It had been three days since they’d arrived at the safe house, and the space had shifted from an empty brick shell into something that felt less like shelter and more like a desperate campsite. The air hung thick with the acrid bite of butane from the camping stove, layered over the sour tang of unwashed clothes no one had the energy or water to deal with.

  Kam sat motionless in the center of the concrete slab, eyes closed, copper wires coiled around his arms and torso like mechanical serpents. Leo had stripped them from the walls earlier, and now they dug into Kam’s skin, leaving angry red grooves that pulsed faintly with heat. The wires snaked away from him toward a chaotic pile of batteries, old laptops, and the camping stove.

  He had become the generator.

  The wires emitted a low, mosquito?whine hum that made the air vibrate. The orange glow beneath Kam’s skin pulsed in slow, weakening waves — no longer fire, just a dying ember. The drain was carving him out from the inside. His skin had gone grey and papery around the eyes, dehydrated from constant output.

  Maya perched on a crate nearby, writing on a notepad with an actual pen, her handwriting neat despite the cold. She didn’t look up as she recited their inventory in a flat, clinical tone: two liters of water, half a packet of biscuits, and Leo needed more copper or the lantern would die within the hour.

  The lights flickered.

  Kam flinched, forcing another surge of power into the loop. His voice came out low and vibrating when he insisted he could hold the charge. Maya didn’t soften — he was hungry, and if he didn’t eat, his output would drop. It wasn’t personal. It was physics.

  ---

  That night, Marcus crouched behind a dumpster in an alley off the high street, looking more alive than he had in days. The boy who’d been deleted from the system was finally operating in a space that made sense to him.

  Taylor bounced on his heels beside him, jittery with adrenaline, while Leo lay flat on the ground, screwdriver in hand, examining a junction box like it was a puzzle he’d been born to solve.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Taylor complained about the spawn point — too many NPCs milling around — but Marcus corrected him quietly. This was a dark store. Delivery only. No customers. Just robots and minimum?wage workers packing orders in an unmarked warehouse. That’s where the food was, he said, pointing to the blank metal door.

  Leo whispered that he’d bypassed the silent alarm by hardwiring it, but the cameras were still live. Marcus didn’t care. They didn’t need to stop the cameras — they just needed to move faster than the upload speed. He looked at Taylor and told him he’d be the distraction.

  Taylor protested — he was the scout, not the bait — but Marcus shut him down. Taylor was the fastest. He’d trigger the sensor on the south side, pull the drones left, while Marcus went right. Taylor zipped up his puffer jacket with the resignation of someone accepting a side quest he didn’t want, muttering about aggro pulls.

  Inside the dark store, everything was silent until a crash shattered the stillness. A delivery drone slammed into the loading bay door on the south side — Taylor’s distraction. The automated picking arms froze mid?motion. Security cameras swiveled left in perfect synchrony.

  On the right side, Marcus slid under the shutter with brutal efficiency. He wasn’t looking for cash. He vaulted a conveyor belt, grabbed a crate marked PERISHABLES, then another labeled ELECTRONICS. He didn’t check the contents — just looted with the speed of someone who’d done this before.

  A red laser scanned across his chest. An automated voice announced an unauthorized biological entity.

  Marcus grinned. “Put it on my tab.”

  He hurled the electronics crate under the shutter to Leo and shouldered the food crate himself, shouting for everyone to move.

  ---

  Back at the safe house, the stolen goods lay spread across the floor: twelve tins of beans, a bag of frozen chicken already softening, six smart bulbs, and a box of USB?C cables.

  Taylor sat eating a biscuit, still vibrating with leftover adrenaline, insisting that what he’d done wasn’t a distraction but a suicide run. Three drones on him, literally kiting the whole map. Marcus leaned back, tossing an apple lazily, telling him he’d pulled aggro exactly like he was supposed to — that was his job, he was the tank.

  Taylor pointed at his puffer jacket and said tanks wore armor, not polyester. He was a rogue class with high mobility, and if he got hit he’d fold. He jabbed a finger toward Kam — the actual tank — who was currently functioning as a battery charger.

  Kam, eyes still closed, voice still low, said he could hear them.

  Marcus crunched into the apple and told Taylor to stop whining. They’d gotten the loot. And honestly, the AI pathing in that warehouse had been embarrassing — he’d walked right past a sensor and it hadn’t even turned red, just buffered.

  Leo corrected him while plugging in a cable: it hadn’t buffered, he’d looped the feed, and Marcus was welcome for that, by the way.

  Maya picked up a tin and said they finally had protein, which was good. She told them to let her know when they were eating.

  Leo twisted two wires together. A spark snapped.

  The smart bulbs flared to life all at once, flooding the room with warm, artificial light and pushing back the shadows that had been creeping in for days.

  Leo checked his tablet.

  “Server status,” he said, smiling for the first time in hours. “Online.”