Sandy's car smoothly rolled down the quiet industrial street. The neighborhood looked abandoned to anyone who didn't know better - he liked it that way.

Aura had her face pressed against the windshield like an excited tourist glued to an aquarium.

"Wow," she whispered. "Your friend lives in a fucking villain lair."

Void kept her eyes forward. "It's a workshop."

"Same thing," Aura replied instantly inside her head...

The ripperdoc returned without fanfare. He carried a fresh tablet under one arm and a slim metal case in the other, the polished latches catching the fluorescent light as he set it carefully on the rolling tray beside Void's bed. The monitors responded the moment he stepped close, their displays shifting from passive vitals into deeper diagnostic screens that bloomed across the panels in webs of neurological telemetry while Reyes studied them calmly...

Reyes finished adjusting one of the monitors, the pale glow of the screen reflecting faintly off the brass rings of his telescopic glasses. The machines hummed with quiet satisfaction, like a workshop after a successful repair. He glanced over Void's vitals one last time and gave a small, approving nod. "Vitals stable..." he said calmly while peeling off his gloves, the latex snapping softly. "Motor response intact." His eyes moved between Void and Sandy before he added politely, "I shall leave you for a moment. Please avoid provoking a stress response from the patient."

Sandy gave him a lazy two-finger salute from the chair beside the bed and muttered something about no promises, which earned the faintest hint of a smile from the doctor before he stepped out and closed the door behind him...

Reyes rolled a wheeled tray closer, its surface crowded with sterile instruments, injector rigs, and a compact diagnostic slate that projected faint blue light onto the ceiling.

"Before we begin," he said, "we perform what the corporations like to call a 'pre-installation wellness dialogue'."

Void squinted. "You mean... A medical interview?"

"I mean I ask you uncomfortable questions and you answer them honestly."...

Morning in their place came with the sound of tools instead of birds.

Void woke to the metallic rhythm of a grinder singing somewhere beyond the thin wall of the spare room. Not an angry sound. Rather, a happy one. Sandy-happy. One that meant he'd found an excuse to take something apart and call it "organizing."

She rolled out of bed, pulled on her hoodie, and followed the noise into what Sandy generously called his "smithy."...