I keep my soldering iron on a hook by the door, the way other people keep umbrellas. It hangs with a little badge of melted plastic where someone's attempt at an affectionate label failed; it looks perpetually offended. Morning light in my workshop comes in through a bank of glass that remembers three different murals and a stubborn streak of pigeon graffiti. A neighbor on the street below sells braided sea‑sugar pastries from a stand painted the exact color of a retired tram; the pastries are officially unrelated to any municipal cohesion plan, which is why everyone loves them. I tell myself not to be sentimental about food that burns the roof of your mouth on purpose, and then buy one every Tuesday at eleven because my hands know where to go.
The message had blinked on my wrist node before the second bite. Evelyn Park, long customer, longer teeth in the world of people who still hand‑stitch small comforts into rooms. Her tag read: Request — service: anchor; urgency: quiet. I slotted the pastry into a paper napkin and strapped my kit across my shoulder. My kit looks like a bucket of optical sorcery: diagnostic wand, pocket loom of insulated thread, a half‑dozen adapters whose shapes make me feel proprietary. There is a mug in the corner of the workshop that reads NOT A HUG in caps. I have had it for years. It is accurate.
Outside, the neighborhood had its usual Tuesday rhythm — the tram hummed, the council's tinkling public‑announcement chime rolled over the low rooftops to say something about water usage, and four drone‑vultures argued over a dropped sandwich. The presence network was the city's invisible laundry; you wouldn't notice the lines until you needed them. In a way I liked being the person who read the knots. It felt like therapy without the cushiony fees.
I jogged up Evelyn's stairs with the kind of confidence practiced by people who climb stairs daily and would prefer to instruct the universe on taping a handrail differently. She opened the door before I could knock, wearing a cardigan that had three different shades of green because she could never decide which one matched the ficus. The apartment smelled of cinnamon, lemon oil, and the faint metallic note of old connectors.