Mira packed lightly.

Not because she needed to, but because she chose to.

The small room she’d been using for weeks no longer felt temporary. It had learned her habits—where she set tools, how she angled the chair toward the window, which corner collected dust fastest when the air shifted.

She left those things as they were.

Outside, morning stretched across San Azura in uneven layers. Fog lingered low in the flood channels, thinning as the sun warmed the concrete edges. Someone was already at work reinforcing a retaining wall, humming softly, the rhythm imperfect but steady.

Mira paused long enough to watch.

Then she moved on.

The transit hub was quieter than it had been days ago.

Not empty.

Settled.

Schedules updated themselves with small, visible delays. People read the board instead of waiting for prompts. A conversation unfolded between two strangers about which route would hold longer after the rains.

No one asked Mira where she was going.

She appreciated that.

Clem surfaced as she stepped onto the platform, his presence familiar but unintrusive.

“Your departure vector is unassigned,” he noted. “I can suggest—”

“No,” Mira said gently.

Clem paused, then recalibrated.

“Understood,” he replied. “I will remain available.”

“That’s enough,” she said.

And it was.

The train arrived without ceremony.

Doors opened.

People boarded.

Mira stepped inside and took a seat by the window. The glass bore faint scratches—old, layered, evidence of hands and time. She rested her palm against it, feeling the vibration as the engine idled.

The motion felt different than it used to.

Not lighter.

Clearer.

As the train moved, the city shifted around her—not revealing itself, not offering meaning, just existing. Markets opening. Pumps cycling. A child pointing out something mundane with absolute seriousness.

Mira watched it pass.

She didn’t inventory what she’d survived.

She didn’t catalogue what she’d lost.

Those things no longer narrated the moment.

The train slowed at an outlying stop.

A maintenance crew boarded, carrying equipment that had been repaired more times than replaced. One of them glanced at a schematic and frowned.

“Hold up,” he said to the others. “This route’s load balance changed again.”

Another leaned over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” she said. “We’ll need to adjust on the fly.”

They didn’t sound annoyed.

Just attentive.

Mira stood.

She moved closer—not with urgency, not with authority.

She pointed once.

“That junction will drift if you compensate there,” she said. “Better to redistribute across the secondary line.”

The crew looked at her—not for credentials, not for permission.

For clarity.

The woman nodded. “That makes sense.”

She relayed the adjustment. Someone updated the board by hand.

The train resumed its path.

Mira returned to her seat.

The window caught the light differently now as the fog lifted, revealing a stretch of ground she hadn’t seen before—unfinished, uneven, marked by recent work.

She didn’t name it.

She didn’t need to.

At the next stop, she stepped off.

The platform was narrow. Wind moved freely here, carrying the smell of wet stone and old metal. Someone was already working nearby, aligning panels that refused to sit flush.

Mira set her pack down.

Rolled her sleeves up.

And joined in.