He drew a jagged line under all of it. "That was the opening. Climate collapse gives every planner in history the same excuse: emergency, triage, necessary order. You separate functions to keep the system alive. Then separation becomes law, and law becomes custom, and after enough generations people forget it was chosen."

Lina was quiet for several breaths. The evening tones drifted faintly from the avenues, calling the residents toward food or sleep or some other soft rearrangement. At last she asked, "If they forgot, who remembers?"

Elias looked at the dark tower shape he had drawn. Then at the shaft lines below it. "The systems remember. The records may remember. And the people doing the hidden work probably remember enough to hate the shape of it, even if they don't have the whole history."

She touched the edge of the tower mark and pulled her hand back as if it might stain. "You still want to go in."

Elias met her gaze. "More than before. But not like an idiot this time."

That won him a brief look of approval. She had earned the right to doubt him on that point.

"The archive can't be breached empty-handed," he went on. "Not if it's active, not if it's tied into the under-network. I need leverage. Real tools. Something to cut or pry. A source of fire I can carry. And I need a better route than climbing into the dark and hoping the system doesn't notice."

"Fire," Lina repeated, uneasy.

Elias held up a hand before she could protest. "Controlled fire. Heat opens old seams, breaks old locks, reveals airflow."

Lina did not sound convinced. "Still fire."