Twenty-four hours after the miraculous recovery of Kakek Edward in the Vance family dining hall, my reality had seemingly reverted to its grim, designated baseline. By five o'clock in the evening, I was elbow-deep in the primary coolant reservoirs of Sector Zero, my hands coated in a thick, metallic sludge. Jerry’s replacement—a nervous, by-the-book junior manager who had been terrified into submission by the tactical squad’s raid the day before—had given me a wide berth, assigning me to the most isolated maintenance tasks in the sub-basement.
I was wiping the industrial solvent from my knuckles with a coarse rag when my cheap burner phone vibrated against my chest.
It wasn't a secure satellite ping from the Nexus intelligence grid. It was a standard, unencrypted cellular text message.
