Tiziri.

The geophone she works with every night was left behind by an apprentice who requested a transfer, and she's never given it back. It's better than the unit's own, and that's the only answer she gives when anyone asks. It still carries a scrap of tape with a name half worn away: she hasn't taken it off, hasn't covered it up, and doesn't look at it. And at eleven she picks it up and heads out into the street. Nobody at the unit has asked about that device in years.

The upper sector is the most spread out in the city and the farthest from the depot. She asked for it herself. She walks it entirely on foot between eleven at night and five in the morning — the hours when consumption drops, network pressure rises, and the system can be heard on its own — carrying all her gear, with nowhere to set it down. One thing worth knowing about the sand cat: it's genuinely nocturnal. It hunts in the dark and spends the whole day inside a burrow it digs itself.