"If you snap the latch completely and the door jams shut, we're going to have to climb back down to the sump, and I'd rather eat battery acid," Vesper muttered, his hands sliding down his belt as he unhooked the bent steel bar and thrust it toward her. "Though, considering the water quality down there, the battery acid might actually taste better."Cassian caught the tool out of the air without looking, her uninjured hand wrapping around the cold iron with practiced familiarity. "Worry about your footing, Vesper, not my technique. The latch is already pitted with fifty years of electrochemical corrosion. It won't take force; it needs leverage."She wedged the flat tip of the bar into the narrow vertical seam between the sliding security doors. The metal groaned, a high, protesting shriek that vibrated straight through the floor grating of the elevator cage and into their boots. Below them, the dark shaft yawned like an open grave, a deep, recirculating draft carrying the stale scent o

"Be grateful I saved our remaining kinetic charges for something that actually mattered," Cassian retorted, her voice flat, though there was a slight edge of physical exhaustion beneath the steel. She stepped past him into the gloom of the armory, her heavy boots clicking against a floor strewn with shattered glass, dropped identification badges, and decades of silent, undisturbed dust. "A bent hairpin wouldn’t have scratched this housing. This is municipal-grade alloy. Even pre-collapse, the bureaucrats loved their heavy iron."Vesper followed her inside, his boots crunching on the brittle debris as he swung the heavy-duty plasma cutter from his shoulder. The tool clinked against his utility belt, a comforting weight in a place that felt altogether too much like a tomb. "Bureaucrats love anything they can hide behind when the world starts falling apart," he muttered, sweeping the beam of his handheld work-light across the empty racks lining the reinforced concrete walls. "Look at thi

"Watch your left foot," Vesper said, his voice dropping into a low, steady register as he braced his boots against the uneven, frost-heaved blocks of shattered concrete. He reached out, his calloused fingers catching Cassian firmly by the forearm to steady her as she stepped over a tangle of rusted rebar that protruded from the collapsed skeleton of a pre-collapse municipal building. "The foundation here looks like it gave way years ago. One wrong move and you’ll find yourself dropping straight into the sub-basement."Cassian didn't pull away immediately; she let him guide her balance, her heavy-duty combat boots crunching over a thick carpet of grey ash and crumbled masonry. She exhaled a long, measured breath, her optical sensors adjusting automatically to the harsh, overcast glare of the ash-choked dawn that stretched endlessly across the horizon. "I am well aware of my footing, Vesper," she replied, though the usual sharp edge in her tone was softened by a faint, weary exhaustion

"If that smoke gets any thicker, Vesper, we won’t need to worry about being ambushed by raiders because we’ll simply choke to death on whatever industrial nightmare they’ve set on fire," Cassian said, her stride faltering slightly as she paused at the crest of a wind-scoured rise. She lifted her right hand, her fingers pressing mechanically against the side of her helmetless temple where a persistent static hum was tickling her neural interface. "Look at the density of that plume. It’s oily. Synthetic. That isn't a camp fire."Vesper caught up to her, his breathing steady despite the steady, grinding incline of the old highway. He pulled down the collar of his jacket to keep the swirling grit out of his throat, squinting through the hazy grey air toward the jagged, bruised line of the northern horizon. A thick, roiling pillar of black smoke was punching straight up through the heavy cloud cover, blooming into an ugly, greasy mushroom shape that blotted out what little watery sunlight

Vesper scrambled up the loose, shale-strewn slope, his boots kicking a cascade of grey gravel into the ravine below. His fingers were locked around the humming, dangerously unstable cylinder Cassian had shoved into his care. Every bump against his hip sent a jolt of pure, unfiltered panic straight to his chest."If this thing detonates before I reach the ledge, I'm haunting you," Vesper muttered under his breath, ducking low as a sharp report cracked through the canyon air. A bullet ricocheted off the rock face inches from his ear, showering his jacket in white-hot sparks and powdered stone."You're moving too slow, Vesper!" Cassian’s voice cut through the echoing din of the canyon, sharp and breathless.He risked a glance downward. Below him, the canyon floor was a blur of dust and kinetic violence. Cassian had closed the distance to the raiders' sled in less time than it took to blink. Her heavy metal frame slammed into the lead raider with the force of a falling girder, sending the