I keep looking at the sign for a few more seconds.
HALCYON CIVIC DEVELOPMENT
The name bothers me in a specific way. Not because I recognize the company right away, but because I'm certain I've seen it somewhere before. I run my eyes over the panel again and find, near the bottom, a smaller line that almost disappears between legal notices and registration numbers.
A STARDEEP COMPANY
My attention locks there.
Stardeep.
Now I remember.
In my first life I never had any reason to track every company orbiting that name. Most of them looked like exactly what they claimed to be: haulers, developers, logistics firms, holdings, investment funds, and service providers spread across the districts. Some small enough never to appear in the news.
The parent company was another story.
Stardeep Company was one of the terrestrial structures controlled by Valerius.
The kind of empire that never uses the same name on two consecutive doors.
I look at the condemned building behind the fence.
