I don't touch the brackets.
That would be obvious.
Instead, I touch the dependencies.
I spend the morning in transit—two buses, one maintenance lift, a footbridge that smells like oil and rust. None of it matters. What matters is the public node mounted above the ticketing gate. Old model. Underfunded district. Lazy firmware.
I don't hack it.
I schedule it.
Municipal systems accept paperwork better than code. I submit a maintenance ticket under a logistics subcontract that no longer exists. The city approves it automatically.
By noon, one of the tournament's relay routes drops to backup.
They'll notice in six hours.
At work, I audit manifests that don't need auditing. Containers flagged for "special handling" pass through the yard every week. Medical waste. Construction slurry. Emergency generators.
And tonight—event lighting modules.
They don't ship those unless there's a fight.
I note the serial ranges and log out early.
The second move is quieter.
I visit a data co-op under a closed library. The place runs on reciprocity and patience. No questions, no records—just exchanges. I trade three clean municipal routes for access to anonymized power spikes.
We don't talk about why.
We never do.
By evening, I have a map.
Not of fighters.
Of attention.
Every proving match draws the same pattern: lighting surge, medical standby, private bandwidth lease, two redundant exits sealed thirty seconds apart.
I adjust one variable.
I don't block anything.
I delay.
Bhairav calls after dusk.
"They moved my match," he says.
"Forward or back?" I ask.
"Back. Twelve hours."
That's the relay route.
"They said it was logistics," he adds.
"Logistics is belief," I reply. "They believe it's neutral."
A pause.
"You did something," he says.
"I removed certainty," I answer. "Nothing more."
I walk to the window and watch the street thin out. Drones reroute. Lights dim in sequence. Somewhere below, a generator coughs and stabilizes.
They want clean conditions.
They want certainty back.
They don't get it.
I open my laptop and draft one more ticket—this time for medical rotation. Perfectly legal. Perfectly boring. It shifts a trauma team two blocks farther than usual for exactly one hour.
Not enough to end a fight.
Enough to change how it ends.
Bhairav texts a single line.
"They look nervous."
Good.
Nervous systems make mistakes.
I shut everything down and sit in the dark.
No alarms.No threats.
Just a structure learning that someone can move it without touching the center.
They'll respond.
Not tonight.
But soon.
And when they do, it won't be with fists.
It will be with policy.
That's where I live.