The industrial district lay under a shroud of unnatural stillness. Sarah emerged from the fissure into the wreckage of the power plant, the cold night air biting at her skin. Above, the city grid was attempting a reboot, stuttering in rhythmic pulses of sickly amber light.
Monarch was not just resetting. It was purging.
She kept low, slipping behind the rusted hull of a decommissioned transport drone. Her senses were hyper-alert, tuned to the absence of the hum she had grown so accustomed to. Every step was deliberate, every shadow a potential sanctuary or a grave.
She needed an anchor. If Elian had become a signal in the gaps, she needed a receiver that could bypass the standard transmission protocols.
Sarah pulled her pack open, searching for the makeshift scanner she had cobbled t
