Twelve hours later, knee-deep in a rusted hulk, Marco’s magnetic light caught the unmistakable hexagonal shape of the manifold. It was crusted with dried sediment but intact. He unbolted it with a trembling hand.

He opened the .

That was the gold. That meant he wasn't looking for an Adria part. He was looking for a Mobilvetta part. And Mobilvettas were common as dust in the old scrapyards of the Southwest.

The problem was a sensor manifold. A stupid, fist-sized block of polymer and ceramic that told the recycler when to purge brine and when to reclaim distillate. Without it, the system was blind.

He typed in his VIN: A-MX-447-2047-912 .

There it was. : Manifold, sensor distribution, brine/destillate.