Ilan Vey woke to the sound of rain ticking through the vent mesh above his bunk and the smell of fryer oil drifting up from the service market two levels below. In the stacked districts, mornings arrived by scent before they arrived by light. He sat up, rubbed sleep from his eyes, and reached for the leather kit hanging off the bunk frame: splicer clamps, insulated gloves, a coil cutter with one crooked tooth, a diagnostic wand he had repaired so many times it had started to feel like an argument he was winning by habit. Outside his narrow maintenance cubby, the block was already alive. Water ran down the spine of the building in silver threads, residents in thin coats moved across catwalks with paper cups of bitter bean brew, and the public Skinline kiosks glowed in their alcoves like patient animals waiting for a hand. People queued there every morning to trade touch through the mesh. A mother pressed two fingers to one brass plate while her son did the same three floors away. An old man rested his palm on another and smiled as if someone had finally answered a joke told years ago. Ilan watched them from the stairwell and snorted. The city charged extra for everything warm, dry, and human, then acted offended when people found a cheaper route. His wrist slate chimed with a repair notice from Block Nine, lower residential. Panel three on the east relay spine was running hot again. Of course it was. The entire district had a talent for asking for calm only after it had burned through the afternoon. He tucked the slate away, shouldered his kit, and headed down through the damp metal throat of the tower, stepping around a delivery drone that had wedged itself in a corner and died with an air of deep personal disappointment.