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He was three pods below her position when mechanical sound cut through the ritual audio—the distinctive whisper of articulated limbs moving tightly against steel frames. Too close to be ambient.

Marcus squeezed against the underside of the support frame, tucking his body inside as he killed all his interface overlays.

The drone glided overhead like a shark, its sensors sweeping the vertical tracks. Appendages folded tight against its aerodynamic shell, threading the scaffolding with barely a mm to spare.

Marcus held his breath until his lungs burned, watching the predator's shadow pass through the soft haze of manufactured holiness until it vanished into the darkness above.

He exhaled—too soon.

Behind his neck, the rail pulsed once with a diagnostic light. Brief. Barely visible. A scanner he'd failed to notice painting him with invisible data streams.

The tag registered in operations beyond his sight; his biometric signature logged and filed for research. Marked as an anomaly requiring investigation.

Logged: Tagged for review.