The collar asked if he was sure.
It did it in the softest way it knew: with a faint coolness against the back of Arden's neck, a query-pulse that tasted like static and antiseptic.
[UNIT Ø7-REIK: SCHEDULE EXCEPTION.]
[STATUS: OFF-MISSION WINDOW (240 MINUTES).]
[QUERY: REMAIN WITH UNIT / RETURN TO QUARTERS.]
He stared at the text on his HUD and snorted.
"Like I'd leave them alone," he said.
The lift hummed around him, a glass tube with scratch-resistant lies for walls. The Span climbed past in slices: Crown terraces where rain avoided the rich out of habit, mid-tier transit lines pulsing blue, lower girders sweating rust. Neon bled through everything like a wound that refused to scab.
"Talking to your jewelry again?" Seraphine asked.
She stood beside him, back to the lift wall, arms folded. Off-duty armor: plates stripped to a lighter rig, black synth-leather jacket over it, collar gleaming like a designer choker someone would kill to never wear. Her hair was loose for once, dark waves brushing her jaw. It made her look younger and more dangerous.
"Just confirming my life choices," Arden said. "You sure about yours? I hear 'night off' and think bed. You hear 'night off' and think climbing condemned architecture for cheap drinks."
"That's because you're boring," she said. "And because the bar has a good view. If I'm going to watch the city pretend it's okay, I want the right angle."
Darius rumbled from the rear of the lift.
"Also because the bar's off-grid enough that leash metrics get fuzzy," he said. "Handler wanted us to 'vent morale' somewhere the Bureau can't tag every laugh."
Arden glanced back at him.
Darius wore a civilian coat over his armor—heavy wool, old-fashioned, shoulders broad enough to make doorways look nervous. The collar at his throat glowed a steady, low red under the fabric, like a coal taking its time.
"You mean Silex picked the place?" Arden said. "That's reassuring."
Kai leaned against the opposite wall, hands jammed into the pockets of a jacket that probably counted as vintage by some subculture's standards—patched synth-denim, fading band sigils, a line of microports along one sleeve. His collar sat half-hidden under a scarf printed with glitch-art static hearts.
Arden squinted at it.
"You're merch now," he said. "Did you buy your own meme?"
Kai didn't look up from the invisible HUD he was scrolling in mid-air, fingers twitching in subvocal commands.
"Gift," he said. "Some Underlayer shop spun up a line after the broadcast. 'Saint Static – Limited Drop.' I thought it was important to support independent artists."
"By wearing my worst moment on your neck," Arden said.
"It tested well with the target demo," Kai said. "Teens who think they're doomed and adults who know they are."
Lyra stood near the lift doors, facing out, palms pressed lightly to the glass. The biolum filaments under her skin glowed faintly, picking up reflected colors from the city.
Her collar was the dimmest of theirs, a soft halo of pale blue. Off-mission, it set itself to "content" unless given a reason not to be.
"People have been tagging pictures," she said, voice mild. "Little edits. Your face under the hearts. The leash shining. Captions like 'Mercy Glitch' and 'Obedience Kink Gone Wrong.'"
Arden groaned.
"Kill me," he said.
"You tried that already," Darius said. "Didn't take."
The lift chimed. The doors hissed open onto a narrow, poorly lit corridor that smelled of old smoke, spilled synth-liquor, and rain that had gotten lost on the way down.
A flickering sign buzzed above a metal door at the end of the hall, its hologram half-broken: [COND]EMNED SKY – ROOF BAR. Some letters hung in mid-flicker, glitching between languages.
"This is subtle," Arden said.
Seraphine smiled.
"That's the charm," she said. "Place used to be a safety observation deck before the tower failed its structural integrity tests. Now it's a bar with a demolition notice and a lot of bad decisions per square meter."
"Are we allowed to be here?" he asked.
"Define 'allowed'," she said. "Door's open."
She led the way down the corridor, boots clacking. The rest of Ø7 followed, a knot of collared sinners heading out for a drink.
The collar on Arden's neck cooled another degree, logging distance from official quarters, proximity to unit, environmental risk factors. Somewhere, Silex watched their telemetry trace an approved curve.
Night off, chain-dog style.
⸻
The Condemned Sky had no right to feel cozy.
