On the snap, five shadows folded into the city's throat.
The gate's square tube chilled Gavin's shoulder through cotton. Chain-link sighed behind them as fingers decided to be patient. Air changed—grass to stone, outside to inside. The culvert's rectangle swallowed street hum and returned it as a throat note that lived in the teeth.
"Left wall," Gavin said. "Hands on ribs, not center. Feet quiet."
Madison brushed the masonry with the back of his fingers, the poker cradled across his body so it wouldn't ring. The woman moved at Gavin's hip, her hand light on the kid's sleeve. The crouched man—paper—kept palms up whenever they paused, as if truth were something you could print.
Behind, mesh whispered with men who liked fences. Out at the footbridge, a low flashlight stroked gravel in polite arcs, never blinding, always inviting. Theo didn't talk. He let shape speak.
The culvert held a trickle that pretended to be a river. It licked the seam where wall met floor and made a narrow mirror. Gavin kept them on the dry margin; when it vanished, he accepted wet ankles as the price of speed. Win seconds. Stack them.
The rectangle bent. Air cooled another half tone. Ahead, space widened—concrete ribs gave way to slab. Sound lifted its shoulders and found corners.
"Chamber," Madison murmured.
"Junction box," the crouched man corrected softly. [CHECK: ladder/grate type]
The chamber was taller than the run, rounder in a way geometry didn't want to admit. Two side mouths low; one straight; a rust ladder set into the far wall climbed to a grate that knew about daylight. The trickle split, made choices, then pretended it had always wanted to.
"Up?" the kid whispered, eyes on ladder rungs with the hope of cartoons.
"Road," Gavin said. "No." He tasted the air rising through the grate—cigarette smoke, warmed dust, somebody's lemon cleaner. Tonight that meant stage, not safety.
"Left," the woman said, testing the lip of the nearest side mouth with her hand.
"Left is cold," Gavin agreed. "Order: same. Belly if the roof falls."
They crossed the slab. Their steps wrote small, easily erased stories. At the side mouth, the ceiling lowered to a scraper of knuckles; the floor's trickle widened to shin. The lip had a loose edge where water and years had taken an argument personally.
Gavin set the saber's flat under the lip and lifted—not to pry stone, but to change the angle that would bite his wrist. "On me. Single-file. Don't stand."
They poured in. The roof brushed hair and backs. Moss turned the wall into a map that didn't care. Inside of your feet, he thought, or you'll gift yourself the floor. The kid's breath wanted to stutter; the woman gave him a calmer rhythm to copy.
Behind, the junction took a new sound: water slapped in a way it hadn't, like weight found it. A body chose the main culvert and taught itself to move without knees that worked.
"Keep going," Gavin said, voice as small as the pipe. He didn't name the pursuit; names made pictures; pictures stole air.
The side pipe bent right around a ragged repair. The trickle turned ankle-deep for three beats and then thinned. Madison's hip kissed concrete; the pipe disagreed and then made room because his will weighed more.
The saber's guard scraped once; he starved the note with his palm. Rust dusted his fingers and made his breath taste like pennies. Water noise behind them learned urgency and then patience, as if someone had realized walls could be a friend.
At the bend, something low flopped toward their calves—rat, maybe; habit. Gavin let it be, because making new stories with weight killed seconds.
"Knees," he breathed when the pipe wanted a crouch and the kid wanted to hurry. The instruction landed. They moved like a small animal with five parts.
The pipe spat them into a notch—a maintenance niche more than a room: a wider rectangle cut into the side of the culvert with a meter-high curb and a rust-vented panel that once meant authorized personnel. It smelled like dry algae and old work. To the right, a caged ladder went up to a round cover. To the left, the main culvert continued—deeper, darker, but offering space.
"Up?" the kid tried again, tired wanting ladder more than logic.
"Road," Gavin said. "Still no."
"Dead end," a pleasant voice guessed from far above through concrete, too far to be honest and somehow not far enough. Theo had learned the neighborhood's throat. He let the word sit like a coin on a table.
"Right," Gavin said, picking space over up. "Same order."
He risked a look back. The side pipe's mouth wobbled with water light as something's shoulders made ripples. The thing had learned to pull with forearms like oars and didn't spend time being wrong.
"Move," he said.
They dropped off the curb into the main run. The water here made a soft sibilant sound, more width than depth. The roof opened another foot overhead—enough that a tall man could own his spine again. Madison did and then shrank by choice.
Gavin set pace at a steady two small, one long to keep them from chasing fear. The wall offered cool; he took it. The floor offered occasional slick; he traded soles for caution.
Far ahead, the culvert widened where two neighborhoods had agreed to share a throat. A low service grill broke the run like teeth. Beyond it, a darker rectangle promised elsewhere. A square padlock sat in a loop of chain that had been dressed with city pride. Beneath that, either laziness or mercy had left slack—gardener wrap, the kind that believes in morning crews. [CHECK]
"Chain," Madison said, waiting to be allowed to like the problem.
