The registry wall’s side controls sat in a cabinet beneath a faded relief of the old city. Qinghe opened the panel and read its labels. The inner field remained stable, but the cabinet routed more power to the registered zones than to the outer wards.
Several residents had stayed behind to keep their barrier lamps lit. Their glass workshop stood against the wall, and they did not intend to abandon it. Their keeper, an elderly glassworker named Teren, met the engineers with his arms folded.
“Are you going to shut down our protection too?” he asked.
“No one will cut a working local barrier without testing another route,” Yan said. “Show us the manual handles.”
Teren pointed to the lower panel. Gu recognized its central switch as an older design, built before Wuchen’s command seal. Qinghe compared the feed gauges while a resident electrician named Sela measured the lamps. Their readings showed they could reduce the Registry feed in small steps without blacking out the inner shelters.
The first handle resisted. Its wheel was corroded. Yan held the cabinet steady while Teren pulled the spoke. The wheel gave with a crack, and the spoke broke off in his hand.
“That was the old repair,” Teren said.
