Maya's idea of sitting down for something was a voice note that lasted eleven minutes and twenty-three seconds, recorded in the specific rapid-fire tone she used when she'd been awake all night and found something she genuinely wished she could un-find.
Elara sat cross-legged on her bed with earphones in and listened to every second of it. By minute three, she had stopped moving. By minute six, her hand was pressed flat on the mattress. By minute nine, she had stopped breathing in any normal rhythm.
"Okay so," Maya said at the beginning, "You know how I said I was working through the routing layers on the shell? Three layers deep, and it kept looping back to registered agents who existed solely on paper. Standard concealment structure — nothing unusual, just patient. I've broken those be
