They left before the sun cleared the smoke. The barge drifted like a forgotten promise; their footprints were gone by noon. They split into the city the way birds split a storm—small, purposeful fragments that could not be seen as a single thing until they struck.
Cain moved through alleys like a memory. He kept his face bare to the wind, because anonymity was sometimes an honest thing—a cost they accepted. Susan limped but moved with intention; every step measured, every breath economy. Roselle threaded through crowds with the ease of someone practiced in being seen and unseen at once. Hunter kept to the shadows of brokers' doors and server rooms; Steve rode a channel through the city's ghost-net, fingers faster than most men's conscience.
