Raindrops fell through cracks in neon signs, smashing bioluminescent circles into puddles. Ayla kicked aside rusted rebar, her canvas soles sticking to something viscous—the stench of cheap gypsum mingling with circuit board solder.
"Sure it's not some hobo's prank?" Max crouched by the derelict convenience store entrance, his cane lifting a rain-sodden anonymous letter. "'Your thorns pierced the slums' moon'—either a deranged fan or Neumann's new emo copywriter."
Her fingertips traced the display window's fractures. The Wolf in the Thorns replica inside was ten times cruder than her original, glowing wires spilling from cracked gypsum paws like someone had stuffed starlight into fissures. When her UV flashlight scanned the circuitry, Morse code blinked—Lucas' signature initials: L.N.
"This isn't amateur work." She fixed the light on amber resin eyes housing micro-cameras. "Third-gen memory gypsum, phased out three years ago for neurotoxin leakage when heated."
Metal screeched from the alley's end. Max's cane deployed a laser sight, red dot piercing rain to fix on a wheelchair's silhouette—a teenage boy's maimed left arm fused with a prosthetic wielding sculpting tools. The buffer springs at its joints gleamed with coolant leaking cedar-scented droplets 7.
"Seven-DOF arm controlled by myoelectric signals." Ayla squinted at the boy's prosthetic pressing thermal film against gypsum claws. "But drive mechanisms are medical waste scraps—not even non-slip silicone 7 8."
The corrugated shack's rotting door revealed a girl's cough. The boy knocked over a workbench in panic, sending micro wolf sculptures rolling—each embedded with colored pills. The bedridden girl reached for one under the bed, her sleeve slipping to reveal gene therapy bruises.
"Lia said your wolves glow." The boy hid his trembling prosthetic, tension cables creaking. "When the pain keeps her awake... the lights form constellations."
Ayla picked up a shattered sculpture. The gypsum core exposed Neumann's biochip. When her cerulean-tinged blood touched it, holograms erupted in the rain—Lucas implanting identical chips into a boy's neck at observatory ruins.
"Where'd you scavenge these parts?" Max's cane lifted a crate of implants with tissue residue. The boy adjusted his prosthetic's thermistor, accidentally triggering a ceiling projector. Selene's face materialized: "Sector 47 specimens 97% reclaimed. Memory wipe at dawn."
The storm peaked at 2:19 AM. Tucking the last painkiller under Lia's pillow, Ayla found a metal shard engraved with sculpture coordinates forming arrows toward Neumann's underground network. Outside, the wheelchair lay overturned in mud, the boy's shattered prosthetic still clutching half a gypsum rose—its circuit core blinking with countdown red.