The roar of the District 7 applause lingered in Reuben's mind, a far-off, invigorating hum under the perpetual hum of the city. He sat in a small borrowed cubicle in the Harbor City Public Health Department, still unfamiliar to him in its rickety particleboard desks and the stale smell of old coffee. The victory was real but tenuous.
Edward Collins had been temporarily set aside, but his network lingered, a latent venom awaiting its moment.
The actual work—the humdrum, unglossy work of putting the System's water purification and monitoring plans into action—was just starting.
Then the world changed.
It was a reflex, gut reaction, as if a shard of ice burrowed into his spine. The ache at the base of his skull, his canary-in-the-coal-mine signal, shot up to a burning, migraine-level pain
