She tucked her hands into her pockets. The rain began to ease. Somewhere above, a drone rewrote the clouds to spell an energy drink ad. But Lina walked toward the old stadium, toward the Echo Dome, toward whoever had enough money and madness to offer an angel her own wings back.

Five seconds.

The rain over the Vidigal favela fell in diagonal sheets, washing neon pink runoff from the billboards into the gutters. Lina sat by her window, the cybernetic ports along her spine covered by an old sweatshirt. She hadn’t felt the angel’s call in three years.

Then her left temple implant flickered.

Downstairs, three men in gray tactical ponchos waited outside her building. Their visors flickered with her last known biometrics. But Lina was no longer that angel. She’d learned to walk softly, to dampen her heat signature, to move like rainwater.