The first time the registry hiccuped, no one blamed the code.
On Patrol Grid Seven, a pair of Orion officers had just completed a routine sweep of a market district when their wrist consoles flashed a priority ping.
*NEW ANOMALY CLUSTER DETECTED.*
*POSSIBLE UNREGISTERED DEVIANT ACTIVITY.*
*LOCATION: BLOCK 19-E, ROOFTOP LEVEL.*
They exchanged a look.
"Rooftops," Kade said. "Always rooftops."
Her partner snorted behind his visor.
"Maybe they like the view," he said.
They diverted, boots ringing on the elevated walkway as the system projected a route arrow ahead of them.
Block 19-E was an old residential stack wedged between a shield pylon and an elevated rail. Half the apartments sealed, half illegally sublet, the kind of building that existed in three or four districts as a persistent administrative problem that no one wanted to formally address because addressing it would require acknowledging how many people lived there and why.
