Chapter 6: Countdown

The first sign of trouble came from a bus stop screen.

Kade noticed it while crossing the intersection near the old theater district, still adjusting to the strange silence of the city through insulated soles. The screen flickered once, twice, then went black. He figured it was just another system glitch, the kind that happened when the city tried to run on infrastructure from two decades ago.

But then the display lit up again, and the face staring back at him wasn't a transit advertisement.

It was Faraday.

The image was slightly pixelated, compressed by whatever network he'd wormed into, but the copper-mesh helmet was unmistakable. The visor caught the light in that same cold way, reflecting nothing back. A countdown timer appeared below his face, the numbers already ticking down from ten minutes.

Every screen along the avenue changed at once. The billboard above the clothing store, the display panels on the bus shelters, the electronic menus in the restaurant windows. Even the phones in people's hands, yanked from pockets and purses, their screens hijacked by the same signal. A wave of confused muttering spread through the pedestrians around him.

The map appeared next, a wireframe of the city's power grid that highlighted four nodes in pulsing red. Kade recognized the general areas—the hospital district, the water treatment plant, the main transit hub, and the downtown financial center. Nodes that kept the city functioning. Nodes that, if they failed, would take everything else down with them.

Faraday's voice came through the phone speakers, the billboard's external audio, the bus stop's tinny speakers. It was the same flat tone from the marathon, amplified to cover every corner of the city.

"Good morning. My name is Dr. Faraday, and I represent the principle that electricity belongs in systems, not in living tissue. There is currently a parasite in this city—a boy who has weaponized a condition that should have killed him. I intend to remove him."

The countdown ticked to eight minutes, thirty-seven seconds.

"But I am also a pragmatist. The parasite has proven difficult to capture permanently. So I have created an incentive for him to reveal himself. The four nodes highlighted on this map are currently overloading at a rate that will cause catastrophic failure in approximately eight minutes. When they fail, the hospitals in this city will lose power first. Then the water pumps. Then the traffic control systems."

Kade's feet pressed harder against the sidewalk, though the rubber soles still blocked everything.

"This is not a bluff. I have wired my own suit into the grid's safety systems. The only way to stop the cascade is to allow me to ground the excess charge through a living conductor—specifically, through the parasite's body. He knows what I mean."

The timer hit seven minutes, forty seconds.

"If he does not present himself within the next seven minutes, the first hospital will go dark. I suggest you find him before that happens. He is barefoot. He is distinctive. And he is the reason your city will burn."

The screens cut to a live feed of the city from what looked like a rooftop camera, the countdown timer superimposed over the image. People on the street were looking at each other, at their phones, at the sky as if they might spot Faraday somewhere above them.

Kade stood at the intersection, the sandals suddenly feeling heavier than they should. The rubber soles that had felt like freedom three days ago now felt like chains bolted to his ankles. The quiet hum that he'd learned to ignore, the faint vibration of the city's electrical grid leaking into the ground, was there beneath him. He could sense it through the soles, muffled and distant, a whisper through a wall.

Seven minutes.

He reached down and unbuckled the left sandal.

The leather strap came loose easily, the brass buckle sliding free. He pulled the sandal off his bandaged foot, the gauze peeling away from the rubber sole with a faint adhesive sound. The air hit his skin, the bandages still wrapped around his arch and heel, thin enough that he could feel the texture of the sidewalk through them.

The right sandal followed, dropped beside the left in a heap of leather and rubber.

He pressed his bare soles to the concrete.

The bandages were still thick enough to dampen the contact, but the sensation that came through was undeniable. A vibration, low and steady, climbing through the layers of gauze and into the bones of his feet. The city's grid was straining, the excess charge leaking into the ground through faulty transformers and overloaded substations. The ground was live, humming with the same energy that Faraday was using to threaten everything.

Kade peeled the gauze off his right foot first, unwinding the strips in a spiral that left the raw skin exposed. The burns had healed enough to walk on, though the new tissue was pink and sensitive. The blisters had dried, the outer layer flaking away in patches that caught on the fabric.

His left foot followed, the bandages falling to the sidewalk in a pile of white cloth.

The first contact of bare sole against concrete was a shock.

Not painful, exactly, but intense in a way he'd forgotten. The charge rushed into his arch, filling the spaces between his metatarsals and spreading toward his heel. It climbed through his ankle, into his calf, gathering in his thighs like water pooling behind a dam. The sensation was almost overwhelming after three days of insulation, the static flooding into him as if the ground had been waiting for this exact moment.

