The city pretended not to notice when they came back. It let the rain rinse the alleys and kept its windows polite. The substation door stuck harder than it had an hour ago, like the building had learned something about them and didn't approve.
Olli dumped his kit open and found space where a tool should have been. He checked the foam cutout, frowned, and checked again. "Clamp's gone."
"Inventory later," Kael said. "We're moving."
Arden stood by the map wall and rewired her thoughts. Cold relay. Hot‑swap. Two nodes left. One spine. She traced a fingertip along a penciled line that didn't exist on any municipal plan and felt the wall push back like muscle. "We take the key next."
"Define key," Callum said.
"Access shard," Amara answered, sliding a photo onto the bench filaments behind living panel, red line like an open vein. "Panel tasted us during the scan. It'll recognize us now."
"Recognize or eat," Olli said.
