**02:17. Laundry Two.**
The safe room smelled like solder and sweat, the air thick with the faint ozone tang of overworked electronics.
Aiden watched three small icons move on the lagged map: Kael, Tal, Suri.
First crates outbound, data drives wrapped in clean laundry bags, Rin's recorder backups tucked into false bottoms, three copies of Rell's handwritten list folded into cigarette packs.
Site B waited six veins east: a basement under a half-dead market, signal deadzone, owned by a baker who hated Arcus more than he loved sleep.
His daughter had scouted it two nights ago, reporting back in whispers: "Rats, but no cameras. Smells like flour and rust."
"Progress?" Aiden asked, voice low.
"Slow," Kael's voice crackled through the jury-rigged comms. "Alley's tight. D-14 is curious."
On Aiden's screen, the drone hung over their vein like judgment, its patrol arc tightened since the survey.
He flexed his fingers over the portable drive, no deep link, Mara's rule after Vein Ten.
