The walk home from District 5 on this particular night, a week after the madness of the kitchen, carried a weight that was fundamentally different from the previous one. The air felt heavier, charged with a different kind of electricity—not the frantic, post-coital hum of a successful conquest, but the dense, pressurized tension of a man in the middle of a calculation.
Mike walked with a predatory, measured stride, his mind a churning engine of strategy and intent. He walked differently when he was working through a problem, and right now, the problem was the sheer, intoxicating complexity of the game he was playing.
He had crossed the sprawling, neon-drenched expanse of District 5 to reach the transit junction, catching the late-night service. The train car was a hollow, metallic shell, nearly empty, vibrating with the rhythmic clack-clack of the tracks as it ascended the elevated line.