"Lazy under smart," Gavin answered, the phrase an old friend now.
They reached the grill as the water behind them answered to more than gravity. Hands splashed. A shin knocked a rib and rang; someone didn't mind at all.
"Order," Gavin said. "Hold here. Paper—watch our back." He slid the saber's flat under the chain's first lie and lifted. Links settled into his palm like coins paid quietly. The lock stayed asleep and proud.
The chain left the loop with a sigh. The grill took a small breath. "Don't open yet," Gavin said, palm to steel.
Behind, pursuit rounded the last bend. The first shoulder appeared in the side pipe's mouth; the body tried to stand and discovered standing again and was pleased at its own lesson. Madison stepped down and met shin with poker, ankle with timed weight. The body sat, disappointed. Another arrived to step on the first one's calf and learned stacking.
"Buy me counts," Gavin said.
"Copy."
He eased the grill an inch—the water made a new sound around a new edge. The kid flinched at it; the woman squeezed his sleeve and set his jaw back on its hinge. She's a machine built for this minute. He would say her name when the minute believed in names again.
"On three," Gavin said. "Four-inch open. One at a time. Don't gift it your shirt."
He lifted his hand where no one could see it and made a count they could feel. One. Two—
The grill jumped an inch on its own. Above them, a round cover scuffed in its seat, the ladder cage shaking one rusty cough. Outside, somewhere to their right, the low flashlight brushed the mouth of the greenbelt culvert and then went out. Theo didn't need light where maps lived in muscle.
"Three," Gavin said.
The woman went first, shoulder sideways, braid catching once and uncatching because she'd learned what fabric cost. The kid went second, small enough to not owe the grill anything. The crouched man became paper again and slid without pride.
"Your turn," Gavin said.
Madison made himself narrow where physics insisted on the opposite. The grill taxed him a button; he paid with a thread and not with skin. He was through.
Gavin went last, the saber's flat guarding his hand. A hand from behind closed on his calf with the greedy confidence of a man who thought knees were negotiations. Gavin stamped without looking—heel to knuckles, then wall to shin with the guard. Concrete accepted the lesson with the quiet of teachers who didn't care if students lived.
He pulled through and set the grill back on its seat so it would remember to be heavy for the next man. The chain hung in his palm like a sleeping snake. He did not let it sing.
On this side, the culvert changed key—lower roof for twenty feet, then a T where the water chose left or right and the air chose to smell older. A plaque on the wall had once told maintenance crews secrets; slime erased everything but a raised number. [CHECK: junction plaque]
"Left," Gavin said, because left had no ladder and right had a tiny sound that lived like a man above a grate.
They went left. The roof lowered until he felt it in his hair; the floor rose into water that wanted his ankles more than he wanted it. Ankles are cheap; knees are not. He paid in wet.
Behind, the grill clinked as somebody with better tools than teeth began to guess chain. Above, the round cover skated and chose not to. Two doors, one team.
The left branch kinked twice and offered a seam to the right—a slit three shoulders wide where a maintenance door had once been and now wasn't. Beyond, maybe space; maybe a chamber that believed in rooms. The slit breathed colder.
"Go to ground," Gavin said softly. "On 'down,' be ground."
"Down," Madison echoed, a promise.
They slid into the slit sideways, ribs reading ribs. The woman moved like a shadow that paid its taxes in threads. The kid counted under his breath and didn't know it helped. The crouched man found a way to be smaller.
Gavin's shoulder touched a rivet that had sharp opinions. He let it have shirt and stole skin back.
Overhead, the round cover at the ladder cage shook once more, this time with helped hands. Behind, feet bought the grill another inch of wrong. Between both, the branch took them into a narrow square where the floor stepped down six inches and the water asked them to be honest.
"Step," Gavin said. They stepped.
In the square, a rectangle of grill waited ahead—cousin to the last one—wearing a city lock with chain. The chain had slack. Gardener wrap. The hinge smelled like compromise and rain. [CHECK]
"Chain," Madison said, whisper becoming ritual.
"Lazy under smart," Gavin said, because repetition turned fear into drills. He set the saber's flat to the first lie and lifted.
Above, a cover finally skated in its seat with the sound of a coin on stone. Up is road. The sound reached down to their teeth.
Behind, water found a shin that didn't move away and made a wet laugh. Back is teeth.
Gavin fed links into his palm. "On three," he said, voice steady by decision. "We slip together."
"Coach," Madison breathed, joy flat as iron.
Gavin raised his hand in dark the city had invented and believed in. One. The cover rasped overhead, metal on metal, like a bad idea becoming policy.
Two. Water spat as a body rounded the last bend and learned it loved hands.
Three—
He pulled the chain free as a shadow dropped onto the ladder above and something cold closed fingers on his calf in water behind.