Sparrow crouched on the plank deck of his tree fort and watched the camera crew through a slit in the painted scrap metal. Three workers in gray coveralls were bolting a new rig above the station mouth he used every night. The rig had three lenses, glossy and green-shelled, set in a triangle so nothing could pass under it unseen. In two hours those lenses would be live. After that, his way down into the tunnels was finished. He ducked back inside the fort and set his field terminal on the crate he used as a table. The hard-shell case clicked open. The green screen woke up. He lifted the red receiver, dialed into the city camera grid, and pulled the crew's work order onto the display. Install window: ninety more minutes. Patrol drones: one pass, southbound, in twelve. He marked the timing on the screen with a grease pencil. Below the city, in the dark lines of forgotten subway, he had been hauling cots and water drums for months. He was building a place where people the cameras hunted could live without being seen. He was not losing that tonight. The plan was ugly but simple. He needed gear from the crew's own supply tote, the one they had left chained to a railing at the curb. Spare lenses. A handler tablet. Anything he could use to feed the new rig a loop later. Then he had to skip his usual entrance and drop into the tunnels through the service grate two blocks over, the one wrapped in yellow rail and graffiti that no transit map admitted existed. He waited until the drone pass cleared his terminal, then climbed down the rope ladder. The crew was on break behind the truck. He crossed low and fast to the tote. The lid was already propped open. Inside, coiled cable, three dome cameras, a black handler box. Curled around the handler box sat three beetles the size of his thumb, shells slick with rainbow oil, green vapor drifting off their backs. Bait. The crew kept them in the kit to discourage thieves. One sting would put him on the ground. He pulled his sleeve over his hand. He lifted the handler box by its corner, slow, and slid two spare lenses into his coat with the other hand. A beetle clicked and shifted. He froze, then eased the lid back down and walked, not ran, to the alley mouth. Two blocks over, he reached the grate. He pried up the corner he had loosened weeks ago, swung his legs through, and dropped onto the ladder below. The grate clanged shut above him. He had the gear. He had a way in the crew didn't know about. But he had also just stolen from a city contractor, and somewhere on a desk above ground, an inventory count was about to come up short.

Sparrow landed on the tunnel floor and listened. The grate above sat back in place. He still had the handler box under his arm and two stolen lenses in his coat, and he was tired in a way that scared him. He had slept four hours in two days. The refuge needed him to be sharper than this. Tonight he had to drop the handler somewhere safe, mark a new way in for any stranger who needed it, and get back to the fort before the work crew finished their inventory count. He walked the line until he reached the yellow-and-black hard case he had wedged behind a collapsed maintenance shelf weeks ago. The hazard stripes were scuffed almost gray. He popped the latches, laid the handler box inside on a folded rag, and set the lenses beside it. One cache, one trip. That was the rule he kept now that he ran every errand alone. He shut the lid and pushed the case back until the shelf hid it. A wet clicking sound came from the next bend. He killed his lamp. Around the curve, a shape moved on bent legs. A mushroom cap drooped over a skull, and pale threads dripped from its jaw. He called them fun guys when he told the story to himself later, because giving them a stupid name was the only way he could stand thinking about them. One had nearly grabbed him last week. Sparrow flattened against the wall, breathed through his sleeve, and let it shuffle past toward the deeper dark. He climbed out through a side hatch six blocks from his fort and crossed to the painted mailbox on the corner. Someone had layered tags over tags until the original color was gone. A square of cardboard hung from a wire on the side, covered in scrawl that meant nothing to anyone but him. He pinned a fresh slip to the cardboard. It read only: hungry, no cameras, follow the rail paint south, knock twice on the yellow grate. No names. No promises. Anyone desperate enough would understand. Anyone curious would walk past. He was tucking the pen away when a van door slammed across the street. Derek Hutchins stepped out in his navy coveralls, clipboard under one arm, radio on his hip. The man from the surveillance company. The one who would be running the inventory count tonight. Sparrow dropped behind the mailbox and held still. Derek squinted at the corner, frowned, and keyed his radio. Sparrow heard the word missing before a bus rolled between them. He used the bus and ran. He made it back to the fort with his hands shaking. He sat at the twin benches he had bolted together for two people, where only one chair was ever warm. The little television between the toolboxes was running an emergency broadcast on mute. Sparrow stared at the empty seat across from him. He could not keep doing this alone. Tomorrow, he decided, he would start watching for whoever answered the note.