April 21, 2026. They found him three stories down on the corrugated awning of a noodle stall, the uplink still blinking in his temple, still trying to transmit. His fingers were fused to the phone-sized rig in his jacket pocket—the one he'd never let go of, not once in twenty years, not even when it was pinging him with debt notices and hostile trace-backs. The morning rain had already begun to pool around him, and the stall owner stood nearby with a tarp, waiting for the cleanup crew.