The allotment is dark and wet.

  The rain has stopped, but the world hasn’t caught up. Water still drips from the guttering in slow, stubborn taps. Leaves shed droplets like they’re exhaling. The old metal frames of the greenhouse creak as they cool, ticking faintly in the quiet.

  The whole place feels like it’s breathing out after holding tension too long.

  Kam walks the mud path between the vegetable beds. The soil sucks at his boots, each step a soft, reluctant pull. The air smells of wet earth, rust, and the faint chemical tang of fertiliser that never quite washes away.

  He holds his left arm tight against his chest.

  His hoodie is soaked through, almost black. The fabric clings to him, heavy with rain and sweat. Under the skin of his neck, the veins glow a soft, sick orange — not bright enough to light the path, but enough to betray the heat building inside him.

  He looks feverish.

  He feels worse.

  The lead lining isn’t shielding anything anymore. The heat keeps looping back into his arm, hotter each time, like a feedback circuit stuck in a rising spiral. Every pulse sends a dull ache through his ribs.

  His phone buzzes.

  He pulls it out with his good hand. The screen’s cracked, spiderwebbed from the last time he hit the ground too hard.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Kojo.

  One message:

  You’re moving mad bro

  Kam stops. Mud grips his boots, holding him in place.

  Another message pops up:

  Pull up to the gym. You look cooked

  He stares at it.

  The words blur for a moment.

  He swipes the notification away.

  Muted.

  He keeps walking.

  He reaches the shed.

  The windows are dark.

  No light. No radio.

  Just wet rust and cold earth. The smell of damp wood seeps from the cracks in the frame.

  Kam steps up to the door and grabs the handle.

  Locked.

  He knocks.

  “Silas?”

  Nothing.

  He knocks again, harder. The door rattles in its frame.

  “Silas. Open up. It’s bad.”

  Movement inside.

  Boots on concrete. Slow.

  Measured.

  The peephole slides open.

  Silas’s eyes appear — sharp, assessing. A quick scan: Kam, the steam rising off him, the glow under his skin, the way he’s holding his arm like it’s a live wire.

  The slot starts to close.

  “Silas,” Kam says quickly. “The lining cracked. I can feel it. I need you to cut it off.”

  “I saw the video,” Silas says.

  “It was just for a second,” Kam says. “The car—”

  “Not the car,” Silas says. “The mud.”

  A beat.

  “I saw you performing. I saw the timestamp. You went back early.”

  “Daniel said the retention—”

  “I don’t care about metrics,” Silas says. “I told Leo this would happen.”

  Metal scrapes inside — tools shifting, something heavy being moved aside.

  “Physics always cares.”

  Kam leans his forehead against the door. The wood is cold. The cold feels good.

  “Please,” he says. “It burns.”

  “Take it off yourself.”

  “I can’t,” Kam says. “It’s bolted. I don’t have the tool.”

  “Then find Daniel,” Silas says. “Let him fix it.”

  “Silas—”

  “You’re void,” Silas says. “I build engines for operators. Not props.”

  “I’m not an influencer,” Kam says.

  “Tell that to the comments.”

  Footsteps move away.

  A radio clicks on.

  Jazz fills the shed — warm, careless, drifting through the cracks like it belongs to a different world entirely. A world where things don’t overheat. Where metal doesn’t crack. Where people don’t glow.

  Kam stays where he is.

  Alone in the dark allotment.

  Heat crawls up his neck, slow and relentless. The steam rising from his hoodie curls into the night air, disappearing as soon as it forms.

  Silas is gone.

  Kam slides down the door and sits in the mud. The cold seeps through his jeans. The earth presses against his spine. His breath fogs in front of him, uneven.

  Heavy.

  Useless.

  And for the first time, the truth lands clean:

  The system doesn’t stop consequences.

  It just brings them faster.