The substation kept its lights on by habit. A hum lived in the concrete, thin and stubborn, like a lie that refused to die because no one had told it to.
Kael wedged the back door with a broken meter stick. The hallway inside smelled of dust, coolant, and old pennies.
Olli dropped his kit on a steel bench, popped the latches, and laid out tools in a line that would shame a surgeon.
Arden stood by the map that wasn't a map just pencil marks and tape scars on a wall that had met too many plans. "Three relays left in this district," she said. "All feeding the same spine."
"Spine's deep," Amara said. "And it moves."
They didn't sit. Sitting made decisions come out lazy.
Callum pulled a coil of fiber and unspooled it with careful hands. "Tenements first," he said. "If the panic pulse comes, stairwells choke."
"Block captains get the text," Kael said. "Keep people in their rooms. Doors open. Lights off. Radios off."
