"Keep the lights on," he said to the room that didn't know how to laugh, "and I'll keep the rest running."
The floodlight dipped again, steadied, dipped. Somewhere deep, the generator coughed like a smoker hating stairs. Admin's head turned toward the floor the way prey turns toward water.
"We need that stabilized," Admin said, already moving. "Now."
The sergeant twitched an eyebrow. "Our patrols—"
"Can't patrol in the dark," Admin said, not asking permission. He looked at Ash. "Pump hall. You know the set. Tell me what you need."
Ash wiped solvent from his palms. "Access. No hands in my panel. One runner for parts."
He didn't add no leash while I'm saving your air. The room understood it anyway.
Hale slid off the doorframe. "I'm his hands where he says so."
The sergeant considered the calculus of letting a man fix the thing that made his threats sound brighter. He gestured two ghosts forward. "Escort. Watch, don't help."
They moved—Ash with his kit satchel and the Silver Stag in the soft case slung across his back because the world didn't deserve trust; Hale walking like a door you could aim; Admin with keys that said you don't own this, you rent it; Nightshade shadows learning what walls were made of.
Down the service stair, through the corridor where chalk marks had multiplied like fungus: NIGHTSHADE—NORTH INTAKE, NIGHTSHADE—GEN ROOM ACCESS. Hale's jaw ticked. He didn't comment. At the pump hall the air turned to iron and old river. The generator room lived off it—a concrete box around a diesel set older than the current calendar, belts and flywheel under a caged guard, alternator humming low in a voice that didn't like today.
Ash lifted the latch on the control cover and let the panel's face blink at him—gauges, needles, a few dead bulbs. He listened. Machines tell you what's wrong if you let them sing in their bad voice.
Fuel feed coughing on cadence. Governor hunting—idle chasing a number it couldn't remember. Brush chatter on the alternator under load. Belts glazed.
"Hands off the panel," Ash said without heat, and the sergeant's ghosts learned how to look offended without moving.
Nono rolled up and raised its little vacuum wand like a flag. Ash smirked despite himself. "Right," he told it. "Grit is the enemy of truth."
He knelt, cracked the line at the sediment bowl, and watched fuel dribble like someone had taught it to sulk. He tapped the bowl; a clot of dark particulate drifted, parted, rejoined like a school of bad ideas.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Planning recognized (facility power repair). +8 Mechanic XP.
Mechanic lv3:648/1000.
He pulled the bowl, dumped sludge, rinsed with what passed for clean fuel, wiped the gasket, reseated. He cracked the bleeder, pumped the primer until he felt resistance stop lying. Fuel ran like it meant it.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Maintenance task: fuel filter/sediment bowl service (simple, higher-tier). +10 Mechanic XP / +15 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
658/1000.
He let the set run and listened again. Better, not right. The governor still hunted—tiny rises and falls like a man trying to remember a song.
"Governor," he said. "Give me that flathead. No— the short one." Nono found it without ceremony. Ash adjusted the idle stop a hair, then the spring tension on the governor arm, then the linkage where long time had made it think it had opinions.
A belt snapped a small threat under the guard—glaze. He killed the set, locked out the start, and popped the guard with a twist of his wrist that said I've done this before when you weren't watching. Hale took the guard, held it level, and didn't look at the Nightshade ghosts looking at him.
Ash checked belt deflection, flipped the worst offender, re-tensioned, and spun the flywheel by hand to feel for truth. He got a buzz of static off the alternator frame that tried to bite without permission.
"Ground's sulking," he said. "Brushes will be next."
He brought the set back up. The engine caught; this time the idle settled at the mark instead of circling it. Load came on like a room agreeing. Fluorescents up the hall hesitated less.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Maintenance task: governor calibration (mid). +50 Mechanic XP / +100 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
708/1000.
The alternator sang a shade too bright under load. Brush chatter. He shut down again; Admin watched his hands because sometimes belief is a choice. Ash popped the brush cover, eased two of the holders out, and stared at the faces. One had worn to a bevel you didn't choose; the spring behind it had become a suggestion.
"Parts bin," Admin said too fast.
"Springs and two brushes," Ash said. "Or one and I cut a new face."
The runner—some kid in admin gray who hadn't had time to learn fear—went at a jog. The sergeant's ghosts counted his steps as if the number might be used later against someone.
Ash scuffed the commutator with a strip of salvage abrasive he kept in his kit for alt faces—nothing coarse, nothing cruel; just enough to teach copper to take a polish again. He blew carbon dust that smelled like old radio and listened for bootfalls.
