Caleb stepped into the Armorer's alley at eighteen-forty-five.
The Quarter at evening was a different Quarter. The morning version belonged to recruits and vendors stacking crates. The evening version belonged to off-shift Defense Force, drunks, and people who came to Yui's because Yui's was the last place in the sector that served a bowl for under a hundred credits and didn't water it down.
The upper-sector billboards painted the corrugated roofs in a pink that wasn't morning pink. The lanterns on the noodle stands were lit. Yui's pot had been on since fifteen-hundred.
Caleb's ribs were running warm under his coat.
Not the vault warm. Different. The warmth Tali had called "second-line" on his bypass two days ago. Soma's resonance trail. The bypass had been reading it since the audit.
Tonight it was reading something else too.
[Hacker: I have you on three cameras. Two more than usual.]
He kept walking.
