Chapter 67

Xavier stood in front of a rundown townhouse that shot up five floors into the smog-choked sky. The building sat crushed between identical structures like sardines in a rusty can. Some architect from the last century must have copy-pasted the whole block in a silicon fever dream. Two pseudo-classical columns flanked the main entrance as the door itself was a metal patchwork quilt from too many reinforcement jobs.

Dead sensor panels dotted the walls with their black LED eyes staring blindly at nothing. At the top sides, the security cameras looked fake as hell - probably dummies scored from the local scrapyard to scare off the neighborhood kids. Exposed power conduits snaked up the walls while data cables hung loose between floors like electronic vines.

"This must be the place," he muttered, squinting at the crumpled notepad Robert had scrawled the address on. "Sheesh. This doesn't look like a place of a crimelord."