Golden hour painted everything in shades of amber and rust. The city's glass towers caught the dying light and threw it back in fragments.
My ribs ached.
My shoulders burned.
The regenerator brace under my shirt had given up the ghost about an hour ago and now served primarily as an uncomfortable reminder that I'd pushed my body past its warranty.
I leaned back against the seat and surveyed my team.
Monica had curled herself into a ball in the third row, her fern clutched against her chest like a child holding a teddy bear. Her eyes were closed, but her breathing was too shallow for sleep. Every few seconds, her fingers would twitch against the pot, reaching for a network that no longer existed. She'd touched something vast in that dungeon. Something older than the machinery that had enslaved it. And now she was trying to figure out how to fit back inside her own skin.
