The relay bead in the service alley gives one last click, then dies. Its final ping points straight into the Magos transit spine, where maintenance catwalks braid over freight rails and armed inspectors pace under harsh white strips.
Naira Versta Nai and Broken Leg slip into the spine’s shadow, blending with rivet crews and cable haulers. Ahead, a handler station flashes a cold blue audit light, and a Sable Index sweep grid crawls across every tagged component in range.
Broken Leg
There. That node is pulling the trail. If we let it finish a pass, it names us.
A maintenance drone pivots overhead, projecting a local map that briefly highlights a sealed side gantry and the handler station beyond it. The copied memory banks on the stolen drone data are still open, still bleeding route fragments into the search.
The Handler
Hold position. Transmit your tag string for verification.
Alarms stay quiet, but the Sable Index sweep tightens, converging on the compromised mech component trace. If Naira moves now, she can reach the handler before the net closes, or strike the node and force the system blind for a moment.
Reach the handler station