The rain came down in bursts now — not clean sheets, but angry spasms, like the sky had a cough it couldn't shake. District 7's sub-lot was half-flooded, pools of oil-slick water reflecting the fractured neon signage from above. Aya moved between rusted frame shells and collapsed tow drones, slipping beneath the jagged roofline of what had once been a command-grade surveillance cruiser.
Her signal vault.
The doors no longer opened electronically — she forced the seal by hand, slipping a thin bone key into a rewired comm latch. She waited for the soft click, that microsecond of tension release. Like a throat clearing before confession.
Inside, the car was gutted. Stripped of seats, panels, insulation. Just a curved shell wrapped in jury-rigged signal foam and blanketed with old decryptors. Every surface buzzed faintly with static, like it remembered voices too well to stay quiet.
