Twenty seconds. Twenty-five.

He didn’t argue. He grabbed his toolkit—a battered satchel of spanners, tuning forks, and a small silver whistle he’d never used—and led her down through forgotten maintenance shafts. The deeper they descended, the thicker the air became. It tasted of copper and old lightning.

“Togamato! The Lower Artery is flooding—not with water, with sound .”