The Veins felt alive tonight, thrumming beneath the floors and walls like a creature aware of my presence. Every conduit, every pressurized pipe, pulsed with latent energy. I traced them with my eyes, mapping the weaknesses no one else would notice until it was too late.
metallic groan…
drip… hum…
low rumble…
I moved along the maintenance corridor, fingers brushing against cracked conduits and valves misaligned by careless hands. One twist here, a slight nudge there nothing catastrophic yet, but enough to make the first ripple. A misfiring pump could send the patrols scrambling. A flickered light could distract a lieutenant at the wrong moment.
Valves hissed in protest. The hum of electricity sang low and eager beneath my touch. The Veins weren't just infrastructure. They were a stage, and I held the script.
valves hiss…
faint buzz…
The factions below scurried like ants over a cracked pavement. Messages misdelivered. Orders ignored. Each pause, each hesitation, I noted like a conductor marking crescendos. Carrow would blame Lyric. Lyric would blame the shadows. And the shadows… well, they would look straight at me and never know.
I crouched over a junction panel, fingers deft, moving wires in subtle patterns, creating loops of confusion. A slight misread here, a delayed pressure release there. None would suspect sabotage until the chaos unfolded. I could almost hear the city muttering its impatience, and I smiled.
The hum beneath rose, vibrating against my palms, a warning and a promise. Even the machinery was beginning to bend under the plan the first cracks appearing in the fortress of order they all depended on.
I stood, stepping back to observe. Below, the patrols hesitated at intersections. A guard turned the wrong way; another tripped over mislaid supplies. Tiny failures, but enough to whisper fear into the veins of control. Patterns emerged, and I cataloged each one with cold precision.
The factions' reliance on structure was beautiful in its simplicity. Predictable. Fragile. I allowed myself a smirk.
"Guess what, boys," I muttered, voice low, almost lost in the hum. "Even steel bends when it's scared."
The Veins pulsed in approval, machinery and city alike responding to the first true taste of rebellion. And I had only begun.