Afternoon slid in quiet; the canal wind cleaned the edge off every sound.
"Decoy first," North said, rolling a strand of cable between gloved fingers. "If the cart loves the chain, we give it a chain to love."
"Far gate," Lex said. "Dima taps it once, rattles the slack, then goes bland." He checked the graphite, the ratchet strap, the wedges, the triangle keys, the stubby pick for stubborn things.
The knock belonged: two taps, space, one. Dima's face held the color of someone who had eaten and didn't trust it to last. "We can shake the fence near the glass place," they said. "Once. Then bored."
"Once is gospel," North said. "Count to eight after we're inside."
Dima nodded like a student not willing to fail the test. "If the cart splits, we'll watch which way the vest points."
"Don't be a story," Lex said. "Be air."
They moved when the light had softened enough to blur edges but not yet stacked night on them. Down the stair that didn't breathe. Through alleys that knew their names and chose not to say them. Up onto roofs that remembered their weight like a learned word.
At the service gate the chain wore its ritual tension. The cabinet took triangle and answered with the small, domestic hum that said Breaker 12 still believed in its job.
[BREAKERS ONLINE — 12: NOMINAL HUM][NOISE ENVELOPE: +0.0 dB (CURRENT)]
"Handwheel," North murmured, eyes on the car. The brake wheel sat stern and honest on its staff, chain dropping into steel and then into shadow. A pawl waited with its teeth bared in the righteous shape of stop.
Lex knelt by the rigging where the shoe kissed the wheel. He thumbed graphite into the chain links, then under the pawl's bite, small motions with big patience. "We don't break," he said. "We persuade."
North set a wedge under the shoe and eased weight with the ratchet strap around a stanchion, not much, just enough to teach the system a new idea of rest. "Breath down," they said softly. "Not in."
"On three." Lex put two fingers on the pawl and one on the wheel. "Three. Two." He gave the pawl's spring a thought's worth of lift and rolled the wheel back a fraction. Metal complained like an old teacher and then decided to act young.
[BRAKE STATUS: LOCAL — RELEASING][NOISE ENVELOPE: +0.4 dB]
"Again," North said, palms steadying the strap.
He did it again. Twice. The chain gave a little; the shoe forgot the point of clenching; the wheel found a kinder notch.
[BRAKE STATUS: LOCAL — OFF][LINE LOAD: 0% (LOCAL SHOE)]
They held still. The yard explained nothing about its intentions. From the far gate, the fence shook with a single, meaningful shiver, then went obediently boring. Somewhere a bottle did an impression of glass and failed to offend.
"Decoy speaks," North said. "Cart?"
"Not yet," Lex said. He chalked a long, thin witness on the rail beside the lead wheel and another on the coupler throat and knuckle. "We couple, then pull real distance."
They moved to the coupler like they'd been practicing for it—which they had. North set wedges like commas again along the truck, ready to keep grammar from running. Lex wrapped the safety strap, checked slack, checked faith.
"On my hands," he said. He let the Wind Cannon be fingers and not a fist. Move. A word that knew consent.
Steel answered with relief. The knuckle traveled a patient inch at a time. The chalk marks talked to each other and agreed. With a quiet clack, the throat found home.
[COUPLED — SECURE][LINE LOAD EST: 23%][NOISE ENVELOPE: +0.9 dB]
North had the brake lever under their glove without touching it. "Twenty centimeters was yesterday."
"Three meters are today," Lex said. "Slow. Listen between noises."
He gave the weight an argument it wanted to win. The pair rolled. Chalk slid. Ballast ticked. Air remembered how to be a team member. He felt the Mechanical Heart heat a degree and kept the pace loyal to quiet.
[MOTION: 0.6 m][NOISE ENVELOPE: +1.3 dB]
"Hold," North breathed, head tilted toward the road.
The golf cart's cough arrived like a bad idea developing confidence. East to west. It slowed at the far gate, the one near the glass place. Someone tested chain. The sound said ritual, not suspicion.
"Dima did their job," Lex said. "We do ours." He gave another whisper of push.
[MOTION: 1.7 m][LINE LOAD: 27%][NOISE ENVELOPE: +1.6 dB]
On the roofline two buildings over, a shape appeared that didn't belong to birds. The vest caught light and kept it. Head tilt. Then tilt again—as if tilt had been invented five minutes ago and never got old.
"It's early," North whispered. "Again."
