your fault.” “Bullshit.” Reyes pointed at the isolation rule. “You flirted with the network first.” Kiro’s eyebrow rose. “It waited until I touched it.” Reyes held her gaze. “Keep talking.” Ace leaned toward Mai. “I really like her event voice.” Mai touched Ace’s wrist without looking away from the package. The amusement remained. The scope did too. Rogue expanded the response deadline. Three days. “Do you accept?” she asked. “Not tonight,” Mai said. Ace did not argue. Her fingers closed around Mai's wrist for a second, warm and private beneath the edge of the table, then released. That mattered more than agreement usually did. “First Lena,” Mai continued. “Then cover integrity. Then an event plan. We do not improvise four identities inside a Militech room because the invitation happens to be genuine.” Kiro looked at the adviser headings. “High-level fit is obvious.” “High-level fit is not a cover,” Mai said. Reyes nodded. “And nobody walks in looking like the people who shot their way out of Westbridge.” Ace touched the repaired katana at her back. “Technically, we would leave the swords home.” “That was the part you chose to reassure us with?” Reyes asked. “It was true.” Rogue closed the detailed package. “The assignment that brought you here is complete. The invitation is a separate decision.” Mai nodded. “You bring me the plan before you accept.” Ace sighed. “Everyone loves process.” “Process is what keeps Amber from becoming the event before Maeve has extracted the numbers.” Ace’s expression changed. Warm first. Open. Interested in everyone and threatened by no one. Amber without blonde hair, blue contacts, clothing or the pale-gold collar. Only the social vector waiting beneath Ace’s ordinary face. Mai caught it immediately. “Not yet.” Ace returned with visible reluctance. Kiro looked at Reyes. “You understand why I said dangerous.” “I understood before she changed faces.” “I have one face,” Ace said. “No,” three women answered. Rogue stood. “Take the package home. Do not accept it from the Safehouse network. Do not build adviser histories without Lena. Do not decide the objective in this room.” Mai removed the holding device and sealed it. “Agreed.” The invitation disappeared from the display. What remained was smaller and more dangerous than a plan. A legitimate opportunity. Maeve at the funding table. Amber moving through the room’s social seams. Two adviser positions waiting for identities that did not exist yet. And Lena, somewhere in Night City, still unaware that four people were about to arrive with a Militech invitation and entirely too much confidence. They left Afterlife together. The air outside felt cooler than the booth. No drainage ditch waited for them. No pressure door. No stolen maintenance identity or local bridge. The next entry would require clothing, history, posture, names and the ability to let Militech believe exactly the right lie. This time, Militech had opened the door itself. ---