The suit's circuits flickered to life.

A dim blue glow traced across his chest, following the lines of the embedded wiring. The light was weak at first, barely visible in the morning sun, but it pulsed with each wave of charge that entered his body. The glow deepened, steadied, shifted from a faint shimmer to something that looked almost solid.

He looked at his feet, at the raw soles pressed against the concrete, at the faint arcs that were already starting to form between his toes and the ground. The arcs were small, no larger than threads, but they crackled with a sound that cut through the noise of the street.

The timer on the screens hit six minutes, fifteen seconds.

Kade started to run.

The first stride was awkward, his legs still weak from three days of lying still. But the second stride found a rhythm, and the third carried him past the intersection with a burst of speed that surprised even him. The charge was building faster than it ever had before, each footfall driving more voltage into his legs as the city's failing infrastructure bled energy into the earth.

The suit's circuits brightened, the blue glow spreading from his chest to his arms and down his legs. The pattern pulsed in time with his heartbeat, a steady rhythm that matched the slap of his soles against the concrete.

He passed the first burning transformer a block later.

The box was mounted on a utility pole, its metal casing split open along a seam that glowed orange from the heat inside. The air around it smelled of ozone and melted plastic, thick enough to coat his tongue. Sparks cascaded from the opening, each one hitting the ground and releasing a fresh pulse of static that Kade's feet absorbed before the spark could fade.

The charge hit him like a wave, the voltage spiking through his arches and into his core. The suit's circuits flared, the blue light intensifying to a point where it cast shadows on the buildings around him. His legs felt heavier, denser, the electricity packing into his muscles with a pressure that bordered on uncomfortable.

He kept running.

Another transformer blew a block ahead, the explosion sending a shower of sparks across the street. A junction box on the corner was smoking, its cover blown off and lying in the gutter. The ground was alive, the entire grid hemorrhaging charge through every fault and fracture, and Kade was drinking it all.

The circuits on his suit were glowing steady blue now, the light bright enough that he could see it reflected in the windows he passed. The pattern traced across his torso, down his right leg, up his left arm, following the asymmetric flow that Milo had designed months ago The anklets on his ankles were warm against his skin, the copper wires channeling the surge through his legs and into his core.

The timer hit five minutes.

He turned onto the main avenue, the broad street that cut through the heart of the city. The buildings here were taller, the sidewalks wider, the screens on every facade showing the same countdown and the same map of overloaded nodes. People were streaming out of the buildings, office workers and shoppers and tourists, all of them looking at their phones, at the billboards, at anything that showed them how much time they had left.

A few of them noticed him.

A woman in a business suit pointed, her mouth forming a word that he couldn't hear over the sound of his own footsteps. A man on a phone stopped mid-sentence, his eyes tracking the blue glow that followed Kade down the avenue. The word spread through the crowd, passed from person to person like a current of its own.

Thundersoles.

Kade kept his focus on the road ahead, on the pavement that fed him charge with every stride. The suit's circuits were burning bright, the blue light pulsing in steady waves that matched the rhythm of his feet. The charge in his legs was building, the voltage climbing toward a threshold that he hadn't reached since before the marathon.

He passed a row of junction boxes that were sparking in sequence, each one releasing a burst of static as the failing grid sent surges through the underground cables. The ground beneath him was electric, every step pulling more charge from the concrete, from the asphalt, from the metal grates that covered the storm drains.

The suit responded, the circuits brightening from steady blue to something like white at the edges, the glow spreading across his entire body. The electroluminescent strands traced the lines of his muscles, following the contours of his chest and shoulders and legs. The light reflected off the windows, off the car roofs, off the faces of the people who had stopped to watch him run.

The timer hit four minutes, thirty seconds.

Kade rounded the next corner, his bare soles slapping against the asphalt, and saw the glass skyscraper rising at the end of the avenue. The building was a tower of reflective panels, its surface throwing back the morning light in a glare that made his eyes water. At the top, barely visible against the sky, a figure stood silhouetted against the horizon.

Faraday.

The countdown timer continued its descent, the numbers flickering with each second that passed. The map showed three of the four nodes shifting from red to deep orange, the system approaching its breaking point. The hospitals would go dark first, and after that, everything else.

Kade pushed harder, the charge in his legs driving him forward, the suit's circuits burning with a light that cast blue reflections across the pavement. The ground was feeding him, the failing grid pouring its excess voltage into the earth, and he was taking it all, every volt, every surge, every spark that the city could give him.

