The Mudflat slums had reprogrammed him. The ghost buzz of the world map had become background to the here and now, gritty reality of survival. Reuben had added a mobile health clinic to the HON's repertoire—a battered, repurposed vehicle full of basic equipment, which could reach the farthest and most forgotten reaches of the city. It was a back-to-the-future action, a flat defiance of Crane's big, dirty spectacles.
This evening, the unit operated from the skeletal remains of the abandoned industrial district, a place referred to as the Iron Weald. It was a place without law where crumbling factories and squatting communities stood, a place the city claimed didn't exist. The wind carried the stench of rust and decay. They were treating a cluster of lead poisoning patients among children w