It was a roof that should have been empty: jagged edges of railings, warning holos clicking on and off where safety regs had once mattered, cracked plasteel underfoot patchworked with metal plates. But someone with a talent for stubbornness had built a bar into the ruin.
A long counter made from a repurposed beam ran along one side, lit from below with cheap neon that cycled through colors like a mood disorder. Old stools, each different and none safe, lined it. Clustered tables made of cable spools and wrecked drone chassis filled the rest. Tarps and transparent sheets hung overhead, improvising a canopy between exposed girders; rain pattered on them, turning the roof into a drum.
Beyond the low walls, The Span sprawled in all directions—tower clusters, arterial skyways, the distant glare of Crown domes. The dome overhead was a dark bowl, ribs of lightning crawling along the inner surface. Ads flickered on nearby skyscrapers, trying to sell salvation and debt forgiveness to anyone whose eyes wandered too long.
Music leaked from battered speakers near the bar—slow, bluesy, guitar and synth woven together, a voice singing about a love you couldn't remember but couldn't forget.
Heads turned as Ø7 stepped onto the roof.
People recognized the collars first.
Even off-duty, even without their full armor, there was no mistaking them. The metal bands around their throats gleamed with architected authority; the faint glow within pulsed in a cadence that said: State property.
A low murmur passed through the crowd. Some patrons looked away, suddenly fascinated by their drinks. Others watched, hungry for proximity to sanctioned violence. A couple of drunk Substrate kids at the far table pressed hands to their own necks, miming collars, laughing too loudly.
A woman near the bar lifted a spanphone, already framing a shot.
"Fantastic," Arden muttered. "Didn't realize cover charge included becoming background in somebody's penalty-fetish feed."
The bartender wiped a glass with a rag that had clearly retired from some other profession and never been properly washed since. They were a lean, middle-aged person with copper implants at their temples and an old Enforcer scar running from jaw to ear. Their own collar scar was faint and puckered, the implant long gone.
They watched Ø7 approach with patient, measuring eyes.
"No fights," they said, before anyone could speak.
"No promises," Seraphine said.
The bartender snorted.
"Then no free refills," they said. "What'll it be, Dogs?"
"The blood of our enemies and something with citrus," Arden said.
"Beer," Darius said, simultaneously.
Kai sighed.
"Two cheap synthetic lagers, one whatever passes for whiskey here, one low-proof citrus thing with too much ice," he translated. "And a glass of water Lyra won't drink."
Lyra blinked.
"I drink water," she said.
"You sip it once and then forget it exists for three hours," Kai said.
"That still counts," she said.
The bartender's mouth twitched.
"House lager," they said, pouring amber liquid into chipped mugs. "Whiskey's from Wildspace, so technically illegal and definitely worse. Citrus thing is on the menu as a 'Diluted Sun'. Water is water. You running a tab?"
Seraphine leaned her elbows on the counter, smile turning half-watt brighter.
"Put it on Judiciary goodwill," she said. "Public morale expense. We did a show today."
The bartender's gaze flicked to Arden's collar, then to Kai's scarf with its tiny static hearts, then back.
"I saw," they said. "Whole bar did. Brutal staging. Terrible editing. Hearts were a nice touch, though."
"Glitch," Kai said blandly.
"Sure," the bartender said. "You want the 'Saint Static special'? Half price for famous sinners."
Arden groaned again.
"Stop," he said. "I'm begging you."
Seraphine laughed.
"Four Saint Statics," she said. "One with extra ice."
The bartender poured the drinks, set them down. "Name's Cal," they said. "You break anything, I charge you twice. You break anyone, I charge you three times and make you clean it up."
Arden lifted his glass in a mock salute.
"Deal," he said.
They took a table near the edge, where a section of rail was missing and the view was good enough to make you forget it was all a cage for a minute.
Arden sat with his back to the tower, facing the city. Darius took the chair that had no business holding his weight. It creaked but held. Seraphine slid onto a spool opposite Arden, propping one boot on a rung. Kai dropped into a seat, immediately flicking his fingers through layers of invisible data. Lyra took the last chair, turning it slightly so she could see both the team and the skyline.
The collar at Arden's throat cooled another notch, logging: unit cohesion – high.
Arden took a sip of his Saint Static.
It tasted like someone had dissolved cheap whiskey into carbonation and regret, then added citrus to apologize. He made a face.
"This is awful," he said.
"Tastes like freedom," Seraphine said.
