Caleb stepped into the Armorer's alley at eighteen-forty-five.
Evening changed the Quarter. Morning belonged to recruits and vendors stacking crates. Evening belonged to off-shift Defense Force, drunks, and people who came to Yui's because Yui's was the last place in the sector that served a bowl for under a hundred credits and kept the broth honest.
The upper-sector billboards painted the corrugated roofs in a hard pink. The lanterns on the noodle stands were lit. Yui's pot had been on since fifteen-hundred.
Caleb's ribs were running warm under his coat.
This was different from the vault warmth: the second-line pulse Tali had named on his bypass two days ago, Soma's resonance trail, the signal the bypass had been reading since the audit.
Tonight it was reading something else too.
[Hacker: I have you on three cameras. Two more than usual.]
He kept walking.