"It likes homework," Lex said. He didn't point. Not yet.
He eased power into the pair the way you help someone stand without making them feel helped. The wheels talked small talk to the rail. The chalk marks on the coupler stringed themselves into a new sentence.
[MOTION: 2.8 m][NOISE ENVELOPE: +1.9 dB]
The cart's engine burred. The brown-vest passenger stepped down by the far gate, found Dima's chain, put a thumb to the links, and frowned at the math of tension. They looked once toward the crane and decided the crane was a future they didn't have time for.
"More," North said, gentle and meant.
"Gift back after three," Lex said. He let the last half meter happen in three pieces, each the size of a careful choice.
[MOTION CONFIRMED — 3.3 m][LINE LOAD: 29%][NOISE ENVELOPE: +2.1 dB]
They landed the mass like a plane that didn't want to wake the town. North's gloved thumb settled the lever a hair to teach the system stay without saying stop.
"Listen," Lex said, because listening was what kept people in stories instead of past tense.
The cart rolled on, ego intact. The ridge-watcher pressed its hand to tar and studied its own black print like an infant philosopher, then turned its head toward the canal as if the water had offered a thesis.
"Window closing," North said.
"Then we close with it."
Decoupling was etiquette. He touched the release. Gravity wrote its name without flourish. Chalk held truth. The strap never had to be a hero.
[DECOUPLED][EVIDENCE: WITNESS — RAIL ✓ / COUPLER ✓]
They reset nothing that didn't need resetting. Tape kissed the cabinet shut as if it had never learned how to open. Chain took back the precise honesty of its long year. Wedges vanished like commas removed in an edit.
"Exit," North said.
"Exit," he echoed.
On the roofs, shadows had length to them. They kept their bodies the size of sense and moved. The ridge-watcher lifted its head as they crossed the last span. It did not advance. The cart did not return. The sky tried on the first blue of dusk.
Back in the room that chose not to celebrate, the map tube met the counter. The triangle keys nested. The kettle remembered its job.
Lex fed a dead sensor from a torched thermostat to the Mechanical Heart.
[DEVOUR SUCCESS. MECHANICAL SOURCE +1.][MECHANICAL HEART: LV.1 — 195/500]
He wrote what the UI refused to archive.
— BRAKE — LOCAL: wheel eased; pawl persuaded; shoe off; graphite used; wedge unload.— COUPLE/PULL: 3.3 m; peak +2.1 dB; line load sub-30%; no office response.— PATROL: decoy chain worked; brown-vest verified wrong gate; cart moved west.— RIDGE-WATCHER: early drift persists; curiosity pattern (hands/prints).— RISKS: windows patterning; cart learns decoy pattern; vest has patience.— NEXT: brake release on second truck; consider bay breaker wall for bus sniff.
North poured tea and set his cup where his hand would go without thinking. "You didn't smile," they observed.
"I don't smile at gravity," he said. "It has enough fans."
They stood in steam and the kind of silence that earned its keep. The city outside learned a new note—low, steady, electrical. Not their cabinet. Not their inverter. Something farther south waking up and deciding to matter.
"Dima's wall?" North asked.
"Maybe," Lex said. He watched the room dim a stop and then steady, like a heart remembering its timing.
The UI liked rituals and it liked to be dramatic when it thought no one was grading it.
[OBJECTIVE — STAGE 3: COMPLETE][POTENTIAL PATH: CRANE POWER BUS — HANDSHAKE?][CONDITION: AUTHENTICATION UNKNOWN]
North's eyes found his. "Do we chase the bus tonight?"
He pictured the ridge-watcher's hand in tar. The brown vest's thumb on the chain. Dima's careful flash. The yard's patience. He pictured chalk lines that told the truth no one wanted to read.
"Not tonight," he said. "We don't teach the city our sprint."
A sound moved along the hall floor outside—soft, then softer—as if someone decided not to be a visitor. North didn't turn their head. Lex didn't either.
"Tomorrow," North said.
"Tomorrow," he agreed.
He lifted the map tube and set it down again, a small confession of wanting schedules. The kettle clicked its boundary from boil to rest.
The city did not promise anything. It rarely did. But the rail remembered him. The chalk did, too. Sometimes that was enough to plan with.
[OBJECTIVE UPDATE — STAGE 4 UNLOCKED: BUS ACCESS / SECONDARY BRAKES]