"Didn't sleep much," Cassian said, rubbing at his temple. "But hey, no patrols kicking down the door, so I'll count it as a win."
Riven checked the satchel quietly. Everything was in place.
They left not long after. The alleys were quieter at this time of day: only a few people out sweeping debris or cooking food over scavenged burners.
Cassian adjusted his coat collar. "Alright. Before we get flagged again, can we focus on actual human needs for a minute?"
Riven glanced at him.
"Water. Food. Shelter. You know, things that keep people alive."
Riven gave a small nod. "You're right. We should stock up and find a place to lay low for a while."
They walked past a row of older service buildings. The walls were covered in corrugated panels with thick power cables hanging every so often. Riven stopped by a junction, tracing one of the conduit lines with his eyes.
Cassian sighed. "Don't even think about it."
"I'm not looking to cause any problems," Riven said.
"Good. Because I'm not sprinting through another maze of broken plumbing just to get shot at again."
Riven kept walking, slower this time. He was scanning for something, anything, still intact that might give him new clues.
Cassian walked beside him, matching his pace. "You're looking for another console, aren't you?"
Riven didn't answer at first, but eventually: "...A node."
"Which is different from a console, how?"
"A console is like an access point... A node is part of the system itself."
"And this thing you're carrying..."
"It's old Stillwater tech. It reacts to legacy systems. It recognizes certain signals and protocols that existed back then."
Cassian slowed a little. "So you're saying... there's still a system alive under all this?"
"It's possible... parts of it might never have died."
That quieted Cassian for a few steps.
Ahead, a hand-painted sign hung from a leaning fence:
FILTERED WATER / SLEEP SLOTS
Cassian tilted his head at it. "Finally, something useful."
They followed the sign down a narrow side alley. Metal panels had been hammered into loose walls, and what looked like an old storefront had been stripped to its frame. Above the door, faded lettering still clung to the frame:
STRUCTURAL REPAIRS / BY APPOINTMENT
But someone had scratched a new word below it in paint: SHELTER.
Cassian pushed the door open. Inside, the space was dim and quiet. A single solar lamp hung from the ceiling, casting a soft white glow over a short desk and a stack of folded tarp blankets in the corner.
Behind the desk sat a man, broad-shouldered, rough-featured, with gray streaks in his short hair and a mechanical brace over one forearm. He didn't bother to stand when they entered. He just looked up, sizing them both with a glance.
"You here for water or sleep?" he asked.
"Both," Cassian said, tossing a small coin token onto the desk.
The man caught it with one hand and slid open a drawer. "Two hours gets you a filtered water refill and a back room. Don't break anything, don't plug anything in, and don't ask questions you don't want answered."
Cassian lifted a brow. "Fair enough."
Riven's gaze swept across the room, analyzing it in seconds. He found no surveillance points and no unusual sounds under the floor. The entire building seemed clean and quiet, maybe too quiet.
Now the man looked at Riven, studying him more intently than he had studied Cassian. "You're not from around here."
"No," Riven replied.
The man nodded once, then passed two sealed flasks across the desk. "Call me Lorne. If you're planning to sleep, use the room behind the tarp. If you're not, don't linger."
Cassian took one of the flasks and handed the other to Riven.
Lorne stood and motioned toward the back with two fingers. "Clock starts now."
--------
Cassian dropped onto the tarp-covered mattress with a big exhale and rested his arms behind his head. Riven sat against the far wall with his legs crossed keeping the satchel close by his side.
Cassian opened one of the sealed water packets with his teeth, then paused, holding it out toward Riven. "Thirsty?"
Riven took it without a word and drank slowly. The water tasted flat and over-filtered, but it was clean.
Cassian studied him for a moment. "You really think the system's still alive? That whatever ran the grid back then… is still out there?"
Riven nodded. "Some parts of it, yes..."
Cassian ran a hand over his face. "And you're chasing it because… what? You think you can turn the water back on?"
"My sister... she thought it was possible," Riven said.
He unzipped the satchel just slightly and checked the core. It was still warm.
"She was trying to understand how the old system worked, you know, before the Collapse. Back when the grid still responded to pressure changes. During those times, water wasn't just released randomly. The Lady controlled the infrastructure and monitored flow across sectors. It rerouted supply based on demand, stability, and failures. If a zone lost pressure, due to damage, leaks, or sabotage, water would be cut off and sent somewhere else. Cleaner districts, lower risk."
A pause followed for him to gather his thoughts.
"Most people think the system died out completely. But it didn't, not all of it. Some nodes still respond. I've seen them. Not everywhere, but in places no one checks anymore. They said the network was too fractured and too costly to monitor, but my sister... she believed if we could trace the reroutes, follow the logic backwards, we might find where the water could still flow."
He paused, glancing at the satchel.
"The system didn't die. It just went silent due to the Collapse crisis. And she believed it was still listening and waiting for someone to 'ask the right way'."
Cassian looked at him and decided the question couldn't be avoided any longer. "And where is she now?"
Riven was quiet for a few seconds. "She didn't make it past the Fourth Zone."
The silence settled again, but after a minute Cassian insisted. "You think that thing's leading you back to the origin?"
"I don't know," Riven admitted. "But it keeps sending signals. These signals have to be going somewhere, they must mean something... "
Neither of them said anything after that.