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It's 2:16 according to your Nixon watch when you pull out of Covenant Pawn Shop in your new Nissan Frontier, and sunrise is 6:29 a.m. It's still early, so you drive around for an hour just to find the cheapest gas stations and the fastest ways out of town. Then you accelerate smoothly onto East Broadway Boulevard near a plasma center and head for the garage address you got earlier. Yarrk sticks his head out the Nissan Frontier's passenger-side window.

When a shadow crosses the hood of your Nissan, you look up and catch a glimpse of a wing eclipsing a streetlight. Was that Prince Lettow's eagle?

You find your spot in the underground parking garage. Right in front of it is a metal door with a keypad. You grab everything from your Nissan, lock it once Yarrk is out, and enter the code. Inside is an office with peeling linoleum floors, an ancient metal desk with a rusty minifridge on it, and a sleeping bag. A short tile corridor ends in a jury-rigged shower and a drain. There's a clear plastic bag and some toiletries on the tile, and a bottle of 409 that won't do anything against the smell of mildew.

There's no Wi-Fi.

Still, it's better than sleeping in an abandoned semitrailer, and your phone actually gets good reception. Even better, there are escape routes into the sewers that you can use. You loosen the grates and make sure you have a clear route into the sewers in case you're exposed.

You're just getting settled in when you hear your door lock beep. The metal door opens, and there's Julian Sim.

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