It knelt.

Delilah hesitated. The dead courier’s final whisper surfaced: “Don’t say the words unless you mean to own her. HussiePass isn’t a door. It’s a collar.”

“Awaiting first command, Handler Delilah.”

The breathing stopped. Then something with too many joints crawled out of the hatch, folding itself into a human shape. It wore a subway conductor’s coat, moth-eaten. Its face was a porcelain mask with 24.12.24 painted in red.

That string led here.