"That explains why it burns going down and leaves you wondering if it was worth it," Kai muttered.
Darius drank half his in one pull.
"It's wet," he said. "That's enough."
Lyra lifted her water, tasted it, set it down. The rain on the tarps overhead provided background percussion.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
The city filled the silence—sirens in the distance, the hum of transit lines, the low vibrato of the dome.
"This feels illegal," Arden said finally.
"That's the point," Seraphine said. "Night off means we pretend the leash is just jewelry for a few hours."
He turned his glass in his hands, watching the way the neon under the table cut through it, refracting crimson and blue.
"It's still there," he said.
"Of course it is," Seraphine said. "Fashion trends come and go. State property is forever."
Lyra watched their reflections in the glass window behind them, faint against the city.
"Off-mission anomalies," she said softly. "That's how the city will read this. Four hours of irregular behavior clustered together. A little spike in the pattern."
"Everything's a spike to you," Kai said.
She considered.
"Everything is a heartbeat," she said. "The machine keeps checking if ours match."
Arden clinked his glass against hers.
"Here's to arrhythmia," he said.
They drank.
⸻
The first fight tried to start fifteen minutes later.
It came from the table of Substrate kids near the far end—early twenties, tough in the brittle way of people who've spent their entire lives being told they're expendable. They wore knockoff smart-fabric jackets that glitched occasionally, showing corporate logos beneath the hacked graphics. One had a tattoo of a broken halo on his neck; another had a stylized chain-dog collar inked around his wrist.
They'd been staring since Ø7 sat down. Arden could feel their gaze on his collar like an extra weight.
"Don't," Darius said quietly, without looking at him.
"I'm not doing anything," Arden said.
"That's the problem," Darius said. "You look like prey when you brood."
"I do not brood," Arden said.
Seraphine snorted.
"You absolutely brood," she said. "You weaponize it."
Kai flicked a datapoint into Arden's HUD—a tiny graph with 'Brooding Incidents' plotted against 'Bad Decisions'.
"Correlation coefficient: 0.87," he said.
"Stop running metrics on my face," Arden said.
The loudest of the kids—tattooed wrist, more piercings than patience—pushed back from his table and swaggered toward them. His friends watched, half-encouraging, half-ready to pretend they'd never met him if things went sideways.
He stopped just outside the comfortable radius of the table.
"Hey," he said. "Dogs."
Arden looked up.
"Puppies," he said. "We prefer puppies on our night off."
The kid sneered.
"You think you're funny," he said. "Saw you on the feed today. All that screaming. Thought Chain Dogs didn't feel pain."
"We feel plenty," Arden said. "We just don't get to say no to it."
The kid's eyes flicked to the collars, then back.
"My sister," he said. "She got picked up on a debt sweep. Didn't even owe that much. Came back with one of those on her neck. Now she's running errands for some Helios unit and telling me they 'saved' her."
"I'm not Helios," Arden said. "We work Judiciary."
"Same leash," the kid said. "Different logo. They put a collar on you, you're not a person anymore. You're a warning."
"Seems like you missed the warning," Kai said under his breath.
The kid took a half-step closer, weight shifting.
"What's it like?" he demanded. "When they shock you? When they make you kill someone you don't want to? Does your brain just… roll over? Or do you hear yourself screaming, like in the broadcast?"
Seraphine's hand tightened around her glass. Lyra went very still.
Arden held the kid's gaze.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Why?" the kid snapped.
"So I know who's asking me to strip in public," Arden said. "Pain's personal."
"Tavi," he said, after a second. "Substrate Forty-Six."
"All right, Tavi," Arden said. "Truth? It's like being drowned by someone who knows exactly how long it takes you to black out. And then they pull you back, and smile, and tell you how grateful you should be for the lungs you still have."
Tavi's jaw flexed.
"And you just take it?" he said.
"No," Arden said. "Sometimes I say no. That's why you got to watch me scream in high definition this afternoon."
Tavi's lip curled.
"And still you wear it," he said. "Still you work for them. My sister says you're heroes. 'Necessary violence.' But you're just… dogs. They sic you on whoever they want, and you wag."
Darius rose.
He didn't move fast. He didn't need to. The chair squealed under his weight; the table shifted as he pushed off. The air around him tightened.
He stepped between Arden and Tavi, not aggressively, but in a way that made clear the corridor of movement had narrowed.
