"Seventh Freedom is gone," Fitgirl whispered. "So are the RePackers."

On the helipad, with rain (real now—the simulation had collapsed) soaking his suit, Fisher jumped.

Fisher smiled. Grim. The old kind.

"Three heat blooms," whispered the mission handler, a rogue AI fragment living in a compressed archive. "Southeast vent. Displace or bypass?"

"How baseline?"