Beneath the city lights

The Weight of Noise

The depot at night was a maze of echoes.

Metal doors clanged. Radios murmured half-sentences. Pipes hissed softly along the ceiling. The air was full but not crowded — like the city itself was clearing its throat before speaking.

Aidan stood by the lockers, waiting for Ortega to finish the briefing. The others milled around — Rico balancing a wrench on one finger, Marlowe tapping a pen against a clipboard, two new recruits whispering about the smell of oil and rust.

“North track’s still unstable,” Ortega said. “We’ll split teams. Wolfe, take the lead on C-line and run the diagnostics. I want clean numbers by dawn.”

The words landed with quiet weight. No fanfare. No question.

Aidan nodded once. “Understood.”

Rico gave him a grin. “Look at that, boss man. Didn’t even need a speech.”

Aidan slung his tool bag over his shoulder. “Then don’t make one for me.”

The crew laughed — a short, honest sound that bounced off the concrete walls like something fragile learning how to live.

The walk to the C-line was long, lined with pipes that sweated condensation and flickered lights that buzzed like tired bees. The group followed behind Aidan, their chatter fading as the tunnel deepened into its familiar hum.

He didn’t speak much while they worked. He didn’t have to.

His movements were precise — checking meters, marking pressure points, tightening bolts, testing voltage. Each task carried a rhythm, and soon the others fell into it.

Even Rico grew quiet. The only sound left was the mechanical pulse of the city — steady, endless, alive.

Halfway through the shift, one of the recruits, a small woman named Kendra, knelt beside a junction box and frowned. “Gauge reading’s off. It keeps jumping.”

Aidan crouched beside her. “Loose wire,” he said. “See the shimmer there? Means it’s barely connected.”

She blinked. “You can tell just by looking?”

He nodded. “You can tell by the sound, too. Listen.”

He tapped the metal once with a screwdriver. The faint buzz wavered. “Stable lines hum even. This one skips.”

Kendra listened again, eyes widening when she heard it.

“Fix the connection,” Aidan said quietly. “You’ll hear it smooth out.”

She worked carefully, fingers steady. When the hum leveled, she smiled despite herself. “That’s better than music.”

Rico snorted. “Depends what you listen to.”

Aidan almost smiled. “Down here, that is music.”

They finished near three in the morning. The meters glowed steady green across the panels — a soft constellation in the dark. Ortega’s voice came through the radio:

“Status?”

Aidan keyed the mic. “Stable. Pressure balanced. We’ll double-check before sign-off.”

“Copy that. Good work.”

He turned off the radio and leaned against the wall. Sweat cooled on his neck. His hands ached from hours of motion, but the ache was clean, earned.

Rico slumped onto a crate. “You know, for a quiet guy, you somehow make everyone move faster.”

Aidan shrugged. “Less talking, more fixing.”

“That’s your motto, huh?”

“Works for the tunnels.”

Kendra chuckled softly. “Maybe it works for people too.”

When they finally climbed the access stairs, dawn had already started to stretch over the city. Pale blue light filtered down the stairwell, touching the damp walls with color.

Outside, puddles caught the glow of streetlamps. Steam rose from the grates, turning the air to mist. A delivery truck rumbled past, headlights sweeping over them like a spotlight before fading away.

Rico rubbed his eyes. “I could sleep for a week.”

“You’ll be back tomorrow,” Aidan said.

“Unfortunately.”

They split at the corner, heading their separate ways. Aidan walked home slower than usual. The air aboveground felt thinner, lighter — but not as real. He missed the hum already.

The apartment was dim when he entered. The city noise outside was faint — traffic, footsteps, someone laughing on the next block. He filled the kettle and set it on the stove.

While it heated, he opened his notebook. The last page still read Still standing.

He turned to a new one.

First shift as lead. No accidents. No arguments. Crew steady.

Then, after a pause: Noise can hold people together if you learn how to listen.

He stopped writing, staring at the words. The thought felt strange — almost too open — but true.

The kettle whistled. He poured the water over instant coffee and sat by the window. The sun broke fully now, gold light spilling over rooftops and cranes. It glinted off metal rails in the distance, a faint shimmer that looked like a heartbeat stretched across the city.

He woke again late in the afternoon. The light had shifted from gold to white. His body ached, but the exhaustion carried no resentment. He moved through the small apartment in silence — cleaning, folding, fixing a loose hinge on the window that no one else would have noticed.

At dusk, his phone buzzed. A message from Ortega:

Good work last night. Crew’s smoother with you on lead. You should think about staying in the role.

Aidan stared at the words for a while before replying.

If it helps keep the city running, I’ll do it.

He set the phone down and went to the window. Night was falling again. The streets below glowed orange, wet with light. Somewhere under his feet, trains moved through tunnels he could trace by memory.

He imagined each bulb, each humming cable, each breath of air vented through the dark. The world beneath was alive and constant — imperfect, fragile, but alive.

He leaned on the sill, feeling the faint vibration travel up from the ground through the building’s frame. The hum. The same one that had followed him since the first day he descended below.

It wasn’t noise anymore. It was a kind of language.

Later that week, he brought a small radio to the tunnel. He tuned it between stations until it hummed softly, blending with the sound of the rails. The others laughed, but the static seemed to keep the space steady.

Kendra asked, “What’s that for?”

“Balance,” Aidan said. “Too much quiet and you start hearing things that aren’t there.”

Rico grinned. “And too much noise, you forget to think.”

“Exactly.”

They worked with the soft hiss of static threading through the air. It wasn’t music, but it felt close enough — like the city whispering through another channel.

When the shift ended, Aidan didn’t go straight home. He stayed a while longer, sitting on a crate beside the tracks. The tunnel lights shimmered faintly in the mist, painting streaks of yellow across the rails.

He took out his notebook again and wrote one line.

Noise carries memory.

Then he closed it and listened to the sound of the approaching train — the deep rumble rising through the dark, the song of the city continuing on its own.

He didn’t move until the vibration faded completely.

For the first time, the silence that followed didn’t feel heavy.

It felt earned.