The service road runs behind the estate, forgotten on purpose.

  Bins lean into each other like they’ve given up arguing. A streetlight flickers orange, never quite going out, never quite working. Temporary fencing lines the edge of the road, bent and tagged and sun-faded, so old it’s become permanent by neglect.

  The team moves through it without talking.

  Footsteps kept soft. Shapes close together.

  Kam walks last.

  Something about him feels off, even to himself. Not heavy. Not burning. Just… compressed. Like the space inside his chest has been padded out and sealed. The copper lining under his sleeves bites faintly with each step. The engine that used to sit there, humming, pushing, is quiet enough to feel like absence.

  Marcus glances back over his shoulder.

  “You good?” he asks.

  Kam nods. The motion feels rehearsed.

  They stop where the road pinches tight, squeezed between a humming substation and a shuttered off-licence with peeling posters in the windows. The fence around the transformer has been peeled back by hand. Copper cable hangs loose, stripped and gleaming. A shopping trolley sits nearby, half-filled with coiled wire.

  Two older lads stand over it. Hooded. Relaxed. Comfortable in the mess they’re making.

  Sparks snap where they shouldn’t.

  Leo mutters a curse under his breath.

  “If that arcs again,” he says quietly, “half the block loses power.”

  Taylor watches the cables twitch. “Or it goes up. Depends which way the mood swings.”

  One of the lads laughs and yanks another length of copper free. The spark that follows is brighter this time.

  Kam steps forward.

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  No flare. No glow.

  Just movement.

  “Leave it,” he says.

  The lads turn.

  They take in the group, count heads, clock the lack of panic. Their eyes settle on Kam, on how still he is.

  “You lost?” one of them says, stepping closer. Bolt cutters dangle loose in his hand.

  Kam doesn’t answer.

  He reaches back.

  The pile-driver spike comes into view, metal scarred, industrial, wrong for a street like this.

  Kam plants it on the ground.

  The concrete fractures immediately, hairline cracks spidering outward.

  A vibration travels up his arms. The pull responds, distant and damped, like a muscle working through resistance bands.

  Kam pushes.

  Heat bleeds down the spike and into the earth. The ground gives way with a deep, unhappy sound. Cracks race outward. The fence rattles. The substation housing groans like something old being forced awake.

  The lads stumble back.

  “What the—”

  Kam lifts the spike and brings it down again.

  Not at them.

  At the base of the housing.

  Metal buckles inward. An alarm kicks on, shrill and urgent. Lights across the estate flicker in sympathy. Windows blink awake. Phones rise in hands above.

  Kam’s breath comes hard now.

  Marcus grins, sharp and bright. “That’s it,” he says. “That’s the note.”

  Taylor’s smile doesn’t follow. “We’re very visible,” he says.

  One of the lads bolts.

  The other drops the cutters and runs after him. The trolley tips, spilling copper across the road in a tangled heap.

  Kam straightens.

  The feeling settles into place. Not satisfaction. Effectiveness.

  The substation is ruined. The fence is gone. The road is split. A balcony light pops and dies overhead.

  A woman leans out from above, shouting. “Oi! What did you do?”

  Leo is already moving. “We need to go.”

  Sirens rise somewhere distant, stacking over each other.

  Kam looks down at the spike. The metal radiates heat. The ground around it steams faintly, like it’s embarrassed.

  They move.

  Fast. Down alleys. Over fences. Past people filming who don’t step aside.

  By the time they hit the main road, Kam’s chest is tight. The pull tugs, asking questions it knows how to phrase now.

  They duck into a bus shelter as another siren cuts closer. The glass rattles.

  Leo checks his tablet. “There’s chatter. Power company flagged the substation. Emergency response is spinning up.”

  Taylor exhales. “That’s bad.”

  “That’s noticed,” Leo says.

  Kam leans the spike against the shelter frame. The metal hums, low and uneasy.

  Across the road, a white maintenance van idles. The driver watches them a beat too long.

  Then the van pulls away.

  Slow.

  Marcus tracks it with his eyes. “You see that?”

  Kam nods. He flexes his fingers. They answer. For now.

  “We can’t do it like that again,” Kam says.

  No one disagrees.

  They move on, quieter this time.

  Behind them, the estate flickers, then settles. Someone tapes a warning sign to the broken fence.

  TEMPORARY.

  Kam walks with the spike’s weight on his shoulder and the engine’s absence in his chest.

  Around him, the city adjusts.

  It was learning.