By mid‑afternoon, the district felt like a held breath.
Rin knew the sweep was coming.
Mara's message had been clear enough: *If your screen goes delayed or dead, assume you're in their radius. Get off the street.*
Tal hadn't taken it well.
"You can't go," he'd said, pacing Jesen's cramped kitchen. "You're on their wall, Rin. Meeting Aiden *during* a sweep is the kind of bad idea they write songs about after people die."
"Relax," Rin said. "We don't even know exactly when they'll move. Mara said 'tomorrow,' not 'in the next five minutes.' If I don't go now, we lose the chance to plan while they're still deciding how hard to hit us."
Jesen leaned against the counter, arms folded.
"Planning sounds nice," she said. "So does not getting disappeared."
"I'll stick to side streets," Rin said. "No routes near the depot. No waving my camera in anyone's face. I'll be boring."
"You don't know how," Tal muttered.
