Outside Artemis Tower, the city street possessed the quiet, high-end austerity that millions of dollars in corporate landscaping could buy. Concrete planters held perfectly manicured, dark-leafed shrubs that didn't rustle in the light breeze. The air smelled vaguely of ozone, polished granite, and the faint, expensive scent of custom air filtration units venting from the subterranean levels.
Galathea Brooks moved through this environment with deliberate, rhythmic steps.
For the first time in three days, her skin was settled, quiet… Normal.
She paused at a crosswalk, the ambient hum of distant hybrid engines and the synchronized chirp-chirp of the pedestrian crossing signal filling the quiet.
Her phone vibrated in her palm. It wasn't the heavy, localized distortion of a system anomaly, but the sharp, clean buzz of a standard encrypted cellular network.
A message from Cael Alexander.
