Elodie wakes up on the train to a careful but persistent [i]tap-tap-tap.[/i] She'd gotten on the train exhausted from the all-nighter, gotten to the handicapped seating, and promptly fell asleep to the sound of a burbling creek from her headphones. Blinking away the weariness, she looks over to see a old man in a tattered coat and badly fitting slacks sitting two seats over, gently tapping at the seat between her, beaming as he notices she's awake.

"You made the news." He's holding a tablet, waves it in her direction as she glares at him for breaking the cardinal rule of public transit: thou shall not interact with others. It seems to sink in, because he stretches out one leg, an extra joint moving under the baggy pants, and wiggles a cyborg raptor claw at her. "Dhyana was a bitch. Got out in '68."

She grunts at him and they share the quiet, safe silence of two people who went through the same bad shit. What more needed to be said?

*

The conversation with Sasha went far worse. Elodie had planned on bringing up that last augmentation design, the one mimicking her prosthetics, but Sasha had started mad and gotten madder. They'd been promised a visit when things cooled down, and it'd been a few days. It wasn't fair, Elodie even agreed. But she couldn't explain that things were going to hell even faster, and sympathy only gets you so far when somebody's furious at being stonewalled. It was a small fight, as these things went, but any fight with loved ones sucks, and she went up the street to the apartment with a bitter taste in her mouth, never having brought up the original point of the call.

*

Getting in the building isn't that hard: most places have basement access, the decks below the surface where all the utilities route through. Deliveries too, if they're big enough to need one of the small electric trucks that are all that's left of what used to be a thriving automobile industry. Good riddance. The basement usually has a decent lock on it, but anything that's got frequent use has holes in the security: the best security door in the world won't keep people out if the janitor tapes it open to have an easier time on his lunch break.

It's as easy as wandering till you find the courtyard that's only mostly a deadend, hiding the street level access to the basement (have to get deliveries to the buildings without access built in, you know?), and work on the door in privacy. This one was easy, the keypad worn away, and all it took was a few different tries to get 7449. Then down the stairs, over a block, up the stairs, and we're outside a door that's been broken into with much less finesse.

She's wary on the approach, but she's going inside after checking the door to make sure there's no surprises attached to it. Last thing she wants is letting whoever tossed the apartment know that somebody's home.