Infrared heatmaps revealed

Infrared heatmaps revealed the city’s power lines pulsed, not with uniform strength, but in shifting patterns across sectors. Dust motes danced within beams of light cast by substations, each particle tracing a re-routed energy flow—a network where demand wasn't simply consumed but exchanged. These exchanges subtly altered thresholds throughout the grid; one district’s surge didn’t trigger another’s dip so much as it bent existing currents along preferred pathways. The quartz foundations of the system seemed to hold these accumulated influences, a quiet resonance echoing with every alteration in usage, and control felt less like prediction than recognition of an interwoven whole.