The meeting point was a laundromat.
From the street it looked like any other: humming machines, flickering neon, the faint chemical smell of cheap detergent. Only if you knew where to look did you see the second layer.
The camera in the back left corner that always showed a loop from last week.
The machine number six that refused to start unless you kicked it twice in the lower panel.
The narrow door beside the staff closet that was never quite locked.
Kael pushed through that door and into the back room.
Heat hit him first.
Too many bodies in a space meant for racks of cleaning product.
Network faces, some familiar, most not, turned toward him.
He felt the small tightening in the air.
Not hostility.
Expectation.
Taro sat on an upturned crate with a portable projector balanced on his knees. Aiden leaned against a support column, ribs strapped under a plain shirt, expression carefully neutral.
