Chapter 14 · Nine Hours Earlier

"She's alive."

Cade didn't turn. The voice behind him was calm, corporate, the kind that gave orders in climate-controlled offices while people bled three blocks away.

"I know," Cade said.

"Then finish it."

He was standing in a glass-walled conference room nine hours before the first reset, back when the city still moved in one direction and Mara Quinn was just a name on a file. The team was behind him. Four retrieval specialists, all armed, all waiting to see if he'd do what he was paid for.

Voss, his former handler, stood by the door. Tall, gray suit, hands in his pockets like he was deciding which restaurant to expense.

"The courier's dead," Voss said. "The phone's in play. Quinn lifted it forty minutes ago. You have her location."

"I do."

"So what's the problem?"

Cade looked at the screen in front of him. Mara's face, pulled from a drone shop security feed. She was leaning over a workbench, goggles pushed up, mouth moving like she was talking to herself. The timestamp said 14:22. She had no idea what she'd just picked up.

"No problem," Cade said.

Voss stepped closer. "You've been on her for six hours.