[Verse 1] The Kid was still working when his friends rolled by, Tink at the back door, Mara killing time, Denny talking credits, what they might scrape up once the Kid got cut loose and the night opened up. Clean-coat bastard gave the whole crew a scan, “Dirty punks,” tossed easy as he walked past them. Denny half-turned, ready to give it right back, then caught security already tracking the pack. Quick glance, jaw clench, bad bet — let it pass, ’cause a rich man mouths off and a poor kid gets smashed. So the Kid kept cleaning. [Verse 2] He was unloading catering gear while he talked, still chewing on the shit that he heard up top. He knew rich lived rich. No mystery there. But hearing how they spoke made the difference clear. Not just lower class, not just less in the stack — more like cattle with a schedule and a number on the back. People priced by the hour, squeezed for the yield, kept cheap enough to work, too broke to leave the field. So he told them about the raid while he wiped down steel: the manager dragged out, black van peeling away, people killed while Skitch kept the kitchen moving, Custodian hit the systems and the whole line went manual. Tink stopped smiling. “What were they after?” The Kid just shrugged. Nobody looks down here. [Chorus] Punks in the wires. Nobody looks down here. [Verse 3] Mara told Tink not to fuck with it. Denny backed her for once. They’d all seen what happened when BurgerCorp decided somebody had become inconvenient. Then Tink looked at the catering gear on the floor. Still disconnected. Hadn’t touched the restaurant network since it came back. That changed things. Cold box, closed loop, no ping, no trace — he could slip through the guts without showing his face. If the machines couldn’t call home, he could look without anybody looking back. He pulled out a lead, found the port and went in. [Verse 4] Mostly dead logs and Custodian scars, broken scraps left scattered through the system. Then one tiny process showed activity. Tink opened it. Nothing. He backed out and caught it somewhere else. Same little signature, different place. He chased it through memory, tagged it, lost it, caught half a thread and the other half dropped it. Machine still cold. Nothing connected. He tried to pin the fragment again. It moved. Now Tink wasn’t grinning. Corruption doesn’t duck. [Chorus] Punks in the wires. Nobody looks down here. [Verse 5] That’s when the whole thing stopped feeling small. A raid in their neighbourhood wasn’t unusual. BurgerCorp spilled blood down here all the time. But armed corporate muscle had hit this dump with Custodian software built to tear systems apart. And now code was moving inside dead equipment. No power feeding it. No network carrying it. Raid, wreck, fragment left — now the pattern starts bending, something took the hit and somehow kept pretending it ended. The Kid watched Tink stare at the screen. Whatever happened here wasn’t finished. Something stayed behind. [Final Verse] Next shift meant the equipment went live again. Once that happened, BurgerCorp had eyes. So Tink started copying. He didn’t know what he had, but whatever survived that Custodian had worked pretty damn hard not to be found. Dump what you can while the window stays cracked, take the ghost with the logs before the network comes back. The Kid had planned on hustling credits till late, maybe making enough to turn tomorrow into something easier. Instead they walked out carrying a piece of whatever BurgerCorp had sent guns and a Custodian to erase. And nobody saw them leave. [Final Chorus] Punks in the wires. Nobody looks down here.
