The rain doesn’t fall so much as smear.

  A constant sheet of grey static blurs the edges of the industrial estate, turning everything into a half?rendered backdrop. The air tastes metallic. The ground shines like wet glass.

  Marcus walks in front.

  He moves differently from Taylor. Taylor navigates — stepping over debris, weaving around puddles, adjusting his path like he’s playing a stealth game. Marcus moves like he already knows the map. Like he knows which patches of ground will hold and which ones won’t.

  They pass shuttered units, rusted fences, forklifts half?swallowed by weeds. Sodium lights flicker overhead, some dead, some stuttering like they’re trying to reboot.

  “This is your plan?” Taylor says. “A crack den?”

  “It’s not a crack den,” Marcus says. “It was a server farm. Crypto startup. Went bust in 2022.”

  Leo perks up despite the cold.

  “Server farm,” he says. “That means heavy cabling. Industrial cooling.”

  “It means thick walls,” Marcus says. “Lead?lined.”

  They stop in front of a squat brick building tucked behind the railway arches. The windows are boarded with welded steel sheets. No lights. No signage. Just a scarred steel door with pry marks that never got through.

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  Rain drums against it like it’s hitting armour.

  “Squatters can’t get in,” Marcus says. “Junkies can’t get in.”

  He kicks the door.

  A dull, solid thud. No echo.

  “But you can.”

  Kam steps forward. He’s vibrating — not with anger, but with containment. Every breath feels like it’s being held in a pressure chamber.

  “Just open it?” Kam asks.

  “Don’t punch it,” Marcus says. “Push it. Slow.”

  Kam places both palms against the steel.

  Paint bubbles instantly. Peels away in black flakes. The metal hisses like it’s afraid of him.

  Kam closes his eyes.

  He redirects the pressure down his arms, through his palms, into the door.

  The steel groans. Not bending. Yielding.

  The metal glows red around his fingers. Welds melt. Hinges soften.

  Kam leans forward.

  The door swings inward. The hinges scream once, then fuse in place.

  Heat spills out into the rain, blooming into fog.

  “Done,” Kam says.

  “Handy,” Marcus replies.

  ---

  Inside, it’s dry.

  Dust drifts through Leo’s phone light. Empty server racks stand in rows like skeletons. Cables snake across the floor, cut but left behind, like veins from a dead machine.

  No hum. No city noise.

  Just space.

  “It’s quiet,” Maya says.

  Leo checks his tablet.

  “No signal,” he says. “Lead walls. No GPS. No cellular.”

  He looks up.

  “We’re effectively non?existent.”

  Taylor sinks against a rack.

  “So we’re hidden.”

  “We’re not on the map,” Leo says.

  Marcus moves to a stack of broken pallets and chairs. He kicks one apart with practiced ease.

  “Heating,” he says.

  He points to a concrete slab in the center of the room.

  “Sit there.”

  Kam drops onto it.

  He pulls his hood down.

  Steam rises freely from his head. The glow under his skin dims — from flare to steady. The room warms slowly, like a radiator coming online.

  Maya rolls a chair closer, holding her hands out to the heat.

  “This is better,” she says.

  Leo digs into the wall cabling.

  “If there’s copper left, I can splice a closed network,” he says. “Internal only.”

  Taylor looks up at the ceiling.

  “So this is the base.”

  “It’s a start,” Marcus says.

  He looks at Kam.

  “You know what Chloe’s actually afraid of?”

  Kam keeps his eyes closed.

  “Me.”

  “No,” Marcus says. “She’s got drones for you. Patches.”

  He gestures around the room.

  “She’s afraid of this. A Tank without support is useless. Alone, we’re glitches.”

  He tosses a piece of rubble. It clatters, echoes once, then dies.

  “Together, we’re a separate operating system.”

  Leo smiles.

  “We’re hosting our own server.”

  Maya looks at Kam.

  “Safe Mode.”

  Kam opens his eyes.

  They still glow orange.

  Calm.

  “Safe Mode.”