The freezer truck's wipers gasped mechanically through the storm—three seconds left, four right—like a tampered heartbeat. Ayla stared at the fluorescent trails emerging on the windshield. Coordinates carved by Lucas' metal fingernails into the leather seat projected escape routes through rain streaks.
"Rain sensor's hacked." Lucas crouched in the passenger seat, rotting fingers twisting the radio dial. "Over 20mm/km² rainfall triggers Morse code mode..." Coolant-streaked coughs refracted slum coordinates through raindrops on the dashboard.
Ayla swerved from drone lasers, sculptural fragments clanging like bronze chimes in the freezer compartment. The wipers suddenly accelerated to two strokes per second, restructuring trajectories into childhood hideout coordinates—the waste plant Max mentioned with his last breath.
"Planned this heist at seven?" She yanked up the damp seat mat, revealing a faded sketchbook of wolves and girls in crayon.
Lucas' flickering prosthetic eye cast unstable light. He pressed a sketch page against the window—rain soaking yellowed paper to reveal encrypted neurochip maps, all converging under Selene's wedding venue.
"Wiper intervals..." He seized her steering wheel hand, cerulean veins resonating with truck circuits. "...match Odile's lab self-destruct countdown."
The freezer system raged, icy tendrils creeping up Ayla's spinal interface. She flipped to the sketchbook's final page—cedar-scented invisible ink emerged under UV light, ventilation maps overlapping wiper projections.
"Hard left!" Lucas' cardiac alarm shrieked as wipers blurred into afterimages. The fluorescent route warped suddenly, projecting Selene's live feed—her ring laser incinerating sketchbook coordinates.
Ayla yanked wipers to manual mode. As the truck decelerated violently, the AI announced: "Obstacle detected. Fifth resistance attempt..." Crashing through highway barriers, the frozen wipers finally stalled, their last trace pointing to the observatory ruins—Lucas' original coordinate in her clavicle chip.
Drones melted the cargo door in the rearview. Ayla gripped the gypsum lamp shard under the seat, its edge engraved: "Activate reverse protocol when wipers pause at three seconds."