The first place the vector led them wasn’t hidden.
That was the point.
It sat beneath a transit interchange dressed up as public art: a sculptural wall of glass and greenery, water cascading in mathematically pleasing arcs. People paused there to feel calm, to let their schedules breathe.
No one asked where the water went.
They watched from a maintenance alcove across the concourse. Taylor felt exposed standing still in a crowd that never stopped moving.
“Look for effort,” she murmured. “Not secrecy.”
He focused. The cascade shimmered—too precise, too expensive. Pumps compensated constantly, micro-adjustments flickering in the diagnostic overlay she’d patched into his lens.
“That much power for aesthetics?” he asked.
She shook her head. “For heat.”
He frowned. “From where?”
She pointed—down, not visibly, but conceptually. “It bleeds off here. Keeps something else stable.”
A maintenance worker approached the wall, badge dangling. Middle-aged. Careful posture.
His movements were efficient in the way of someone who had learned not to be noticed.
Taylor felt the word settle in his chest.
Available.
“What’s the cut?” he asked.
She met his eyes. “We don’t expose. We don’t break. We redirect.”
“That sounds like fixing.”
“It’s not,” she said. “It’s costing.”
They waited for the shift change. When the worker knelt to adjust a panel, she nodded once.
Taylor moved.
He didn’t touch the man. He didn’t touch the wall. He slipped a wafer-thin shim into a seam no one looked at anymore, letting it seat with a soft, final click.
The cascade stuttered.
Barely.
The pumps compensated immediately, drawing a fraction more power from a neighboring grid.
Somewhere else, something felt that.
Taylor’s overlay bloomed with a single new line.
\\ HEAT SINK LOAD INCREASED: NODE C-17.
His throat tightened. “Who’s at C-17?”
She answered without hesitation. “An automated redundancy.”
“Automated,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
No human.
The water resumed its perfect fall. The crowd sighed without knowing why and moved on.
They retreated into the flow, indistinguishable again.
Only when they were clear did Taylor realize his hands were shaking.
“That was it?” he asked.
“For today,” she said. “You changed a price.”
“And if it pushes back?”
“It will,” she said. “Later. Quietly. It always does.”
They stopped at the edge of the concourse. Above them, trains arrived on time.
Taylor looked back at the wall. “I didn’t save anyone.”
She considered him. “You didn’t spend anyone either.”
The system absorbed the adjustment.
Elsewhere, a ledger shifted.
Taylor felt it—not triumph, not relief—but alignment.
A first cut.
Not deep.
Enough.