Mothbreaker's Arc

Chapter 1 of 9

Mothbreaker had six hours before the surface council cut Lacuna's power for the third time this month, and she still didn't know where the real switch was. She crouched on a catwalk above the tunnel market, watching lamps flicker over the stalls below. Every blackout killed someone down here. Last week it was a child on a breathing machine. She had promised herself she would take the grid before winter, run it from the underground, keep the lights on for good. But the city hid its true control node behind a hundred fake ones, and she had wasted two weeks kicking down decoys. Blind searching would burn the rest of her time. She needed a person who traded in secrets, not wires. She went to The Pink Pony Club because dancers hear what engineers whisper when the drinks get cheap. Purple neon washed the velvet booths. Omaha found her before she found Omaha, sliding onto the stool beside her with a tail curled around one ankle. "You look like a woman about to break something expensive," Omaha said. Mothbreaker slid a folded bill across the bar. "I need the grid's real control node. Not the substations. The one the surface engineers actually protect." Omaha's ears twitched. She pushed the bill back. "Keep it. I owe the underground a favor." She leaned closer. "Two nights ago a surface tech got drunk here and cried about a job in the old desalination plant. He said the pumps don't pump anymore. He said the humming keeps him up." Mothbreaker felt the shape of it click. A dead water plant that still drew power. That was the node. She moved before dawn. The desalination plant sat at the edge of the flooded district, and the only clean route ran through a boat channel controlled by a smuggler who called herself Marina Soleil. Mothbreaker paid in tools, not coin, handing over a rewired signal jammer Marina had wanted for a year. Marina ran her thumb along the casing, then nodded and cut the engine on. The boat slipped between concrete pylons. Mothbreaker watched the plant rise out of the fog, its intake towers dark, its lower windows glowing faint blue. She counted four guards on the roof. She counted the hours she had left. The blind search was over. She knew where the switch was now, and she knew the surface knew she was coming, because Omaha's drunk tech would sober up and talk, and Marina Soleil never ferried anyone without selling the trip twice.