Honeybear’s voice booms, delighted. “It’s the good kind! It’s crunchy!”
Clint looks back at me, deadpan. “I live with a seven-foot-tall toddler.”
“That checks out,” I say faintly.
Clint sends me the corridor details: time window, rendezvous beacon pattern—three short pulses and one long, repeating on a medical freight band—plus a corridor segment ID that looks like inventory but smells like covert movement.
“Jordan,” he says, and his tone shifts—less snark, more soldier. “Warning: if your ping hits the wrong IHC node, you’ll be treated as the threat. Not the witness.”
“I know,” I say quietly.
Clint studies me for a beat like he’s trying to see through the holo into whatever mess I’m standing in. “Do you have someone with you?”
I hesitate, because the truth is complicated, warm, and dangerous.
“Yes,” I say carefully. “But I’m leaving alone.”
Clint’s eyes narrow. “Smart. Also suicidal.”
“Story of my life,” I mutter.
He snorts once. “Yeah.”
Then, softer—still Clint, still rough, but real: “I’m glad you’re alive.”
My throat tightens. I can’t afford to cry in a server spine, so I do the next best thing: I turn emotion into motion.
“Me too,” I whisper, and I cut the connection before my voice breaks.
The holo collapses. The server spine hums. Somewhere above, the Nun keeps pretending it’s glamorous.
I stand there shaking for three seconds, then force myself into the next task like a person shoving broken glass into a pocket and calling it fine.
Evidence kit.
Digital proof disappears. Paper has to be burned.
I haul out a portable printer from a maintenance drawer—bless crime syndicates and their paranoia—and feed it heat-resistant strips used for machine labels. The printer whirs; warm plastic smell rises. Strip after strip slides out: biometric mismatch charts, docking authorization overwrite timestamps, header chain anomalies.
I roll them tight, seal them in polymer, and tuck them deep in my bag.
Then mirror backups: two sealed drives, one real, one decoy. I program the decoy to look juicy enough that any idiot snooping will grab it and feel smug.
Finally, the dead-man release.
I set it with shaking hands: if I don’t check in by a set time—twenty-two hours—the full archive auto-sends to three civilian journalists. I don’t know their names. I don’t need to. I just need the truth to become a grenade nobody can quietly pocket.
The timer starts.
Twenty-two hours.
A countdown to either justice or a funeral.
A distant rumble vibrates through the floor—bass from the casino, or something heavier. I pull up security feeds.
Outside the Nun, Gur is starting to fray. Rival crews clash near a transit artery, muzzle flashes like angry fireflies, vehicles blocking lanes, Kaijen enforcers forming barricades, pushing civilians back. The city feels like it’s holding its breath before it decides whether to riot or kneel.
Lonari’s people lock down streets on the feeds, moving with disciplined menace.
