The impact was less of a splash and more of a bone-shattering collision with liquid lead.Wei Xian clawed his way through the freezing saltwater, his lungs screaming for oxygen. He breached the surface, gasping, his limbs feeling like heavy, waterlogged logs. A few feet away, a massive, dark shape crested the waves—Gabriel. The Major hauled himself onto the sand of East Coast Park, dragging Wei Xian by the back of his jacket until they both collapsed onto the damp, debris-strewn shore.Above them, the sky was a canvas of orange and violet, illuminated by the burning carcass of the carrier sinking into the harbor."Don't tell me," Gabriel wheezed, rolling onto his back and spitting out a mouthful of seawater. "You’re going to complain about the temperature, right?"Wei Xian wiped the grit from his eyes, his voice raspy. "I was going to complain that you nearly drowned me. You’re a terrible life raft.""A life raft doesn't usually have to dodge falling scrap metal the size of a HDB bloc

The rusted ribs of a sunken container crane jutted out of the shallows like the spine of a leviathan, casting long, sharp shadows across the gray sand of East Coast Park. Wei Xian knelt beside a tangled mass of copper wiring and melted fiber-optics, his breath catching in his throat as a fresh spike of phantom telemetry flared behind his left eye. The HUD was gone—he’d ripped out the optical node three weeks ago with a pair of insulated pliers—but the deep-tissue neural pathways still hummed with ghost data, firing erratic micro-pulses that made his fingers twitch and his temples throb with a dull, nauseating heat."Stop clenching your jaw," Gabriel said, stepping over a discarded oil drum with a sack of salvaged sheet metal slung over his broad shoulder. "You keep doing that, and you're going to crack your molars. We've got enough dental problems without you chewing your own teeth to dust."Wei Xian didn't look up, his fingers working desperately with a miniature flathead screwdriver

The Pan Island Expressway stretched ahead of them like an asphalt spine swallowed by the jungle, its grey lanes choked with waist-high lalang grass and the thick, strangling roots of towering angsana trees. The concrete barriers, once pristine white, were stained with iron-red rust and mapped with delicate green lichens that fed on the damp, equatorial air. There were no cars here, only the skeletal chassis of abandoned sedans and stalled transport lorries, their windshields shattered and their interiors colonized by creeping vines.Wei Xian wiped a streak of greasy sweat from his brow, his fingers coming away dark with roadside grime. "The mapping overlay on the old terminal said the reclamation plant is another four kilometers past the viaduct. If the overpass is still clear."Gabriel paused, adjusting the heavy canvas strap of his pack across his broad shoulder. He looked up at the massive concrete ribbons of the highway interchange looming overhead, where two separate flyovers cro

Wei Xian stared at the towering chain-link fence of the Changi facility, his breath hitching in his chest as a harsh, metallic screech cut through the humid morning air.Thirty meters ahead, a heavy automated security turret mounted on a concrete gantry jerked violently to the left, its twin barrels tracking a flock of startled mynas before unleashing a rapid, deafening stutter of blank warning rounds. Spent plastic casings rained down against the asphalt, bouncing into the tall weeds with a series of sharp pings."It’s stuck in an active sweep loop," Wei Xian muttered, ducking instinctively even though the rounds were harmless plastic. He reached into his canvas tool pouch, his fingers brushing against the cold steel of his pliers, only to pause as a familiar, phantom twitch rippled through his forearm—the ghost of his old neural interface looking for a data port that no longer existed. "The power supply is pulsing, which means the backup generator is cycling, but the analog fuses ar

"Fix the generator first, mechanic," Vance called down from the catwalk, his wire-rimmed glasses catching the harsh glare of a swinging emergency light. "Then we'll talk about a few drops of water for your friends on the beach. Until then, step away from the primary console."Wei Xian didn't move. His jaw tightened, the muscle ticking violently beneath his skin as he stared up at the corporate manager who had turned a public utility into a personal feudal estate. "The generator isn't broken, Vance. You've choked the fuel line with low-grade diesel because you're hoarding the refined stock in your private quarters.""Careful," Vance warned, leaning his weight against the industrial nail gun. "You're in my building. The old rules apply here. Produce value, or get out.""Wei," Gabriel’s low, gravelly voice cut through the cavernous silence of the intake hall from somewhere near the darkened administrative annex behind the main pumps. "Let him talk. I'm going to look around."Wei Xian sho