The safehouse in the garment district became a refuge for the newly freed.
Wren and Corvin sat together in the corner, their shoulders touching, their voices low as they compared the fragments of their broken memories. Veyra stood at the window, her silhouette sharp against the grey dawn that was beginning to bleed through the black paint. She had not spoken since the rooftop, since the fragment's light had washed the kill code out of her mind. She was still processing, still adjusting to the silence that had replaced the constant pressure of the programming. Caleb understood. He had been there once, in the days after his erasure, when the absence of memory was its own kind of wound.
The rest of the team was scattered around the room—Vance and Deji near the door, their weapons close; Nyl
