The quiet has a weight. It sits on the substation's rafters and on the table and on the backs of the chairs, and the room decides not to creak under it. Lights behave. The refrigerator hums like it finally trusts its own job. Outside, the street rolls its shoulders and tries on a new rhythm without asking anyone's permission.
Kael leans both palms on the table and lets the wood learn him. Olli draws a line on the wall with a carpenter's pencil and writes a number. Two. He underlines it once, neat, like it won't need arguing later. Amara stands by the sink scrubbing frost from her hands with a rag that stopped being white three cities ago. Callum sits on a milk crate, taping a box of cable shut as if order could be persuaded to stay.
