The trolley rattled like a small, stubborn animal as Lev shoved it along the curb. Tools clanked in the metal tray; the cable drum rolled with a soft, patient groan. Night had a taste in this part of the city—cold beer wrapped in the smell of wet pavement, fried onions from a late counter, and a distant radio DJ who insisted every hour on the hour that the best songs were those no one remembered liking in daylight. Lev liked the radio because it refused to change the subject. It played and the streets listened. That, he thought, was the kind of company an electrician could survive.
"Bertha's been moody all week," he muttered, patting the battered multimeter with the back of his gloved hand. The device had a cracked dial and a tendency to chirp at embarrassing moments. He'd named it after his mother's aunt, who had a habit of scolding useful things until they worked properly. "Don't tell Sasha I say that," he added; Sasha liked brand-new instruments and proper names.
Sasha was twenty-three and had the sort of grin that could make a broken lamp look forgiving. He followed three behind, balancing a coil of wire across his shoulder like a flag. His jacket had a half-stitched patch of a fox; Lev suspected Sasha had sewn it there during a training break when the two of them argued about the merits of solder flux. "It's not moody, it's vintage," Sasha offered. "Vintage is reliable. Like you, except more rust."
Lev flicked a hand. He kept jokes like that in reserve—small exchanges that meant, in a slow profession, that someone remembered his face. Under a streetlamp, the controller box at the intersection looked like any other night: graffiti, rain streaks, a bird's nest tucked behind one conduit. He settled the trolley, unhooked the ratchet strap, and began the ritual.
He popped the lid with a practiced pry. Screws grumbled and spat their yellow heads into a magnetic tray; Lev's fingers were quick, smelling faintly of grease and lemon. Inside the controller, wires braided like indifferent snakes. The relays hummed in their accustomed heartbeat. Lev checked voltages, nudged a worn cam with the blunt end of his screwdriver, coaxed a failing relay into a cleaner contact. The pedestrian signal blinked its little red man as if to say hello.
"All green here in sector five," Sasha called, already moving toward the next pole. He had a scanner, a tablet, and the sort of optimism that treats a blinking error code as just a polite invitation.
Lev leaned in for one more reading. The coax line registered a soft interference he'd seen before—a high, thin squeal that a good technician learned to associate with loose shielding or a tram line out of phase. He traced the noise across the board, following it like a stream. The sound curved around a faded label and disappeared into a relay that should have clicked but didn't. He tapped the relay; it slid like a reluctant door.
Outside, a man waited to cross. He wore a wool cap and a coat that had seen more seasons than most buses. He checked a small paper schedule and hummed to himself—an ordinary city habit. Lev glanced up, more out of reflex than concern. The signal switched. The walk icon lit for a fraction of a second and then froze on red, like someone had pressed pause on an old film. The man’s shoulders drew in. He stepped back from the curb and then, without a sound, the space where his shadow had been seemed thinner, as if a slick film had been pulled across the air. Lev's boots, which had handled bolts and ice and the odd pigeon with equal competence, registered the change as a chill prick under the soles. He reached out with an instinct older than reason—to anchor, to touch, to prove.
His hand met only air. Where the man had been, there was a tidy absence, the kind that made Lev's throat do a small, wet thing. "Hey!" he shouted. The call folded into the corridor of buildings and came back smaller. Sasha slid back, eyes bright with alarm and curiosity.
"Did you see—" Sasha started.
Lev didn't answer. He clattered back to the panel, fingers moving under fluorescent light to reset and to read. The meter showed a fluctuation that didn't correspond with any known electrical fault; signals had dropped and then reconstituted like a tide. He cleared a line, forcing a short pulse through the relay. Lights stuttered once and steadied. The red man remained fixed.
"Maybe he stepped off," Sasha suggested, which was more a hope than an explanation. "Maybe he crossed before—"
Lev closed the lid and slammed it with more force than necessary. The magnet in his tool tray jumped. He tasted metal at the back of his mouth, a metallic tang of adrenaline. "No," he said. "He didn't cross."
The radio DJ promised a forgotten hit. Across the street, a bakery shuttered its window a beat later than usual, a radiator hissed as if embarrassed, and somewhere a bus driver coughed like someone trying to clear a rehearsed line. For now, the city kept its minor rituals. That was a mercy, Lev thought. It bought him time to be a technician and not a man standing on the edge of something that might not be solvable with wire and solder.