Morning leveled brightness over Greyhaven; edges went blunt, not kind.
"We take our window," North said, pocketing the tester lamp. "If the yard learns a schedule, it should learn ours."
"Bay wall first," Lex said. He lifted the map tube because superstition likes props, then set it down because plans like hands. Dima ran two fingers across their own forearm—eyes west—and slipped out ahead.
The glass place forgave them again. The bay door cleared a wedge of air quiet enough to bill. The panel on the left waited with the patience of things that are not offended by being useful. Tape still clean. Screws still honest. The pigtail they had labeled EAR sat where a bored inspector would not think to look.
North touched the seam, then the grounded bar with the lamp lead as if asking still you? The lamp kept its humility. "No one loved it in the night," they said.
"Good," Lex said. "We'll love it fast." He did not energize. He did not boast. He checked that the coil in his pouch hadn't forgotten how to be a listener and that the meter still believed in numbers.
They moved by roofs because roofs don't talk to office windows. The cab wore yesterday's glass, today's light, and no opinion yet. The west gantry held shadow like water in a shallow bowl.
Dima settled on the corner with a slate's worth of sightlines. One glove: palm flat, then tilt—ridge. Not close, only present. Truce gave them distance; caution gave them patience.
At the ladder North paused the way you pause at an altar if you don't pray but respect the architecture. "Breath down," they said.
"Down," Lex echoed, and felt the Mechanical Heart warm under his palm, a domestic miracle. He climbed to the junction box and did not touch a screw. He let habit put his feet in the smart places and habit keep his fingers from stupid ones.
"Token?" North said.
"In hand," he said, and meant memory. He placed his palm where the conduit elbow curled and let the interface inside him call the interface inside the box by its right name.
[BUS LINK — Y-CHANNEL][AUTH: TOKEN PRESENT][MODE REQUEST: MAINTENANCE / DIAGNOSTIC — QUIET][NOISE ENVELOPE: +0.1 dB]
The UI behaved for once. It didn't trumpet. It recognized the token as work, not luck.
[AUTH — ACCEPTED][PRIVILEGE: READ/DIAG; WRITE — LIMITED (AUX)][SAFETY INTERLOCKS: ACTIVE]
"Door's open," Lex murmured. "Only to the foyer."
"Then we talk in the foyer," North said. "No moving furniture."
"Status," Lex said, and meant show me without doing.
The downlink arrived as a tidy stack of facts that wished they were duller.
[BUS MAP][RELAYS: AUX1 READY / AUX2 READY / AUX3 FAULT / AUX4 STANDBY][BRAKE BUS: STABLE | LOCAL SHOES: MIXED][GENLINK: DRIFT −1 ms][OFFICE NEST: COMMS PASSIVE][SUBSCRIBERS: CAB (MASTER), Y-BAY (AUX), UNKNOWN NODE (SCHEDULED NIGHT)]
He felt North's attention touch his shoulder from ground level. "Say again?"
"Unknown node on night schedule," he said. "Probably asleep. Probably not a friend."
"Or a key we didn't know we needed." North's mouth loved problems the way some people love soup. "Diagnostics only."
"Diagnostics only," he agreed. He asked the bus for temperatures, bus voltage, the kind of numbers that sit still and tell the truth. The Mechanical Heart flattened noise like a palm on paper.
[TELEMETRY][AUX BUS V: 24.1][BRAKE BUS V: 48.3][SHOE LOADS: CAR 3 (OFF), CAR 5 (PARTIAL), CAR 6 (ON)][COUPLER STATE: CLOSED]
"Car Six shoes are still clamped," North said from memory and math. "We didn't touch those."
"We can teach them manners later," Lex said. "Now we prove whisper-control."
He requested a simulated brake test, the sort that tells you what would happen without making it happen. The bus liked the question enough to answer.
[SIM TEST — BRAKE BUS][RESULT: PASS — QUIET MODE ONLY][RECOMMENDED: AUX2 NUDGE FOR SENSOR WAKE]
"Nudge," North said. The word wore warning stripes.
"Micro only," he said. He thumbed the tester lamp in his pocket like a coin and watched the envelope.
[WRITE REQUEST: AUX2 — NUDGE 1-CLK][SAFETY: OK][EXECUTE? Y/N]
"Y," he said, but only inside the part of him that wasn't afraid of consequences. Then he said it for real, because fear doesn't get a vote on days you've planned for.
[EXECUTING…][AUX2: NUDGE — 1-CLK][NOISE ENVELOPE: +0.3 dB]
Metal somewhere made a sound too small for a story and just big enough for belief. Dima's head didn't turn. North's shoulders didn't rise. The ridge-watcher tilted twice and decided to take notes without grading.