The timer hit four minutes.

The skyscraper loomed ahead, and Kade ran toward it with the thunder building in his soles.

The collapsed bus appeared without warning, blocking the avenue where it had crashed into a power pole. The pole was tilted at a dangerous angle, its wires hanging loose and sparking against the asphalt. The bus itself was on its side, its windows shattered, its metal skin crumpled where it had slammed into the concrete barrier.

Kade didn't slow down.

He approached the wreck at full speed, calculating the angle as he ran. The hood of the bus was angled upward, exposed where the chassis had torn open. He planted his left hand on the metal surface, vaulting over the wreck in a motion that carried him cleanly across.

The impact of his palm left a mark.

A crackling blue imprint spread across the hood, the static discharge tracing the shape of his fingers and the heel of his hand. The pattern lingered for a moment, glowing against the battered metal, before fading into a series of small arcs that jumped across the surface. The arcs crawled along the hood's seams, following the path of least resistance, until they dissipated into the bus's ruined electrical system.

He landed on the other side, his bare feet hitting the asphalt with a jolt that drove more charge into his legs. The suit's circuits flared briefly, then settled back to their steady blue glow.

The timer on the nearest billboard read three minutes, forty-seven seconds.

He kept running, though the avenue ahead was getting cluttered with debris. Cars abandoned at odd angles. A fire hydrant that had burst, sending a sheet of water across the road. The water was conductive, he knew, and he adjusted his path to avoid it. Too much charge too fast could overload him before he reached the skyscraper.

The pedestrian bridge came into view a block later.

It was a standard structure, the kind that spanned the avenue to connect two office buildings. A steel frame with a concrete walkway, enclosed by mesh barriers on both sides. Nothing remarkable about it, except for the grid of copper plates that had been welded across the entire surface of the walkway.

Kade stopped at the base of the stairs, his bare feet pressing against the concrete. The copper plates glittered in the morning light, each one connected to a series of grounding wires that ran along the bridge's supports and disappeared into the street below. The arrangement was deliberate, precise, the kind of engineering that could only come from one person.

Faraday had expected him to take this route.

The copper grid was designed to drain any charge from anyone crossing barefoot. Each step would ground him, pulling the electricity out of his body and sending it into the earth. He'd arrive on the other side with nothing, his suit's circuits dark, his legs empty of the voltage he needed to stop the countdown.

He looked up at the skyscraper, visible beyond the bridge. The figure on the rooftop was still there, waiting. The timer on a nearby screen showed three minutes, twenty-two seconds.

He couldn't cross the bridge.

But he couldn't go around it either. The bridge was the only connection between the two halves of the avenue at this height. The buildings on either side were too far apart to jump, the gap too wide for anything short of a running start he didn't have.

He backtracked, his feet carrying him down the stairs and onto the street level. The traffic had thinned, most drivers having abandoned their cars after the broadcast. A delivery truck was moving slowly through the chaos, its driver clearly trying to find a path through the debris.

The truck was a boxy white vehicle, the kind used for furniture deliveries. Its roof was flat, covered in a layer of dust and bird droppings. It was moving at maybe twenty miles per hour, slow enough that he could time the jump if he was careful.

Kade positioned himself at the edge of the sidewalk, watching the truck's approach. The driver hadn't noticed him, too focused on navigating around a stalled sedan. The truck would pass within a few feet of where he stood, close enough that he could reach the railing of the pedestrian bridge from its roof.

He waited.

The truck drew closer, its engine rumbling, its tires hissing against the asphalt. The driver leaned on the horn, trying to get a pedestrian to move out of the way. The truck slowed, then accelerated again, its momentum carrying it past Kade's position.

He jumped.

His bare feet hit the truck's roof with a thud that reverberated through the metal panel. The impact left a static imprint, the charge spreading across the roof in blue-white waves that crackled against the paint. He crouched, balancing on the moving vehicle, feeling the vibration of the engine through his soles.

The railing of the pedestrian bridge was coming up fast.

He timed the next jump, pushing off the truck's roof with a force that left a second static mark on the metal. The launch carried him upward, his arms reaching for the railing as the truck continued past beneath him.

His fingers caught the steel bar.

The impact jarred his shoulders, the weight of his body pulling against his grip. He held on, swinging his legs upward, finding purchase on the railing with his bare soles. The static adhesion kicked in, his feet sticking to the metal as he pulled himself onto the bridge's outer frame.

