Alex leaned into the lamp light like a diver into shallow water, arms braced on the nut-scored edge of the bench. The work-surface was a map of other people's small emergencies: a hairline fracture in a sensor disc here, a frayed silk filament there, a spilled cup of instant broth that had congealed into a pale, sticky halo near a spool of microfilament. He plucked a shard of polymer from a circuit seam with a curved pick, massaged the solder like a stubborn cut, then clipped the excess with a pair of jawed snips. The shop smelled faintly of oil and grilled sea mushroom — the stall across the alley sent lunchtime steam that wound under the doorway every day at noon — and the rain outside stitched a slow rhythm against the metal awnings.
A diagnostic tone hummed from the implant cradle: a thin, insectile chirr. Alex adjusted a tiny trimmer cap until the chirr broadened into a calmer baritone. Hands moved without conscious thought, fingers patting and coaxing electronics the way some people might stroke a sleeping dog. The work required a kind of thinking that lived in muscles and breath: measuring, waiting, nudging. He liked that. He could hear the board, really hear it, as if it answered back in clicks and soft electrical sighs.
“Oi. Still taking bets on which part of you is magicked so, or has the city just worn you into a relic?” Lian's voice arrived in a spray of cigarette smoke and hyperactive caffeine. She leaned through the open hatch with the sort of grin that suggested she’d stolen something but also bought it legally. In her hands she cupped something wrapped in greasy newsprint: a module no bigger than a thumb, taped with fluorescent stickers and a scribbled price.
“You brought crackers or contributed to my impending moral crisis?” Alex said, not looking up.
“Both.” Lian set the package on the bench like a challenger. “Got it from a guy who said it makes people listen better. Or at least, louder. He swore the thing never cried unless instructed. Promised it’s safe—mostly.” She made air quotes that rattled from the overhead fans.
Alex pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a sound that might have been a laugh if it hadn't been tired. The modules that promised neat fixes for intimacy tended to be either charming or catastrophic. “What’s the price on honesty?” he asked.
“Free with purchase of an attitude adjustment,” Lian said, and produced a paper cup with too-sweet coffee. “You always did like your irony with sugar.”
The door bell — an old chime rigged to a thrifted electromagnetic — trilled. Alex wiped his hands, checking the filigreed micro-wires one more time, then unlatched the door. Rain dragged a smear across the glass.
Noa stood in the doorway like weather: damp hair plastered, jacket smeared with the gray oil used for the municipal bikes, a little kid tucked under one arm and a band on the other wrist with a company logo that Alex recognized because he'd fixed their wristband hub last month. Noa's face uncoiled for a moment into that old easy smile that used to make Alex lose his breath in the middle of late shifts. It was the same mouth, though the corners had learned caution.
“Alex,” Noa said. “I need help.”
He glanced at the child, a round-faced thing asleep against Noa's chest, and then at the second adult tall and hunched against the stairwell behind Noa — Iris, expression flat, clutching a grocery bag as if it were a talisman. There was a guardedness to Iris's stance that read like a shield. The three of them looked oddly domestic in the doorway, two parents and a child, with the wet city blurred into the glass behind them.
“You know our rates,” Alex said, already picturing disassembling whatever was wrong. He stepped back and swept them inside with a host's motion he'd perfected years ago. The bell clicked shut with a polite but final sound.