By the time the fire guttered out, the bitter smell of charred insulation clung to everything like a curse. The sky was a dull smear of orange laced with soot, and a slow drift of ash mingled with mist, settling into the folds of jackets and hair. A portable high-pressure pump gave one last watery cough, fell silent, and the hush left only the faint crack of a burnt rafter surrendering in the dark.
Lin Kai stood just beyond the sodden wreckage of his house, one arm rigid from injury, shirt blotched with rain, smoke and half-dried blood. With his free hand he brushed grey dust from his phone screen, the glass hot-patched with spider cracks; alerts still pulsed behind the grime, proof the network clung on even when timber did not.
Minutes passed. People shifted their weight, whispered that the flames were out at last. Far down South Hill Lane a cold white beam appeared, bobbing closer through the murk, and the whir of a battery fan hovered ahead of it. The light pushed through the fog, revealing a figure jogging, then walking, then jogging again as though timing an entrance.
That was when the camera lights found him.
"Oh my god, we have him, he's here!"
The voice shot forward, male and too loud, the sort that never lowered for reverence or grief. Kai did not need to turn to identify it.
Chen Youwei.
A junior reporter from MetroView Garden, notorious for unfiltered livestreams and questions that sliced like knives.
Youwei hurried into view, microphone in one hand, coat flapping, goggles perched on his fringe, breath steaming in the harsh LED glare. The drone that followed him listed slightly under the weight of an oversized light panel, its status screen flashing "12 k viewers" in bouncing neon.
"Mayor Lin, Lin Kai, can we get a comment? Was this an electrical fault or political sabotage? Some claim both."
Kai let out a slow breath through his nose. "No sabotage."
"So, a grid failure burns down the mayor's residence, and that is not symbolic?" Youwei pressed, leaning closer.
"Only if you plan to write a poem," Kai replied.
Behind the reporter, the hovering drone's pinpoint bulb winked, framing every fleck of ash as glitter.
"People also note the stalled Zhang Development Complex," Youwei continued, raising his voice. "Banks fled, investors vanished, the site tied up in what some call 'administrative strangulation'. Are you paying the price for pushing that investigation? Is tonight's fire a message from whoever froze the project?"
Kai's eyes narrowed. Rain-smudged soot streaked his cheek when he wiped it with the back of his hand. "No message. Just an old grid and an older roof."
"People want to know, Mayor... what does this mean for the city's power grid, for public safety, for your energy policy? Will you order a full replacement of the third-sector distribution lines?"
He had not slept, had not eaten, and the ruins of his house still smouldered, yet a man with perfect teeth wanted a sunrise headline.
"The grid is fragile," Kai said, rubbing his eyes. "Everyone knows that. It is running on components older than I am."
"So, what will you do about it?"
Kai suppressed a laugh that would have sounded unsteady.
"We will mend it."
"That is all? The official statement?"
"We will mend it," he repeated. "Not tonight, not in a single sweep, but we will."
Youwei drew breath for another volley, but Kai's sharp glance halted him.
"And if anyone feels inclined to carry copper cable across collapsing catwalks and rain-slick roofs, they are welcome to lend a hand," Kai added.
The reporter hesitated; the drone tilted, framing the blackened carcass of the house.
"Mayor Lin, some residents are saying, off record, that this is karma."
Kai faced the ruin, jaw set.
"Perhaps it is," he answered, voice almost inaudible.
He turned away. No further statement, no press liaison, no escorting officers, only a man in a ruined suit limping through the ash of what once was his home, while the reporter's light washed over cracked bricks and a last dull ember glowed red in the rubble behind him.