Por Qué added Welga’s tip jar and fan streams to her visual periphery as usual. Her coin balance ticked upward faster than the commentary from viewers. They’d figured out her government affiliation, so she had nothing to hide, but their speculations distracted her. She removed the unwanted text and, after a moment of hesitation, closed her tip jar display, too. Capturing a Machinehood operative wasn’t a performative mission.

Jane Santiago maintained her external cool. She smiled and waved for the microcams, then shook the hand of the site manager, who ushered them into the building. The manager must have turned off the threshold zapper, because a good portion of the exterior swarm followed them inside.

A single, high-security door led from the sparsely furnished lobby into the factory. Heat rippled out as they passed single file through it into a cavernous space filled with tanks, pipes, and other equipment. Massive fans sucked air from the ceiling. This time, no microcams followed, so Welga released a small swarm of her own. If the Machinehood dared to show up, they would need all the advance warning possible, and the factory’s security cameras had fixed locations.

Recycled plastic tiles squeaked under their feet. Odors reminiscent of bleach, alcohol, and burned rubber filled the air. They took slow, painstaking steps to avoid outpacing their guide across the factory floor. Machinery hummed. Bots avoided their group as they moved about their tasks. Only one other human was present, in a glass-enclosed crow’s nest overlooking the entire space.

Welga scanned the perimeter of her visual. Camera feeds, exterior and interior, showed nothing unusual.

They finished the tour and moved toward the exit. The manager’s shoulders relaxed, and his expression eased into a smile. The mood within their shield team curdled.

“Fucking cowards,” Mendoza muttered on the team’s encrypted channel.

“They’re not stupid,” Ammanuel replied.

Red blinked in Welga’s visual. Por Qué had flagged something from one of her microcamera feeds. Welga expanded it, careful not to send the drone closer lest it attract the suspect’s attention. A figure wearing basics crouched beside a panel and adjusted a rectangular object attached to it—an object that had a plastic case and in no way matched the dark metal structures around it.

Welga cast the feed to Mendoza and Hassan. “Looks like someone’s playing at Machinehood and planting a bomb. Boss, permission to go back and, uh, have a little chat with them?”

“I’m calling in backup from Explosives,” Hassan said. “Troit, you and Ramírez investigate. The rest of you stay with Santiago and cover the front.”