The house was too large to panic all at once.

That was the first thing Yumi noticed as she slipped through a side corridor, boots quiet against polished wood. Panic needed corners. This place had wings. It had space to disperse fear, to stretch it thin until it turned into something else—uncertainty, maybe. Or opportunity.

People clustered near the main rooms. Voices echoed there, low and urgent, orbiting the boy like gravity. Yumi didn’t join them. She never had much use for circles.

She moved away from the noise, following a memory that wasn’t hers.

Someone had mentioned it earlier. Half a sentence. A rumor tossed out like trivia. They even had a game room. Full arcade setup. Rich people stuff.

Yumi hadn’t reacted then. She’d just filed it away, the way she always did with details that didn’t seem important until suddenly they were.

Now, with the house settling into an uneasy quiet, that half-remembered sentence came back sharp and insistent.

If the crap was hitting the fan, there was one place she needed to see.

The game room.

She followed the logic easily. Game rooms meant machines. Machines meant wiring. Wiring meant power sources that didn’t belong to the rest of the house—separate lines, backups, jury-rigged fixes meant to keep things fun when everything else failed.

People hid useful things in places they stopped taking seriously.

Yumi passed a long gallery lined with paintings she didn’t recognize and didn’t care about. The lights here flickered, responding sluggishly when she brushed the wall switch. Somewhere deeper in the estate, a generator coughed and went quiet again.

Good, she thought. That narrowed things down.

She turned a corner and caught the faintest hum. Not the deep thrum of a whole-house system. Something lighter. Modular.

She smiled despite herself and followed the sound.

Shizu Sakamoto had already walked most of the house twice.

The first pass had been instinctive—checking doors, noting damage, moving people where walls were thicker and windows fewer. The second was more deliberate. Patterns emerged on the second pass. Things that didn’t belong where they were. Spaces that felt wrong because they were too untouched.

She adjusted the cloth tucked into her apron pocket and moved down a side hall she didn’t usually need. This wing had been reserved for guests, entertainment, indulgence. The kind of rooms that only mattered when nothing else did.

The boy was safe for now. That mattered most. But safe wasn’t permanent. Safe was something you maintained, like floors and fixtures and routines.

Shizu paused at the top of a short staircase and listened.

There it was again. A sound she hadn’t cataloged yet.

A low electrical hum, steady and intentional.

Someone was using something.

She descended the stairs quietly, one hand brushing the wall as she went. The air grew warmer near the bottom, thick with old electronics and dust that had settled long before anyone thought they’d need this room for more than amusement.

The door at the end of the hall was ajar.

Light spilled out—too bright, too clean to be accidental.

Shizu stopped just outside and observed.

Yumi had already pulled two cabinet panels open.

She sat sideways in a rolling chair she’d liberated from behind a poker table, one foot braced against the floor to keep herself steady while she leaned into the exposed guts of a machine that had once been Pac-Man. The screen glowed faintly, the familiar maze frozen mid-frame.

“Still got juice,” she muttered, more to herself than anything else.

She traced the wiring with a practiced eye, following the line to a junction box mounted beneath the cabinet. Whoever had installed this place hadn’t skimped. Dedicated circuit. Surge protection. Someone had wanted these machines to stay on even when the rest of the house went dark.

Figures.

Yumi reached into her bag and pulled out a compact multitool, flipping it open with a flick of her thumb. She hummed under her breath as she worked, a habit she’d never quite shaken. Not a tune. Just sound.

Behind her, the door creaked softly.

Yumi didn’t jump. She’d already clocked the change in the hum, the way the air shifted when someone entered the space.

She rolled the chair back slightly and turned her head.

“Hey,” she said, casual. “Door sticks sometimes.”

Shizu stood in the doorway, taking in the room in a single sweep.

Arcade cabinets lined one wall, screens glowing in various states of standby. A pool table sat in the center, one corner scorched as if something hot had been set there and forgotten. Old pinball machines hummed softly, lights blinking in lazy patterns that hadn’t meant anything in years.

And in the middle of it all, a girl she hadn’t seen before, tools in hand, completely at ease.

Shizu didn’t ask who she was.

“What are you doing?” she asked instead.

Yumi gestured at the open cabinet with her chin. “Seeing how long this place stays useful.”

Shizu stepped inside, letting the door close behind her. She moved closer, eyes following the wiring Yumi had exposed, the way the cables had been rerouted with care rather than desperation.

“These machines aren’t essential,” Shizu said.

“No,” Yumi agreed. “They’re better than that.”

She tightened a connection and the hum deepened slightly, stabilizing. The screen flickered, then settled.

“Backup power,” Yumi continued. “Isolated lines. You lose the main generator, this stuff keeps running longer than anything else in the house. Different priorities when you’re rich.”

Shizu absorbed that in silence.

Yumi finally looked at her properly then, eyes sharp but not defensive. “I heard about this room earlier. Figured if everything else goes sideways, I’d rather know what still works.”

Shizu nodded once.

That was enough explanation.

She moved to the wall and checked the breaker panel mounted there, fingers brushing labels she recognized. Entertainment wing. Auxiliary circuits. Emergency bypass.

Someone had planned this house well.

“You’re drawing power,” Shizu said.

“A little,” Yumi replied. “Not enough to hurt anything. I can dial it back.”

Shizu considered the room, the hum, the fact that nothing here had failed yet.

“Don’t overload it,” she said.

Yumi’s mouth twitched. “Wasn’t planning to.”

That was it.

No permission granted. No rules laid out.

Shizu turned and left the room.

The door stayed open.

Later, when the noise in the house shifted again—voices moving, footsteps repositioning—Shizu passed by the game room once more.

Yumi was still there.

She’d moved on to another cabinet, this one older, its casing scratched and faded. She had a cable running from it now, neatly routed along the wall to a power strip she’d scavenged from somewhere else. The lights dimmed and brightened in a rhythm that suggested careful load balancing.

Shizu watched for a moment, unseen.

Nothing in the house felt worse for her presence.

If anything, the hum steadied the wing, like a heartbeat you didn’t notice until it was gone.

Shizu adjusted the cloth in her pocket and continued down the hall.

Yumi didn’t look up when she felt someone pass by again.

She didn’t need to.

She knew how that kind of silence sounded—the absence of objection, the weight of allowance without ceremony.

She smiled faintly and returned to her work, fingers steady, mind already mapping how this room could do more than it had ever been meant to.

The machines hummed on, indifferent to the world ending outside their glowing screens.

For now, that was enough.

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