Chapter 15 · free to read
23:07. Eleven seconds, twenty-five districts, nine million people. The largest single outage in the city's history, and no fault, no order, and no override log anywhere in the system.
Out in the dark, at street level, small warm points had begun to appear: one candle at a time, spaced along the avenue, each one sealed against the rain.
Seventy candles, from the control-room door to where he stood. He had walked the line lighting them while the city went out behind him.
He had thirty-one minutes left of the seventy. He spent nine of them explaining, which was the most anyone had got out of him in thirty years.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.