At 02:13, Orion lost his left shoulder over District Nine. Mara watched the star blink twice and go black, leaving the hunter lopsided above six million sleeping customers.
She clipped her tether to the maintenance rail and pushed out into the manufactured night. Below her, the city glowed without warmth. Above, the constellation rig hummed, each point of light owned, metered, and billed.
The failed star should have been a diode. Instead, when Mara opened the housing, something small and impossible burned inside it.
It pulsed against her glove like a second heartbeat.
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