Alistair was watching the north approach. His posture had the quality it acquired when he was tracking multiple things — the clear ease that was in fact the product of split attention, every sense calibrated and reporting.
"We have company," he said.
Behind him on the roof: footsteps. Fast.
He turned. 03:47.
The shot sparked off the parapet and caught the edge of his left shoulder — not clean, not deep, but enough.
Both of them moved without needing to — apart, angling, finding the defensive geometry that the rooftop's landscape offered. Three ventilation units in a line across the center of the roof. The hub enclosure at the north edge. A water tank structure at the south. The hatch that was both their exit and a chokepoint.
Tav reached the nearest ventilation unit and assessed.
The shot had come from the north building — the one that overlooked the rooftop by two floors. He could see the position now: a figure at an upper window, suppressor visible at the barrel. Professional spacing from the frame. One shooter. But one shooter at that height with that angle meant others were positioned elsewhere to prevent a direct counter. 03:39.
"Secondary approach," Alistair said from behind the second ventilation unit. He was watching the hatch. "They'll try to breach the rooftop while the shooter keeps us from moving."
"I count one on the north building. Where are the others?"
"South face, probably. East is exposed."
Tav studied the hub enclosure. The drive was still connected. The upload was running. If the connection was interrupted before completion — if someone reached the hub and physically disconnected it — four minutes of work and five years of Lucien's preparation became useless.
He looked at the remaining countdown. 03:31.
He was not going to let anyone reach the hub.
"I need you on the elevation," he said. "The north building shooter — if they get a better angle, the upload is exposed."
"And you?"
"I'll manage the rooftop."
Alistair was quiet for exactly two seconds. The silence of someone running the geometry and arriving at the same answer Tav had arrived at, and not liking it, and doing it anyway.
"Okay," he said.
He was moving before the word was finished — low and fast, using the ventilation unit line to break the north shooter's sightline, making for the far end of the roof where a service ladder accessed the adjacent building's upper level. Tav tracked him in peripheral vision. Smooth. Efficient. No wasted movement. 03:18.
The hatch opened.
Two figures came through in quick succession — the trained coordination of people who had worked together before, one high and one low, the spacing designed to split defensive fire. Not Ablation. The aggression was wrong, the exposure level careless in the specific way of contractors who'd been paid for completion rather than precision.
Tav came around the ventilation unit and met them.
The first was dealt with in four seconds. The second required six, and the second's left hook caught Tav's jaw with the hard force of a larger man who had more reach than expected, and Tav went down
to one knee and came back up and finished it with the cold methodical efficiency of someone who had stopped being surprised by pain a long time ago. 03:03.
From the north building's direction: a sharp crack. Suppressed, but the sound of a different weapon from the one that had started the engagement. Not the north shooter's.
Alistair. Which meant Alistair had reached elevation and engaged. 02:51.
Tav scanned the rooftop. Two down. Hatch clear. Hub enclosure intact. He crossed to it in a crouch — keeping below the parapet line, below the north shooter's angle — and checked the interface.
Upload: 68%.
He stayed near it.