The copper grid was directly below him, close enough that he could feel its pull. The grounding wires were drawing at the charge in his body, the static fighting against the adhesion that kept him on the railing. He could feel the electricity bleeding away, trickling through his soles and into the copper plates.

He didn't have much time.

He launched himself off the railing, aiming for the glass facade of the skyscraper. The building was thirty feet away, its surface a grid of reflective panels that threw back the morning light in a blinding glare. He crossed the gap in a long arc, his arms spread, his feet reaching for the glass.

The impact was softer than he expected.

His bare soles pressed against the glass panel, the static adhesion creating a grip that held him in place. The surface was smooth and cold, offering no texture for his skin to grab onto, but the charge that had built in his legs kept him attached. The suit's circuits flickered as he adjusted his position, the blue glow reflecting off the glass in a pattern that looked almost like a second suit.

The timer on a window-mounted display showed three minutes, seven seconds.

He started climbing.

The glass panels were held in place by a frame of aluminum struts, each one offering a narrow lip that he could grip with his fingers. The building's lightning rods ran along the corners, copper strips that descended from the roof to the ground. They were grounded, of course, but they also provided handholds, their edges sharp enough that he had to be careful not to cut himself.

He climbed hand-over-hand, his bare feet finding purchase on the glass wherever the static adhesion held. The charge in his legs was draining steadily, each step pulling a little more voltage into the building's frame. The suit's circuits dimmed slightly, the blue glow losing some of its intensity.

He passed the tenth floor, then the fifteenth. The wind picked up as he climbed, tugging at the edges of his suit, threatening to pull him loose from the glass. He kept his focus on the next handhold, the next foothold, the next strip of copper that would carry him higher.

The timer on a dashboard display inside one of the offices showed two minutes, fifty-three seconds.

The rooftop was coming up fast, the edge of the building visible above him. He could see the copper mesh of Faraday's suit, the figure standing at the center of a glass platform that covered most of the roof. The platform was transparent, its surface made of thick panels that were bolted to a steel frame.

Non-conductive, Kade realized. The glass would insulate Faraday from the building's grounding system. He'd be standing on an island, untouchable by the city's current.

The countdown timer on the nearest billboard hit three minutes exactly as Kade's fingers found the edge of the roof. He pulled himself over, his bare feet landing on the glass platform with a sound that echoed across the open space.

Faraday turned to face him, the visor of his helmet reflecting the blue glow of Kade's suit.

"Punctual," he said. "I expected nothing less."

The rooftop was a contradiction of materials. Glass panels stretched across the entire surface, each one a thick square of tempered transparency bolted to a steel frame that ran beneath them. The steel was structural, meant to support the weight of maintenance equipment and the occasional helicopter landing. But the glass itself was non-conductive, an insulator that separated the metal frame from anything standing on top of it.

Kade's bare soles pressed against the panels, and he felt nothing. No vibration from the building's electrical systems. No hum from the grounding wires that ran through the walls. The glass was dead beneath him, a barrier that cut him off from everything that should have been feeding his charge.

Faraday stood at the center of the platform, the copper mesh of his suit glowing with a faint amber light. The energy that pulsed through the wires was steady, controlled, nothing like the erratic charge that crackled through Kade's body. This was electricity that had been harnessed, directed, forced into patterns that served a single purpose.

The countdown timer on the nearest screen showed two minutes, forty-five seconds.

"You climbed well," Faraday said. "I'll admit, I didn't think you'd make it past the bridge. That grid was specifically calibrated to drain someone with your particular physiology."

Kade didn't answer. He was already moving, his bare feet carrying him across the glass in a sprint that built speed with each stride. The charge in his legs was at its peak, the suit's circuits glowing at full brightness, the blue light casting his shadow across the transparent floor.

He launched into a roundhouse kick, his right leg swinging in a wide arc that carried all his momentum into Faraday's ribs.

The impact detonated a blue arc across the glass surface.

The discharge was violent, a burst of light that flared between Kade's foot and Faraday's copper mesh. The arc spread in a web of crackling threads that crawled across the glass, leaving faint scorch marks where they touched. The sound was a sharp crack, the kind of noise that echoed off the surrounding buildings and bounced back in overlapping waves.

But the discharge cost him.

The suit's circuits dimmed visibly, the blue glow dropping from its peak to something closer to half brightness. The charge that had taken him four minutes to build was already bleeding away, dispersed into the air, into the glass, into Faraday's suit without doing any real damage.

