The Toll of Narco City
The seekers reach a port where gangs already run cargo through a leaking, half-woken Bridge — and the price of passage turns out to be a debt only Senjo remembers.
Siru, Marcus, Vivek and Senjo arrive at Narco City's docks needing passage through a Bridge the governments still deny is awake — the gangs have been running it for years. A surge nearly kills dockworkers before the party even reaches the negotiating table, and gang law says all business is done at El Lobo's cantina, table to table, while the singer performs. There Senjo comes face to face with Javier 'El Lobo' Mendoza — the handler who ran his life before Vivek ever found him — and learns the toll for the gate isn't money, it's him. When the gangs' own scheduled test of the Bridge goes wrong mid-negotiation, the party has to save the dock to save the deal, and in doing so shows Mendoza exactly what Senjo has become. Passage is granted — but Mendoza keeps the claim, and warns that Umbrax will want to know a cat just crossed his gate.