The Ember-Grid Metropolis.
The soft, pulsing warmth where the Aether Sludge had touched Kai-Lin's glove vanished the moment he pulled his hand away. The whispering voice—"...Flow... Engineer..."—snapped shut like a faulty regulator valve. Silence returned, heavy and mechanical, filled only by the hiss of the ruptured pipe and the distant clang of industry.
Kai-Lin stumbled back. His logical, engineering mind immediately searched for an explanation: Auditory hallucination? Carbon monoxide poisoning from the concentrated steam? The pressure leak was likely causing atmospheric distortion. He dismissed the whisper as a figment of his unemployment stress.
He glanced down at the dark, iridescent sludge clinging to his leather glove. It certainly looked like the poisonous material the Church had warned against. He scraped the gunk off onto the cobblestones with a shudder and cleaned his hand vigorously on the rough fabric of his coat.
Focus, Finch. You're unemployed.
The cracked pipe demanded attention. If he reported it, the Church's enforcement squad would take days to arrive, and a disastrous explosion could happen before then. If he fixed it himself, he would be violating the Church's strict new protocols—an act that could lead to arrest. But the monetary fine for an unreported steam incident was catastrophic.
He looked around again. The block was deserted.
The decision was swift, born of necessity and his ingrained engineering pride. "Damn the Copper Connections."
He hurried to a nearby maintenance hatch, prying it open with a hidden tool he kept strapped to his boot—a brass wrench with a telescoping handle. Descending into the sub-grid, he was enveloped by the deafening roar of the city's underbelly. He located the correct bypass valve—a rusted leviathan of brass—and strained, turning the massive wheel just enough to reduce the upstream pressure. The ruptured pipe above ground settled with a groan.
Emerging from the hatch, he quickly made a temporary patch using a piece of high-pressure binding wire and metallic clay he carried. It was sloppy, non-sanctioned work, but it would hold until the proper clergy-approved crew arrived.
By the time he got back to his tenement, his coat smelled intensely of damp iron and stale oil. Lily was awake, stirring a thin porridge on their stove.
"You look awful," she noted, without looking up.
"Rough day," Kai-Lin muttered, tossing his coat onto the chair. He reached into his coat pocket to pull out his wallet, and his fingers brushed something small and hard.
It wasn't his wallet.
He pulled it out: a tiny, perfectly formed gear made of dark, crystalline metal, no bigger than his thumbnail. It was complex, with teeth arranged in a pattern that made no mechanical sense, radiating a faint, almost imperceptible warmth. He had never seen it before.
Where did this come from?
He realized: it must have been stuck to the Aether Sludge and somehow transferred from the sludge, through the glove, and into his pocket. He held the gear, frowning, the faint metallic warmth a subtle, unsettling reminder of the whisper he'd dismissed. He tucked the strange piece of machinery deep into a hidden pocket of his trousers.
"Did you get the job?" Lily asked softly, her tone shifting from casual to concerned.
Kai-Lin forced a smile. "They said I was 'overqualified.' I'll find something. Don't worry."
I have to find something. He thought of Jay's monthly envelope, now the only thing separating them from starvation or worse—the compulsory labour camps run by the Church. He knew the maintenance shops of the Black Market Quarter hired engineers who didn't ask questions.
A dangerous path, but perhaps his only one.