Huda Mansour pressed a knotty limb against the coolant-tank’s warped hatch, coaxing its locks to pop with a spurt of nervous sap. Inside, the stifling air reeked of solder, wet leaves, and ozone. At her feet, a battered security-chimera blinked up, metal spine twitching from where Huda had patched its leaking mycelium. She jerked the hatch wider.
"Stay low,"
she whispered. A pulse of red light flickered through the seams in the floor, warning that Ardent-Scythe’s patrol was sweeping the service duct outside. Huda scanned the tank’s shadowy innards, her gear hung ready, including the scavenged splice-key and a cracked injector. The ventilation grid’s living tendrils quivered overhead. Footsteps echoed in the duct, growing louder. She gripped the splice-key, heartwood thumping, and crouched beside the chimera, listening as a voice, sharp and synthetic, barked orders just beyond the hatch.