The 2 PM alarm was still reverberating through the corridors when Proxy emerged from the block transition leading out of the maintenance side. A prison alarm never really stopped all at once. It decayed. Like authority pretending it lingered longer than it actually did.
The free period had opened the main sections, and the population was flowing through the intersections in that strangely artificial way people moved when given permission without purpose. Everyone looked busy. Almost nobody actually was.
He found Nyx at the second junction.
She stepped out from the laundry corridor, and before either of them spoke, her fingers caught the back of his sleeve in that familiar two-finger grip. Casual. Automatic. The kind of movement that suggested absence was merely a temporary technical issue now corrected. Like reconnecting a wire.
She looked pleased, too, though not openly. It was the restrained satisfaction of someone who had tested a hypothesis and liked the results.