Faraday stumbled back a step, his hand going to the spot where Kade's foot had connected. The copper mesh there was slightly dented, the wires compressed by the force of the impact. But he was still standing, still functional, his suit still glowing with that steady amber light.

"Impressive," he said, straightening. "But you're burning through your reserves faster than you can replace them. The glass is insulating you from the ground. Every discharge is a net loss."

Kade knew this already. He could feel the emptiness spreading through his legs, the voltage dropping with each second that passed. The suit's circuits were dimming, the blue glow fading from his chest and arms.

He needed to end this quickly.

He moved in again, throwing a straight punch that Faraday caught on his forearm. The impact sent another arc across the glass, smaller this time, but the drain was still there. The suit's circuits flickered, the light dropping another notch.

Faraday countered with a swing of his own, his armored fist connecting with Kade's shoulder. The blow was heavy, driven by servos that amplified the engineer's natural strength. Kade felt the impact through his whole arm, the shock traveling up to his collarbone.

Another arc. More charge lost.

They traded blows across the glass platform, each hit a double-edged transaction. Kade landed a kick to Faraday's knee, the contact generating a blue arc that scarred the glass. The suit's circuits dimmed further. Faraday answered with an elbow to Kade's ribs, and another arc bled away into the air.

The countdown hit one minute, thirty seconds.

Kade stomped his bare foot against the glass, putting everything he had left into the impact. A shockwave rippled outward from his sole, the force of it spreading across the panel in a ring of pressure that spiderwebbed the surface. Cracks radiated from the point of impact, thin lines that branched and split and spread across the glass until the entire panel looked like a shattered mirror held together by nothing but hope.

The suit's circuits dropped to a faint pulse, the blue glow reduced to a weak shimmer that barely registered in the morning light.

Faraday looked down at the cracked glass, then back at Kade. "That was your best shot. And now you're empty."

The countdown hit forty seconds.

Kade felt it, the hollow ache where the charge had been. His legs were heavy, the muscles exhausted from the climb and the fight. The suit's circuits were barely visible now, the electroluminescent strands glowing with the last dregs of power that clung to the fabric.

Thirty seconds.

He looked at Faraday, at the copper mesh that glowed with stolen energy, at the visor that reflected nothing back. He looked down at the cracked glass beneath his feet, at the steel frame visible through the spiderwebbed surface.

The frame was grounded. The building's entire structure was designed to channel lightning strikes safely into the earth. The glass was an insulator, but the steel beneath it was a conductor.

Twenty seconds.

Kade stepped forward, closing the distance between them. Faraday raised his arm, ready to block whatever attack came next. But Kade didn't swing. He grabbed Faraday's wrist instead, his fingers locking around the copper mesh in a grip that the servos couldn't break.

Faraday tried to pull away, but Kade held on, using the leverage to pull himself closer. He wrapped his other arm around Faraday's back, pulling the engineer into a bear hug that pressed their chests together. The copper mesh dug into his skin through the suit's fabric, the wires leaving imprints that would take days to fade.

"What are you doing?" Faraday's voice had lost some of its flatness.

Ten seconds.

Kade drove his bare feet through the cracked glass panel.

The impact was brutal, the shards cutting into his soles as he pushed through. The pain was immediate, a sharp fire that shot up through his ankles and into his calves. The glass fragments tore at his skin, opening cuts that bled freely onto the splintered surface.

But his feet found the steel frame.

The contact was electric in every sense of the word. The current that had been building in the city's grid, the excess charge that Faraday had been diverting into his suit, found a new path. It flowed through the copper mesh, through Kade's arms, through his chest, down his legs, and into the building's steel frame where it could finally ground itself.

Both bodies seized.

Five seconds.

The current arced between them, a continuous discharge that lit up the rooftop in a cascade of blue and amber light. Kade's suit circuits flared one last time, the electroluminescent strands burning white-hot before going dark. The copper mesh on Faraday's suit buckled, the wires overheating and fusing together.

The countdown on the screens reached zero.

And stopped.

The map of the city's grid flickered, the overloaded nodes shifting from red to green as the excess charge found its way through Kade's body and into the earth. The hospitals stayed lit. The water pumps kept running. The traffic control systems continued their steady rhythm.

On the rooftop, two figures stood locked together, the current still flowing through them, the last of the city's stolen power grounding itself through a boy with bare feet and a heart that refused to stop beating.