The silence of the industrial district was not the absence of sound, but the absence of Monarch. Sarah stood under the flickering halogen light of a rusted shipping container, clutching the small, cracked device. The heartbeat signal on the screen. A rhythmic pulse of white pixels was the only proof that Elian hadn’t been completely overwritten.
He is there, she whispered to the empty air.
Her hands were raw, stained with grease and the copper tang of old blood from the tunnel collapse. She knew the silence wouldn't last. The grid was a living beast, and a wounded beast was at its most dangerous when it began to scavenge.
She opened her pack and laid out her equipment. Her fingers moved with practiced, cold efficiency, bypassing the damaged digital boards and soldering wires directly
