Chapter 25: Drift Finds the Kill Switch

The chalk mark was on the third pillar from the left, level with my shoulder, drawn in the particular shorthand that meant *here, now, alone*. I'd been watching the underpass for four minutes before I saw it. Old habit from Jakarta — you don't move toward a signal until you've satisfied yourself about the surrounding geometry.

The geometry was empty. I moved.

The access point was a maintenance hatch behind a derelict fare machine, its screen long since stripped for parts. I knew the route now without having to think about it. Three steps down, left at the junction with the conduit smell, right where the ceiling dropped low enough to catch someone who wasn't expecting it. My spine made its familiar complaint at the ducking maneuver — a small, hot protest from the shrapnel that had lived there for eleven years, that would likely outlast my career and possibly my skeleton.