The rain hadn’t stopped. It came down in steady sheets, tapping against the corrugated roof of the abandoned supply hangar like the slow ticking of a countdown.

Hale stood near the open bay door, cigarette unlit between his fingers, staring out at the skeletal cranes that framed the distant skyline. The city lights pulsed faintly through the fog — half the grid still down after the surge.

Behind him, Evelyn sat cross-legged on a metal crate, the cracked datapad balanced in her lap. Its ...