He sits in the back seat with his legs folded, ankle over knee, leather protesting quietly. The partition descends at a thought. Outside, Downtown performs its evening audit—all accounts receivable, all debts coming due.
He examines the coaster. The paper is too organic to be paper—thick, fibrous, the kind of pulp manufactured from hymnals and secrets. Face up: glossy black, a boutique cantina logo pretending to be older than the city. He turns it.
The back appears blank until his skin warms it. Thermo-reactive ink blooms like confession—brown as old coffee, raised just enough to read tactilely. Not letters first. A rosary—tiny beads stamped along a curved path. At each decade, a word develops teeth:
NO CAMS. NO PINS. NO PRAYERS.
He breathes on it slowly. Condensation coaxes more from hiding: a line drawing of Downtown rendered like a child's map—no scale, only power. Four towers sketched as candles. Corpo Plaza as a rectangle that wants to be a coffin. Along the edge, a skeletal saint with a halo bent into a crown.
He angles the coaster until cabin light finds the correct geometry. Microprint text rises like a whisper clearing its throat:
when the city yawns, follow the halo's shadow.
Beneath it, numbers stitched into the rosary chain: 21:40. A cross stamped where a maintenance stair should exist—VESTIBULE C—and a single knock etched beside it, so small it might be a printing error.
He drags his thumbnail along the border. The fiber splits cleanly. Inside the paper, the printer concealed a second skin: lacquer-thin, stamped with a sugar skull you feel more than see. He warms it. The skull responds. He overlays it with the Afterlife's stamp from his pocket, and the skull's teeth align with the rosary beads. The gaps spell a street name you don't say during daylight hours.
The driver's eyes touch the mirror, then retreat. Professionals recognize privacy even when they can't afford it.
"Change of plans, sir?" he asks, the way land mines ask about your day.
"No," Kaito says, meaning yes. "Continue to Downtown. Maintain circulation."
"Yes, sir."
He presses the lacquer to the coaster until they pretend to be unified. The message resolves like a face in a crowd:
OJO DE DIOS — SERVICE — C.ASK FOR: LA SILLA DEL SANTO.BRING: NOTHING YOU'D MISS.DRESS: LIKE YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED.
Mirko's chip buzzes as if it can smell competition. He remembers its message: tonight / no cameras / dress like you're not allowed. The city is a chorus when it wants you somewhere.
He thinks of Hanako's paper: Silence outperforms loyalty over distance. He thinks of his father adjusting a collar by half a lie. The slate woman's advice: let them laugh, then count who repeats it.
He studies the coaster's final line until the ink nearly peels:
IF YOU CAN'T FIND THE DOOR, YOU'RE THE EVENT.
He looks up. The car's window is performing its etiquette tint, converting the city into acceptable behavior. He disables it. Night City returns unedited: Corpo Plaza canyon, the statue with arms like a sermon, pavement that reflects capital better than it reflects rain.
He touches the coaster once more. There's a dot beside the skull's right eye—a misprint pretending not to be coordinates. He shifts the coaster one degree. The dot becomes a stair number. He doesn't smile.
"Two blocks from Ojo de Dios," he says.
"That's Valentino territory," the driver says, careful with pronunciation.
"It's a bar. Bars are churches with worse acoustics."
The driver doesn't respond. His hands remain steady on the wheel—the steadiness of someone who used to negotiate with fate and now chauffeurs it.
Kaito folds the coaster along a faint crease the printer left, then along another crease the printer hoped no one would find. Between the layers, a third message hides in negative space—the kind of clever that wants applause:
ONE KNOCK IS A CLIENT. TWO KNOCKS IS A COP. THREE KNOCKS IS FAMILY.
He closes it. Returns it to coaster status. He places it in his wallet next to nothing else. The lacquer skull goes into the coin compartment where people keep luck until it exhausts itself.
He settles back, legs still folded, and watches the city rehearse. A braindance wreath a block over shows a couple in rented sin, someone's product placement buried in their laughter. A Tyger Claw girl on a motorcycle lights a cigarette with the neon in her fingernails. Two corporate employees argue outside a plaza café, their voices perfectly modulated for microphones they pretend aren't there.
David is a mural again when they stop at a light. Yellow jacket, jaw set, someone's painted candle guttering in the wind. Kaito looks away first. You don't hold the eyes of saints in this city if you plan to keep both.
"Sir," the driver says, easing toward the curb. "Two blocks."
"Take the longer route. Make the cameras bored."
"Yes, sir."
He loosens his tie fractionally. He removes the sakura pin and places it in the armrest's concealed tray. Dress like you're not allowed. He looks like a student who violated dress code with intention. Acceptable.
On the street: the air tastes like warm coins. Music spills from somewhere subterranean, cheapening by the time it reaches his ears. The sign for Ojo de Dios blinks with devotional laziness—an eye inside a triangle inside a promise.
He exits. The door seals behind him like a secret returning to its hole.
He doesn't check his reflection in the window. He knows which face he's wearing.
The coaster's weight in his pocket is exactly six grams of decision. He moves toward the halo's shadow.