The safe house was a sterile metal box, a shipping container buried in the forgotten depths of the city's logistics network. It was cold. Impersonal. A perfect reflection of the silence that now entombed the remnants of Arden's team. The physical wounds from the ambush were already being treated Jian's leg was stabilized, Amara was conscious but weak, her body wracked by the aftershocks of the psychic feedback. But the other wounds, the invisible ones, festered in the oppressive quiet.
Arden stood apart from them, her back to the room. She was observing the tactical map, but her mind was not on the city's shifting threat matrix. It was turned inward, analyzing a new, anomalous piece of data. An error in her own code.
Regret.