The runner returned with a tin that had once held biscuits and now held salvation. Ash swapped springs, seated a new brush, cut a face on the second with a scrap of sanded ceramic ring he'd hoarded for the day the world admitted it had run out of proper tools. He eased both holders home. The governor linkage got one more kiss of attention; the belt a hair more tension. He closed the covers like tucking a child in and brought the set back up.
The engine caught. The alternator's voice dropped into a register that made the room admit it had faith.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Maintenance task: alternator brush service (mid). +50 Mechanic XP / +100 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
758/1000.
He looked at Admin. "Load it. Don't be gentle."
Admin slid a breaker with a fingertip like a man signing something he wanted to keep. The room deepened in sound. Somewhere topside, lights reconsidered their relationship with darkness. The set held. The governor didn't hunt. The alternator didn't complain. The belts decided to be belts.
Heat built. Heat tells truth. Ash watched needles, then took his hands off the panel and put them behind his back to prove something to someone, maybe himself.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Sustained load test (heat band) — facility generator. Difficulty: mid. +200 Mechanic XP / +300 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
Mechanic lv3:958/1000.
He let it run while the room learned to breathe to a new beat. He eyed the coolant sight. He rapped a knuckle on the sediment bowl just to annoy any particulate thinking about forming a committee. He smiled at the panel without letting his face admit it.
"Again," he said, and Admin threw the second breaker. More load. The belts sang one thin high note and swallowed it. The needle settled, reconsidered drift, decided against it.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Supplemental load: stability hold. Difficulty: mid. +50 Mechanic XP / +100 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
Mechanic lv3:1,008/1000.
The blue cooled and wrote a new line.
[SYSTEM PROMPT]Mechanic profession leveled up → lv4.Minor attribute increase applied. Work efficiency improved.
Clarity ticked. The world didn't get lighter. It got more obedient to reason.
Hale's mouth did that small approval thing again. Admin exhaled like a man who had been holding his breath since the day he took this job. One of the ghosts muttered a word that didn't belong to Nightshade.
The sergeant's voice arrived late to its own party. "Add that to Nightshade ledger."
Admin didn't look at him. "Facility infrastructure is Admin ledger."
"You're welcome," Ash said without looking away from the panel. He didn't say first slot then rotation because the paper upstairs was still drying.
The set ran. The room held. Above them, the haven decided not to be in the dark today.
Ash shut the panel cover, tightened a loose lug on the control face because disrespect breeds failure, and nodded at Admin. "Keep a runner on the sediment bowl until we can scavenge a better filter. She'll slime again."
Admin nodded, eyes still a little too bright. "You've got credit on the board. Documented."
The sergeant's jaw set. "Nightshade requisitions take priority."
"First slot," Admin said. "Rotation after. That's the stamped agreement."
The sergeant gave him a look that promised an argument shaped like a future. He didn't make it here.
They walked back through the pump hall, footsteps absorbed by concrete that had heard worse. Chalk marks lined the corridor like a slow flood map—NIGHTSHADE arrows pointing at doors that used to belong to no one. Hale's fingers brushed a mark and came away white. He rubbed thumb to forefinger and let the dust drop.
"Your house is getting redecorated," Ash said.
"By tenants," Hale said. "Bad ones."
In the stairwell they passed a family carrying a crate of bulbs—Admin, not Nightshade. The father glanced at Ash's sleeve, then at his face, and didn't say thank you because thank you is a debt. The son looked at Nono like it was a miracle and kept walking because you don't slow when the wolves are writing their names on the walls.
At the landing, a tremor rolled under their boots. Not the generator. Something from the skin of the world. A low, distant thump like a large idea landing.
Hale stopped with one boot on the next step. Admin's radio hissed and then chose not to speak. The sergeant's ghosts shifted and tried not to be men in a stairwell hearing a thing that didn't care what your badge said.
"Construction," the sergeant said, which was a lie told to the air.
"Not our crews," Admin said, which was the truth told to his own teeth.
Ash glanced down the stairwell well, where the sound ate echo and returned it reshaped. He felt the Silver Stag across his back like a promise he hadn't meant to make today.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] External variable: heavy movement detected near surface. Risk: elevated. Options: validate weapon outside, defend entry, or hold position and gather information.
Hale's eyes found Ash's. "We just bought light," he said. "Question is what you spend it on."
Ash thought about the rack waiting on his bench, the stamp drying, the chalk arrows, the weight in his right arm that didn't respect levels, and the sound above them that had opinions.
He adjusted the satchel strap and the Stag's case, then looked to Admin and the sergeant and the stairwell that had chosen to be a throat.
"Pick," Hale said. "Run a test, hold a door, or listen."