“No,” he replies. “They’re not.”
CHAPTER 20
TUR
The transit concourse at Node Theta-4 looks wrong from the moment I step into it.
Not in a dramatic way.
Not in a cinematic, alarms-blaring, villain-monologuing way.
In the quiet, technical, muscle-memory way that gets soldiers killed if they ignore it.
The ceiling lights are too evenly spaced, casting a flat, shadowless glow across polished ferroglass floors that reflect people’s shoes and not their faces. The digital arrival boards tick over with perfect, boring punctuality. The security drones hover at their usual altitude, their lenses sweeping predictable arcs that never quite intersect.
Too clean.
Too symmetrical.
Too calm.
Kimberly is three meters ahead of me, walking toward Lenara Vox and a syndicate rep who is smiling like his facial muscles were calibrated by committee.
My jaw tightens.
I don’t like this.
The concourse is wide and cavernous, ribbed with structural arches that vanish into haze forty meters overhead, the air faintly vibrating with the low subsonic thrum of transit rails running somewhere deep below our feet. People drift through in loose streams, commuters and couriers and contractors, their footsteps soft against the floor, their conversations muffled into a constant, low acoustic smear.
Neutral territory.
Third-party security.
Public node.
On paper, this is the safest place in the district to hold a ceasefire meeting.
In practice, it feels like a box.
Kimberly slows half a step.
Not enough for anyone else to notice.
Enough for me to clock it.
Her shoulders square.
Her head tilts a fraction, eyes flicking left, right, up, scanning exits and body language and the subtle choreography of movement in the space.
My hand drifts closer to my jacket hem.
“What is it,” I murmur into the subvocal mic.
Her voice comes back in my ear, low and steady.
“Something’s off.”
The syndicate rep steps forward.