"I understand being angry," Darius said. "I have a long list of people I'd like to aim it at. But if you want to pick a fight with the machine, pick a bigger target than the knives it throws away when it's done."
Tavi stared up at him.
"You sound like my father," he said.
"Then he's smarter than you," Darius said. "Sit back down. Drink your drink. Hate us if it helps you sleep. Just don't bleed on my night off."
The kid's friends snickered nervously from their table. Tavi's shoulders squared, then slumped. He took half a step back.
"You think you're better," he said. "Because you're on a shorter leash."
"No," Darius said. "I think I'm tired. That's different."
Tavi hesitated a second longer, then spat on the floor—not at them, just in general—and turned away.
"City's gonna eat you," he muttered over his shoulder. "Collar or not."
"Already did," Arden said.
The bartender appeared beside Tavi, hand on his shoulder, steering him gently back.
"Sit down," Cal said. "If you swing at the Dogs, someone's going off this roof, and it won't be them. I don't want to mop tonight."
Tavi muttered something but obeyed.
Darius sat back down, joints creaking.
Arden looked at him.
"Thank you," he said.
Darius shrugged.
"First drink's on you," he said.
"You told him not to bleed on your night off," Arden said. "That was almost poetic."
"Fatigue," Darius said. "Makes me sloppy."
Seraphine shook her head.
"You have the bedside manner of a malfunctioning med-bot," she said. "But it worked."
Lyra's gaze lingered on Tavi's table.
"He loves his sister," she said. "That's the source. That's why his anger hurt more than his words."
Arden raised his glass in Tavi's direction.
"To sisters," he said. "May they all get free collars."
Kai snorted.
"Now that's poetic," he said. "Terrible, but poetic."
⸻
Later, the bar's lights dimmed another few degrees and someone dragged out a portable holo-projector. A dance space cleared near the center, taped lines marking the bounds so no one accidentally fell into the city.
Music shifted—slower beat, more bass, synth weaving through old chords.
Seraphine finished her drink, set the glass down, and slid to her feet.
"All right," she said. "We've had the existential crisis portion of the evening. Time for physical therapy."
Arden eyed her.
"I'm not fighting you on a roof," he said. "Too many witnesses."
"Who said anything about fighting?" she said. "Come on, Reik."
"I don't dance," he said.
She raised an eyebrow.
"You execute doctrinally questionable mercy in front of the entire city," she said, "but you're scared of moving your feet in public?"
"It's not fear," he said. "It's… mercy. For everyone watching."
Kai made a small choking sound.
"Please go," he said. "For science."
Lyra tilted her head.
"I'd like to see how you move when you're not being shot at," she said.
Darius grunted.
"Go," he said. "If you fall, I'll catch you."
Arden looked around at his very helpful unit and groaned.
"You're all traitors," he said.
He let Seraphine take his hand anyway.
Her fingers were warm, calloused, steady. She led him to the cleared space with the confidence of someone who walked into rooms expecting them to adapt.
The city watched.
Some of it through lenses and SpanIDs, some of it through actual eyes. Arden could feel streams going live, the Underlayer whispering hashtags into itself.
"Relax," she said, stepping close. "You look like you're about to interrogate the floor."
He planted his boots.
"How does this work?" he asked. "Do I need a manual? A waiver?"
She put his hands where she wanted them—one at her waist, one catching her free hand. The contact felt dangerously intimate in a way that had nothing to do with skin and everything to do with permission.
"You listen," she said. "To the music, to my steps, to your own body. Hard for you, I know."
"You're talking to a man with a leash inside his spinal column," he said. "Listening to my own body is medically contraindicated."
"Shut up and move," she said.
She took the first step—forward, then a little to the side. He followed, clumsy at first, boots too heavy, every motion reminding him of the armor he wasn't wearing.
The music threaded through them, thick with melancholy and dirty joy.
"There," she said, when he didn't immediately trip. "See? One foot, then the other. You've done this before, just in different contexts."
"The context usually involves bullet trajectories," he said.
"Same principle," she said. "Predict vectors. Adjust."
They turned slowly, the city spinning around them.
Her body fit against his in ways that civilians might have called romantic and Dogs might have called tactical—proper distribution of weight, mutual center of gravity, escape vectors checked and catalogued.
Her collar brushed his once as they turned, metal kissing metal with a soft, electric click.
