The stolen sedan was a vibrating shell of anonymity, humming along the fractured asphalt of a highway that had long ago been bypassed by the high-speed transit lines of the Wolfe era. The air coming through the cracked vents was no longer the recycled, pressurized oxygen of the Sterling Tower; it was thick with the scent of damp earth, pine resin, and the approaching rain of the Pacific Northwest.
Ethan sat in the passenger seat, his head lolling against the window. The destruction of the Hart loom had done more than sever the Vesper signal; it had stripped away the last layer of "optimized" tension in his posture. He looked smaller now, his shoulders rounded, his face etched with the deep, honest lines of a man who had finally stopped fighting his own shadow.
I gripped the steering whee
