The optical sensors in the Alpha Silo residential suite had been bypassed, leaving the room bathed in a dim, amber emergency glow. It felt less like a billion-credit corporate penthouse and more like the interior of a hunted submarine.
At the small metal table, Don sat under a single harsh lumen-light. He wiped a smear of black grease from the firing pin of a sleek, heavy repeating crossbow—a weapon ripped straight off a dead Corpo soldier during the Lilith train raid.
"Corpo DRM," Don muttered, his voice a low rasp in the quiet room. "They engineer the trigger housing to lock up if you use non-authorized bolts. Have to strip the biometric scanner entirely."
In the shadows near the kitchenette, Allison slouched in a synthetic mesh chair. She didn't look up from her cup of manufactured coffee. "Can you bypass it?"
"It's just math and wires," Don said, picking up a set of scavenged micro-pliers. "I'll make it shoot."
