Valerius stood over a kneeling figure in the center of a bay. The man was a dock supervisor—one of the few who hadn't been vaporized in the initial breach or fled into the fog. He was breathing in shallow, ragged gasps, his hands zip-tied behind a rusted pipe.
As Lucian and Adrian approached, Valerius didn't look up. He was staring at the man's left hand. Specifically, the heavy gold band on his ring finger.
"Lucian," Valerius said. "Look at the hardware."
Lucian stepped into the low light. He didn't need to get close to recognize the crest. It was a Black House clearance ring—an authentic, mid-tier logistics key. It wasn't a replica, and it hadn't been filed down. The biometric sensors in the gold were still active, tied to a legitimate identity within the South District's infrastructure.
