The cube was still cold in Lucas's hand when he spoke again.
"I want more than the logs."
"You want more?" the vendor asked, voice like static and stale caffeine.
Lucas leaned on the stall counter like he owned the structure, the street, the man, and every byte of dirty intel stored behind his bloodshot eyes. He didn't blink. "I came for the logs. I stayed for the theories."
The vendor blinked. "Theories?"
Ava, standing at Lucas's left shoulder, hood up and silent, studied the man's twitchy fingers. They moved like he was calculating equations in the air. Maybe he was.
Lucas tapped the sealed data cube already in his coat. "I want the science you didn't put in writing. The ideas too half-mad or half-true for documentation."
"You want hallucinations."
"I want the future. Preferably early access."
The vendor hesitated—too long. Lucas just tilted his head a degree to the right.
Ava recognized that tilt. It meant: talk, or I make you irrelevant.
