Kam didn’t go looking for Leo. Too easy to trace.

  He didn’t go to Taylor either.

  He went somewhere cost was never abstract.

  A gym.

  Basement-level, buried under a chicken shop on a road that never slept.

  The stairwell smelled like fryer oil and wet concrete. The deeper you went, the warmer the air became, thick with iron and old sweat.

  Rubber mats slick with years of effort. Chalk dust drifting through the yellow strip lights like slow snow.

  Heat baked into the walls long before Kam arrived and never fully left. A place where effort counted and nobody pretended otherwise.

  The bell over the door didn’t ring so much as surrender.

  A tired click.

  Kam stepped inside.

  Nothing paused for him. Plates clanged. Someone shouted encouragement that sounded like an insult. A radio fought itself at full volume. No one glanced at the door. Attention already spent.

  Kam leaned against the wall and let the noise settle into him.

  The room swallowed signal without comment. Taylor had been right about that.

  He rolled his sleeve up just enough to check the patch. Scuffed. Uneven. One sacrificial strip burned black near the wrist. The skin around the port had darkened, circulation sluggish, purple spreading where heat used to move cleanly.

  A phone buzzed nearby. Not his.

  A guy in the corner glanced at it, swiped it silent, shoved it back in his pocket.

  Kam exhaled slowly.

  For a moment, he was just weight in a room that asked nothing of him.

  The door clicked again.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Leo slipped inside, eyes sweeping the room. He froze when he found Kam.

  He crossed the floor quickly, tension riding his shoulders.

  “Bro,” he murmured. “You can’t—”

  “I can.”

  Leo’s eyes swept the gym again. “Here?”

  “That’s why.”

  Leo swallowed. His tablet bag dragged at one shoulder like it wanted to be put down and argued with.

  “You said it?”

  Kam nodded.

  Leo’s face changed. Fear and something like admiration fought for space in his expression.

  “Why would you…”

  “They were already doing it,” Kam said, cutting him off before the spiral. “I just stopped acting surprised.”

  Leo held his gaze.

  His fingers twitched, muscle memory begging for the tablet.

  He didn’t reach for it.

  That was new.

  The Leo Kam had met months ago would already be routing data, checking channels, trying to stay ahead of the problem.

  This Leo just watched the patch on Kam’s arm and did the math in his head.

  “They’ll lock everything down,” Leo said quietly.

  “They already are.”

  Leo’s attention dropped to Kam’s sleeve, the patch, the way the fabric refused to sit flat.

  “And the routing…”

  Kam let the silence do the work.

  “What's the plan?” Leo asked.

  Kam watched a heavy bag sway on its chain across the room. Someone had hit it hard and walked away. Momentum kept it moving, steady and indifferent.

  “That,” Kam said.

  Leo frowned. “You're going to have to explain.”

  “The Guild runs on arrival,” Kam said. “On being the fix that shows up before anyone notices the gap.”

  Leo followed, slow and careful.

  “When they stop arriving,” Kam continued, “people see what's underneath.”

  “A company,” Leo said quietly.

  Kam nodded.

  “They'll pin every failure on you.”

  Kam’s mouth pulled sideways. “They already tied my name to steam. They can staple it to their invoices too.”

  Leo looked at him like the same person had stepped forward half a pace and changed everything.

  The door clicked again.

  Taylor stepped in.

  He didn’t look rushed. He looked displaced. Posture too exact, eyes cataloguing exits and angles.

  He saw Kam and stopped.

  Something crossed his face, then vanished.

  “Why here?” Taylor asked.

  Kam answered the part that mattered.

  “I said it.”

  Taylor nodded once.

  “I know.”

  Leo looked between them.

  Taylor took a step forward, then stopped, like he’d reached a line only he could feel.

  “They're flagging everything,” Taylor said. “Clamping routes. Pulling your margins.”

  Kam didn’t hesitate.

  “Good.”

  Taylor blinked. “Good?”

  “If they clamp, they slow,” Kam said. “If they slow, they fail.”

  Taylor stared at him.

  Recognition settled in his eyes. Or dread.

  He watched Kam for a long moment.

  Not confusion.

  Recognition.

  “You're trying to crash the service.”

  Kam shook his head slightly.

  “I’m showing it always was one.”

  Silence settled.

  A plate slipped from someone’s grip and shattered. Swearing followed. The radio didn’t miss a beat. No one in the gym looked over.

  Taylor glanced at Leo, then back to Kam.

  “If you do this,” he said, “you don’t get to choose what breaks first.”

  “I know.”

  Leo’s voice caught.

  “Kam—”

  Kam turned to him.

  “I’m not asking you to come with me. I’m telling you where I’m going.”

  Leo nodded, slow and unsteady.

  Taylor’s pocket buzzed.

  Three short pulses.

  He didn’t check it.

  Kam watched him listen to it without touching it.

  “You still have a channel,” Kam said.

  “Briefly,” Taylor replied.

  “Then use it.”

  “For what?”

  Kam looked past them, past the door, past the street above, toward the machine tightening itself around intent.

  “To misroute,” he said. “To make fixes expensive. To waste their time.”

  Leo froze.

  Taylor went very still.

  “That’s treason,” he said, almost gently.

  Kam answered without pause.

  “It’s maintenance.”

  Taylor laughed once, hollow and sharp.

  Then he nodded. Not agreement. Acceptance.

  The radio crackled. Someone reset the weight stack with a metallic crash.

  Across the room the heavy bag was still swinging.

  No one had touched it for minutes, but the momentum kept it moving.

  Kam watched it for a second.

  Then he pushed off the wall and headed for the door.