Mira tried to be ordinary all morning and failed three times before Mentor Hall.
First, she matched her pace to Nia's at Junction 4 and said, "Your collar tab's straight."
Nia touched it, suspicious. "You look like you didn't sleep."
"I counted rails."
"That's a weird hobby."
"Better than correcting Directors under my breath."
Nia grinned despite herself. "Fair."
Second, she forgot to fold her napkin at breakfast and her mother's hand paused mid-reach. The napkin got folded. Mira's pulse iced—too many mistakes made a pattern, and patterns were legible.
Third came in drills. Transfer K's gantry tiles ran a self-test on Tuesdays. Mira stepped on Tile 11 and the strip under her shoe lit green a half-beat late. A boy behind her laughed. "Tiles hate you, 7B." She kept her face neutral, but her throat ached.
At Mentor Hall Director Kara wrote two words: *CARE* and *CONTROL*. "You can't have one without the other," she said. Mira copied the line, then added silently: _Who cares for us?_
After lessons Nia fell in beside her. "You walk like something's chasing you."
"Maybe it is."
Nia bumped her shoulder. "You need a hobby that isn't brooding. I have a friend. Jax. Builds illegal radios. You'd like him—quiet and weird."
Mira's mouth almost made a real smile. "Illegal radios sound like re-education."
Nia's grin flashed. "Only if you get caught."
They turned down Sewage-Access 2—a shortcut Jax supposedly used. The corridor smelled of yeast and copper. Halfway through, a service panel buzzed. Mira's molars buzzed with it. She stopped.
"What?" Nia asked.
"Listen."
"I hear pipes."
"Yeah, but—" Mira reached without thinking and pressed two fingers to the panel's rim. The buzz pitched up; the corridor lamps stuttered out in a clean ripple—ten meters down, black, then fifteen, then twenty—like a fuse blowing in reverse.
Darkness lasted five seconds. When the lamps kicked back on, Nia was staring at her. "What did you do?"
"I don't know."
"That's a lie. Your eyebrow."
Before Mira could answer, a voice cut in: "She conducted."
A lean kid leaned against the far wall, arms crossed. Jax, Mira guessed—dark curls, Sector 9 tab, a magnifier clipped to his collar. He pushed off the wall and walked over, eyes on Mira's hand. "You grounded a live loop through your knuckles. That's hard to do by accident."
"I didn't mean—"
"I believe you," he said, quick. "But panels have ears. We should go."
They followed him into a maintenance alcove no bigger than a lift. Jax handed Mira a cloth. "Wipe your fingers. Print readers on panels are new." She scrubbed. Her thumb came away gray.
Nia folded her arms. "We should pretend this didn't happen."
Mira's voice cracked out. "The lights"
"were you," Jax finished. Not accusing, just naming it. He opened a panel above his head and offered Mira an orange segment, Eli-style. "Eat sugar. Shock makes you crash."
She took it. "You're not scared?"
"I'm curious," he said. "There's a difference."
They shelved questions by mutual agreement and left in intervals. At the stairwell, Nia waited. "Meet us tomorrow. Bring the thing"she pointed at Mira's hand"under control, yeah?"
Mira nodded. "Yeah."
Home, she washed twice, inspected her knuckles, and tried homework. The 21:12 northbound went past and the pipes answered before the rail did. Mira put her pencil down, set her fingertips to the page, and thought _green_ at Tile 11, soft, now. Her desk lamp lowered one shade, just enough to notice.
She snatched her hand back. The lamp returned to normal. She sat there breathing until her heart slid into rhythm with the track outside.
She didn't draw a break in the rail tonight. She drew three people: one with a magnifier, one with a crooked grin, and one—herself—with a hand held slightly away from her body, like something that could spark.
At the bottom she wrote, small and true: First spark.