The maintenance hub did not look important enough to change anything.
That was the point.
Aiden and Kael watched it from the shadow of a half‑collapsed loading bay, breath steaming in the cold night air. The building sat on the edge of the city grid, low and wide, with a single unremarkable Orion logo over the main door and a pair of bored guards out front.
No arches.
No gleaming towers.
Just concrete, cables, and the dull hum of servers under the skin.
"Are you sure this is it," Kael asked.
He kept his hood up, but the wanted posters on nearby walls did not need a clear view to recognize his silhouette. Aiden had timed their approach for the gap between patrol rotations, but it still felt like walking a match through a fuel depot.
"Lin called it a 'secondary data junction for Framework routing,'" Aiden said. "Which is analyst for 'if you kick this hard enough, a lot of other things fall over'."
Kael's mouth curved.
"Now you are speaking my language," he said.