[SENSOR WAKE: OK][AUX2: READY][BRAKE BUS: STABLE]
"Control confirmed," North said, and let the words be the exact size they deserved.
"We end it clean," Lex said. "We don't get greedy." He pulled back the way you close a book you intend to open again, with the confidence you'll remember the page.
The office door opened fully. Not a knob test—a rectangle of dark admitting someone's idea of authority. The voice that rode out had a coat on it. Not Rafe. Not Vest. A new person whose sentences probably had budgets.
"Hands," North said softly.
Lex kept one on steel and let the other be still. Dima, a building away, let a pallet whisper against concrete in a way that made passersby's curiosity believe it had been satisfied previously.
"Window," North said, meaning is it closing?
"We're ahead of it," Lex said. He sent the bus a final request that was not a request, just a goodbye with manners.
[SESSION: CLOSE — MAINT/QUIET][CACHE TOKEN: YES][LOGGING: MINIMAL]
The bus, being a machine that believed in paperwork, wrote down very little for the office to read later.
[SESSION CLOSED][NOISE ENVELOPE: +0.1 dB]
He slipped the coil back into the pouch even though he hadn't used it. Tools like to feel included. He climbed down. North's palm met his forearm right where it would have mattered if gravity had changed opinions; gravity had not.
They moved by shadow as if it had paid them. The ridgeline watched. The office door un-opened itself and became a rectangle of lessons again. Traffic on the canal road pretended to be errands.
Back in the room, air remembered how to be theirs. The map waited with the strictly accurate patience of paper. Lex put the token where his memory could not lose it and fed a dead indicator bulb to the Mechanical Heart because you never leave a machine hungry if you can help it.
[DEVOUR SUCCESS. MECHANICAL SOURCE +1.][MECHANICAL HEART: LV.1 — 209/500]
He wrote the ledger in the same ink he used for promises.
— HANDSHAKE: AUTH accepted (maintenance/quiet); read/diag + limited aux write.— CONTROL PROOF: AUX2 1-click nudge; envelope +0.3 dB; no office response.— MAP: Aux1 READY / Aux2 READY / Aux3 FAULT / Aux4 STANDBY; brake bus stable; Car 6 shoes ON.— UNKNOWN NODE: scheduled night subscriber on Y-channel.— RISK: office voice (new actor); watcher curious; night node may contest control.— NEXT: locate Aux3 fault physically; plan door/relay scope; decide whether to touch unknown node at all.
Dima spread their hands over the steam of a cup like they were warming them on a small weather system. "Someone new at the office," they said. "Walked like a person who enjoys rules."
"Rules are useful until they have owners," North said.
"Vest?" Lex asked.
"She kept her distance," Dima said. "No interference. She watched the watcher."
North put a dot on the map where the unknown node would be if it were attached to a thing that made sense. The dot looked honest and wrong in the same moment. "Night schedule," they said. "It will wake."
"It will," Lex said. He didn't add and so will we. He looked at the numbers because numbers have the decency to be boring until they aren't.
[MECHANICAL HEART: LV.1 — 209/500][BASE ATTRIBUTES][STRENGTH: LV1 — 22/50][SPEED: LV1 — 1/60][DEFENSE: LV0 — 17/30][TOKEN CACHE: Y-CHANNEL — 1][SESSION LOG: MINIMAL — PRESENT]
"Do we chase Aux3," North asked, "or do we chase the night node?"
"We chase the thing that helps us move mass without getting famous," Lex said. "Aux3 first. Night can keep its secrets until we choose to pay for them."
"Vest will test tonight," Dima said. "If we touch the node, we touch her lane."
"Then we don't," North said. "Not yet."
The city put a clean sound through the window—a ship horn too far to matter, close enough to mean time. It made the morning real in a way light didn't.
Lex set the tester lamp beside the coil. "Tomorrow we map Aux3. Today we sleep during other people's hours."
Dima grinned like someone stealing a nap from fate. "I can make the building bored."
"Make it a religion," North said. "Convert the whole block."
He let himself believe in that for the length of a sip. Then he framed the next plan because plans don't write themselves just because you fed them once.
[OBJECTIVE — STAGE 5: COMPLETE][NEXT OBJECTIVE — STAGE 6: SYSTEM ASSERTION (SELECTIVE ACTUATION)][FLAG: UNKNOWN NODE — OBSERVE ONLY]
The ridge kept its outline. The yard performed being a yard. Chalk remembered lines it had drawn on purpose and lines it had inherited. The token in his head felt heavier than its hash. He set it down on the table that wasn't a table—map, coil, lamp, meter—and looked at the particular future where Aux3 either failed quietly or failed loud enough to be helpful.
"Tomorrow," North said.
"Tomorrow," Lex agreed. The morning didn't get kinder. It got precise. Sometimes that was better.