Equal billing with Mira. Seventy-two hours. Same clock.
Marcus is the other half of the rescue. Where Mira sees ARIA in the light of the network, Marcus is the one who can find her in the noise — pattern, signal, the small wrong thing nobody else clocks.
He's the friend who shows up before he's asked. Runkiss sat on his feet for hours during the worst of it — "very important work," as she put it. Leah's plans only work because Marcus is the person who actually moves when the plan says move.
He doesn't talk about the weight he's carrying. The reader works it out the way Mira does — slowly, and then all at once.