Read Chapter 3: Chapter 3

The next morning, Léon woke to the sound of the seven o'clock bell—actually a recorded chime played through the public address system, a relic of the surface world that the Conseil had retained for reasons of morale. He lay in bed for a moment, listening to the sounds of the section waking up around him: doors opening, voices in the corridor, the rattle of carts heading to the community kitchen.

He dressed quickly, pulling on his maintenance coveralls and the orange safety vest that identified him as a worker for the Régie de l'Énergie, the energy authority. The vest was faded, patched in several places, but it still commanded a certain respect. Even in the underground, the people who kept the lights on mattered.

He left his quarters and headed for the community kitchen, where a line was already forming. The kitchen served a standard breakfast: a bowl of protein porridge, a slice of bread made from cultivated mycoprotein, a cup of chicory tea. It was bland but filling, and it cost a fraction of a day's wages.

He ate quickly, then reported to the maintenance office for his shift assignment. The office was located in a converted ticket booth at the Vavin station, staffed by a rotating cast of supervisors who spent most of their time shuffling paperwork and avoiding responsibility.

"Artaud," said the supervisor, a heavyset man named Bonnet, without looking up from his screen. "You're on conduit inspection today. Sector 17, lines 3 through 7. There's a report of water infiltration near line 5."

Léon nodded. "I'll check it out. Any word on yesterday's fluctuation?"

Bonnet shrugged. "What fluctuation?"

"The one I logged. 17-C, 0.3 seconds, primary power dip."

Bonnet squinted at his screen, scrolling through the log entries. "I see it. Marked as cause unknown. Standard protocol. Don't worry about it."

"I'm not worried," Léon said. "Just curious. It's been happening a lot lately."

Bonnet looked up, his expression mildly annoyed. "The grid is old. Things happen. Do your job, Artaud."

Léon left the office without another word. He gathered his inspection equipment from the supply locker—a thermal scanner, a moisture meter, a flashlight, a pair of heavy gloves—and headed toward the Sector 17 conduit access.

The conduit was a narrow tunnel that ran parallel to the main train tunnel, carrying power cables, water pipes, and communications lines. It was hot, humid, and cramped, the kind of place that most people avoided. Léon didn't mind. He preferred the solitude of the conduits to the crowded corridors of the residential sections.

He spent the morning working his way along the conduit, checking the cable connections, looking for signs of water damage or overheating. The infiltration near line 5 turned out to be minor—a slow drip from an overhead pipe that had been patched before and would need patching again. He applied a temporary seal and logged it for follow-up.

By noon, he had reached the junction where lines 3 through 7 converged. The junction was a small chamber, barely tall enough to stand in, where the cables branched off to feed different sections of Level Four. He set down his equipment and began checking the connections, his practiced movements almost automatic.

It was then that he noticed something he'd missed on his previous inspections.

The main feeder cable for line 4—the line that supplied power to the residential sections of 17-C and 17-D—was connected through a junction box that was newer than the others. The other junction boxes were original equipment, installed during the early years of the underground settlement, showing the expected signs of age and wear. But this one was different. Its serial number was in a format he didn't recognize. Its mounting brackets were clean, without the usual corrosion. And when he opened it, he found the interior packed with components he'd never seen before.

He stared at the components, trying to make sense of them. The junction box was supposed to contain a simple set of connectors and circuit breakers, designed to route power from the main feeder to the section distribution lines. But inside, he found a complex array of electronics: processors, sensors, a small data storage unit, and a wireless transmitter.

A wireless transmitter.

His heart rate quickened. He checked the main feeder line upstream of the junction box, then downstream. The box was monitoring—and possibly controlling—the power flow to his entire section.

He pulled out his datapad and accessed the maintenance database, searching for the serial number on the junction box. The search returned no results. The box wasn't in the database. It wasn't supposed to exist.

He opened the data storage unit, careful not to disturb the wiring. The unit's connector was a standard interface, compatible with his datapad. He hesitated for a moment—accessing an unknown device was outside his authority, potentially even illegal—but his curiosity overpowered his caution.

He connected the unit to his datapad and began browsing the contents.

The data storage contained a series of configuration files, firmware updates, and—most importantly—operation logs. The logs showed the junction box's activity over the past several months: power routing decisions, load adjustments, and scheduled reductions in output.

Scheduled reductions.

The logs showed a regular pattern of deliberate power reductions, occurring at three-day intervals, always at the same time of day. Each reduction lasted for less than a second, just enough to cause a visible flicker in the affected sections. The reductions were programmed into the junction box's firmware, scheduled months in advance.

The flickers weren't a malfunction. They were a feature.

Léon disconnected his datapad and sat back on his heels, his mind reeling. Someone had installed this junction box—this device—on the main power line to his section, without authorization, without documentation, without any record in the maintenance database. And that device was deliberately limiting the power supplied to Level Four, creating the fluctuations that had plagued his section for months.

But why? What could anyone gain from restricting power to the poorest sections of the underground?

He thought about the 258 kilowatts of missing power. He thought about the upper levels operating within normal parameters. He thought about the Conseil des Profondeurs, the ruling council that oversaw every aspect of underground life.

He thought about Madame Baptiste, clutching her shopping bag in the dark.

The grid is a liar, she had said.

He looked at the junction box, its clean mounting brackets, its unfamiliar components, its hidden transmitter. And he understood, for the first time, that he was looking at something that had been deliberately hidden from people like him. From people on his level. From the people who were supposed to maintain the grid.

He began taking pictures with his datapad, documenting every angle, every component, every serial number. Then he carefully closed the junction box, making sure it appeared undisturbed, and gathered his equipment.

He needed to think. He needed to understand what he had found. And he needed to decide what to do about it.