Read Chapter 8: Chapter 8

The operation began at three in the morning, when the underground was at its quietest. Léon slipped out of his quarters and made his way through the darkened corridors to the conduit access point near the old Port-Royal station. His heart was pounding, but his movements were steady, his mind focused.

He disabled the security lock—an old mechanical model that he'd repaired a dozen times and knew how to bypass—and entered the conduit. The air was hot and humid, thick with the smell of rust and insulation. He moved quickly, his headlamp illuminating the narrow passage ahead.

His destination was a junction chamber two hundred meters into the conduit, where the main trunk line for Level Four connected to the distribution network. There, he would install a bypass device—a simple relay that would temporarily disconnect the unauthorized junction boxes from the network, allowing full power to flow to the lower levels.

But first, he had to create the demand surge. The surge would overload the monitoring systems, triggering alarms that would alert the Régie to a problem. The Régie would investigate, and in doing so, they would discover the unauthorized devices—or at least, they would be forced to acknowledge that something was wrong with the distribution system.

The surge would be created by Amelie, who was positioned at a substation on Level Three, ready to switch a bank of capacitors into the network. The capacitors would draw a massive current for a few seconds, creating a spike that would ripple through the entire grid.

Léon reached the junction chamber and began setting up the bypass relay. His hands moved with practiced precision, connecting wires, sealing connections, double-checking every joint. The relay was simple, built from spare parts in Marcus's workshop. It would work. It had to work.

He checked his watch. 3:15 AM. Fifteen minutes until the surge.

He completed the installation and activated the relay's timer. The relay would engage automatically when the surge hit, disconnecting the unauthorized junction boxes and restoring full power to Level Four.

He took a deep breath and settled back against the chamber wall to wait.

At 3:28, his datapad buzzed with a message from Amelie: Ready.

He typed back: Proceed.

Three minutes later, the world exploded.

The surge hit the network like a tidal wave. Léon felt the cables around him hum with sudden energy, felt the vibration through the soles of his boots. The lights in the conduit blazed to full brightness for the first time in years, then dimmed as the capacitors discharged.

The relay activated with a click. The unauthorized junction boxes disconnected from the network.

For one glorious moment, the full power of the geothermal plants flowed into Level Four.

Then the alarms began.