Both bands hummed, registering proximity, exchanging encrypted status bursts that no human eyes could see.
"Careful," he murmured. "We'll give the machine ideas."
"Maybe it'll add dancing to the Obedience curriculum," she said. "Punish you in front of everyone and then make you tango."
He huffed a laugh.
"Obedience Tango," he said. "Step, shock, pivot, regret."
She smiled, too close and too real.
"Reckless grace," she said.
He blinked.
"What?" he asked.
"That's what you are," she said. "You move like you're always about to fall off something high, but somehow you don't. And when you do fall, you make it look intentional."
"That sounds like a very nice way of saying 'idiot'," he said.
"That's the 5% poetic," she said. "Don't get used to it."
He swallowed, what passed for his heart doing something complicated behind his ribs.
"Why did you do it?" he asked, before he could stop himself. "In the holding bay. When you cut my leash."
Her steps didn't falter, but her eyes shifted, gaze skimming over his shoulder instead of meeting his.
"That's a bad topic for a slow song," she said lightly.
"I'm terrible at picking music," he said. "Answer the question."
"You were dying," she said, voice low enough that only he could hear. "And I didn't want to hear that sound again."
"What sound?" he asked.
"The one you made on the platform," she said. "When they put the rope around your neck. It was very quiet. Smaller than it should have been. I hated it. I realized I didn't want to know what the leash equivalent sounded like at full volume."
He swallowed.
"So you risked your own collar," he said. "Because you didn't like my death noises."
"I also like having someone around who tells judges to choke on their own script," she said. "Don't get romantic about it."
"I wasn't," he said.
"You were," she said. "Your pupils dilated."
"That could be the light," he said.
"It's not," she said.
He stepped on her foot.
It was minor—barely more than a brush—but she winced anyway, more for show than injury.
"Wow," she said. "You really are bad at this."
"I told you," he said. "Collateral damage."
She laughed, bright and brief.
"Again," she said. "Before my night off is ruined by your two left feet."
They moved.
Somewhere, a spanphone caught them in a frame: collared killers in an almost-embrace, the city a smear of neon behind them. That image would be filtered, captioned, shared. "Saint Static learns to dance." "Obedience kink: partner edition."
Arden tried not to think about any of that. He focused on the weight of Seraphine's hand in his, the slide of her boots, the way her breath hitched when the music shifted tempo.
For a few moments, his collar was the quietest thing on his skin.
Then his HUD pinged.
[AUDIENCE METRICS: SPIKE.]
[SPANID TAGS ASSOCIATED: #SaintStatic #DogsoftheSpan #MercyGlitch.]
He almost tripped.
"Problem?" she asked.
"City's watching," he said.
"It always is," she said. "Dance anyway."
He did.
Then, halfway through the song, she let go.
It was like someone had carefully, precisely cut a wire he hadn't known he was using to stay upright.
She stepped back, out of his orbit, hands dropping.
"That's enough," she said.
He blinked.
"What?" he said. "I was just starting to be mediocre instead of terrible."
"Exactly," she said. "Leave them wanting more. Rule one of survival. Also rule one of performing."
"Where are you going?" he asked.
She tilted her head toward the far side of the roof, where the rail fell away into darkness.
"Bathroom," she said. "Alleyway. Memory I don't want you to see. Take your pick."
He watched her for a second.
"Seraphine," he said.
She didn't turn.
"We're not done," he said.
"We never are," she said over her shoulder.
Then she vanished into the shadows between tarps and girders, smoke swallowing her silhouette.
The song ended without her.
Arden stood there, caught between steps, feeling the absence like an echo.
Somewhere behind him, someone whistled. Someone else clapped.
He walked back to the table, boots louder than the music for a few seconds.
Kai looked up as he approached, one eyebrow raised.
"She left you mid-song," Kai said. "Brutal."
"Story of my life," Arden said, dropping into his chair.
Lyra's eyes tracked Seraphine's last known vector.
"She needed to recalibrate," Lyra said. "Too much proximity. Too much… feeling."
"She's allowed," Darius said. "We all are. It's the only luxury we get."
Arden reached for his drink.
His hands shook just enough to make the liquid ripple.
He told himself it was the aftermath of the cascade, the tension of the almost-fight, the clumsy dancing. He told himself a lot of things.
The collar at his throat warmed, recording: emotional variance – elevated.
⸻
Later still, when the Wildspace whiskey had done its work and the crowd had thinned, Cal the bartender wandered over to their table with a small device in hand.
It looked like a flattened spider—eight little legs, a central lens, a smiley face sticker peeling at the edge.
"Souvenir?" Cal said.
Arden eyed it.
"That looks like surveillance," he said.
"Everything's surveillance," Cal said. "This is just honest about it. It's a table-cam. I sweep one across groups that tip well. You qualify. One holo, you keep the feed. I scrub the metadata. Unofficial policy: no SpanID tags unless you want them."
"You trust them?" Kai asked.
Cal shrugged.
"I trust that if I screw over Chain Dogs on their night off, I'll find myself on the wrong side of a leash someday," they said. "And I'm too old to learn new punishments."
Lyra smiled faintly.
"I'd like a picture," she said.
Arden looked at her.
"You would?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "Verbal memory is slippery. Visual anchors help. And… family portraits are rare in our demographic."
He met Darius's eyes. The big man shrugged, then nodded once.
"Fine," Arden said. "One picture. No static hearts."
"No promises," Kai said.
They crowded together at the table.
Darius shifted his chair closer, looming slightly behind Arden and Kai like a watchtower. Lyra leaned in from one side, her shoulder brushing Arden's. Seraphine reappeared from wherever she'd gone, sliding back into her seat between Arden and Lyra with a casualness that fooled nobody.
"You okay?" he murmured.
"Shut up and smile," she said.
Cal tapped a control. The table-cam lifted, its legs extending, lens rotating, tiny stabilizers humming. It hovered at eye level, red light blinking.
"Say something that won't get me arrested," Cal said.
"Nobody ever really dies," Kai said.
"That's actually the opposite," Arden said.
"Too late," Cal said. "Three, two, one—"
The cam flashed.
For a moment, Arden saw what it saw: five collared sinners, scarred and tired, leaning into each other against a backdrop of neon and rain. Seraphine's smile was crooked, eyes still shadowed. Darius looked like he'd been carved into the moment rather than posed. Kai's mouth was twisted around a half-formed joke. Lyra's gaze went straight into the lens, level and strange. Arden's own face was caught between amusement and defiance.
Then the feed glitched.
Lines of static crawled across the holo, melting the edges. Colors bled. The collars on their throats flared too bright, halos of white noise around each neck. Tiny static hearts popped into existence, orbiting the group like mischievous ghosts.
"Gods damn it," Arden said.
Kai's laughter burst out, genuine and sharp.
"I didn't do that," he said. "I swear. That one's the city."
Lyra tilted her head.
"The Veil remembers you," she said. "It's learning a new pattern. Pain plus defiance plus… affection."
Cal frowned at the device, tapping controls.
"Huh," they said. "Thought I scrapped all the auto-tagging code on these. Looks like the Underlayer pushed a filter in through the media APIs. 'Saint Static pack'."
They shook their head.
"You want me to try again?" they asked.
Arden looked at the glitching holo.
It was ridiculous. It was dangerous. It was… weirdly right.
"No," he said. "That's us."
Darius grunted.
"Family photo," he said.
The word hung there, too heavy and too light.
Seraphine rolled her eyes, but her hand brushed Arden's under the table, a quick, grounding touch.
"Don't get sentimental," she said. "We still have to go sewer-diving tomorrow."
"Sewers?" Arden said. "You always ruin the mood."
Cal saved the image with a practiced flick.
"There," they said. "Local copy on a clean chip. No cloud, no feed. If anyone sees this, it'll be because one of you showed it to them."
They slid the chip across the table. Arden picked it up, turning it between his fingers.
The collar cooled, logging: artifact acquired – personal.
"Thanks," he said.
"Don't thank me," Cal said. "Thank whatever glitch keeps making your pain more interesting than their propaganda."
They went back to the bar.
Arden studied the chip for a second longer, then tucked it into a small, hidden pocket inside his jacket—next to where his Vultures of 41 tattoo burned under the fabric, old ink under new scars.
The Span breathed around them—lights flickering, dome humming, distant sirens rising and falling like tides.
For a few hours, Unit Ø7 sat on a condemned roof under a broken sky, drinking bad liquor and laughing like people who might live long enough to regret it.
Night off.
Tomorrow, the sewers.