The System Can’t See Me

The lunch box knocked again.

It was a small sound. Metal against concrete, then the thin complaint of Kai's belt where it crossed the lid. In the quiet after the gate had locked, it carried across the sump too clearly.

Kai kept his back against the wall and his right arm close to his ribs. The blue band around his forearm had dimmed to the color of old bruises beneath wet skin. It had not gone slack. Every few seconds, it tightened just enough to pull his elbow away from his side.

Nia watched the movement instead of looking at the drain.

"Does it still hurt?"

"Yes."

"Is it pulling?"

Kai waited for the next tug. It came through his shoulder before it reached his wrist, a patient pressure that made the joint feel loose in its socket.

"Yes."

Her mouth flattened. She had blood on one cheek and a darker patch spreading through the sockless side of her foot. The boot under the grate was no longer shaped like a boot. Its crushed toe showed between the bars in a strip of black rubber.

Kai looked away from it and immediately wished he had not. The floor grate sat three feet from them. Blue runoff crept toward it from the far wall, following the shallow slope in the concrete. The line was thin now, but it never stopped.

"We need to get you away from that," Nia said.

"There isn't anywhere else to go."

"There is the rail."

He looked past her. The rusted vertical rail ran up the wall they had descended earlier, disappearing into the maintenance recess above. It was not close. The nearest lower bracket was a little more than an arm's length from his left shoulder. Crossing the wet floor with his right arm under pull would be bad. Trying it with his bad foot would be worse.

"It doesn't solve anything," he said.

"I did not say it would."

That was fair. It was also not an answer.

Nia tipped her head back, studying the rail and the dark square of recess above it. Water still ticked somewhere behind the low crawlspace, although the reset valve had stopped the hard flow. A smear of dull red hung near the upper guard.

Kai followed her gaze.

For a second he did not understand what he was seeing. Then he remembered the cheap cord threaded through the wire guard by the flow-test valve. The fob had vanished from it. The cord had been left behind, tapping against the rusted metal.

"No," he said.

Nia did not turn. "It is still there."

"You are not climbing that rail with one boot."

"I climbed down it with two hands full and water coming through the grate. This is better."

"Your foot is bleeding."

"Then I will use the other one first."

She said it as if that settled the question. Kai knew the tone. It meant she had already weighed the danger and found nothing kinder waiting on the other side.

"What are you going to do with a piece of cord?" he asked.

Nia finally looked at him. "Tie your arm to the rail."

He almost laughed. The motion caught in his chest instead.

"It is a fob lanyard."

"It is cord. The blue thing keeps pulling you toward the drain. The rail gives us something that does not move."

"It will cut into my arm."

"Probably."

"It could break."

"Also probably."

Kai let his head touch the wall. The concrete was cold through his hair. Above them, the red cord barely moved against the guard. It looked too thin to matter.

The blue band tightened.

His right hand slid across his wet jacket before he caught it with his left. The sudden pull dragged his shoulder forward. Pain made his vision whiten at the edges.

Nia was beside him before he could get his breath back. She held his forearm above the blue band, not touching the stained skin beneath it.

"That is why," she said quietly.

Kai swallowed and nodded once.

The Archive copy was still inside the plastic sleeve under Nia's jacket. He pointed at it with his left hand. "Give me that before you climb."

Her eyes moved to the drain, then back to him. "You can keep it dry?"

"I can keep it off the floor."

"That was not what I asked."

"It is the answer I have."

She hesitated. Then she pulled the sleeve free and passed it to him. The paper inside was stiff and dry. It felt absurdly fragile against his damp fingers. Kai tucked it inside his jacket, flat against his chest, and held the zipper closed with his left hand.

Nia tested the first rail bracket with her booted foot. It gave a dull metallic click but did not shift.

"Do not try to follow me," she said.

"Wasn't planning to."

"Good. You are terrible at it."

She started up before he could answer.

The rail had never been meant for climbing. Its brackets were spaced for a maintenance worker who had a ladder, a harness, and better options. Nia used the booted foot first, then found the next piece of metal with the bare one. Her scraped sole left a short dark mark on the rail. Once, her bare toes slipped and her knee struck the wall hard enough that Kai heard her teeth click together.

"Nia."

"I have it."

She did not. Not completely. Her left hand shook when she reached for the upper bracket, and the blue residue around her ankle brightened in a faint, ugly ring. It faded before it reached her calf, but Kai saw the way she held her breath until it did.

The lunch box gave a slow creak across the sump.

He looked at it. The pipe hanger still held the belt. The wet leather had begun to tear around the buckle prong, leaving the buckle crooked against the side of the box. The lid had not opened, but the gap at the corner was wide enough for another blue thread to run out and join the wet line on the floor.

Kai could not reach it. He could barely keep his right arm from moving.

"The belt," he called.

"I know," Nia said from above him.

She had reached the maintenance recess. Her boot scraped over the edge, then she leaned into the dim space until only one shoulder and the side of her face were visible. The old flow-test valve sat there behind the bent wire guard, streaked brown with rust.

The red cord was still looped through it twice.

Nia hooked two fingers under the guard and pulled.

Nothing happened.

She changed her grip, braced her boot against the wall, and worked the first loop free a fraction at a time. The cord had stiffened where blue light had climbed it. It did not glow now. It only looked greasy and flattened, as if someone had run it through a dirty machine.

Kai's arm jerked again.

His shoulder left the wall. The plastic sleeve crinkled inside his jacket as he caught himself with his good foot. His bad foot slid in the wet, and for a moment he was half turned toward the grate.

"Nia," he said, sharper than he meant to.

"One second."

The second loop came loose.

The cord fell, but the cheap knot at one end caught on a burr in the guard. Nia swore under her breath and reached farther into the recess.

Her bare foot shifted off the lower bracket.

Kai felt the mistake before he saw it. Her weight dropped. One hand slapped against the wall. The rail rang all the way down through the sump.

Nia caught herself with her booted foot and hung there, shoulder pressed against the concrete.

"Talk to me," Kai said.

"Still here."

The answer came thin but steady.

She waited until her breathing slowed. Then she reached up again, this time using the edge of the wire guard to scrape the knot free.

The red cord came loose in her hand.

For a second she held it up, perhaps to make sure it was real. It was barely long enough to tie around an arm and a rail. It could not reach the latch behind the drain's inner grille or bring the fob back.

It was only something that could be tied.

Nia climbed down more slowly. Kai kept his eyes on her hands. When she reached the bottom, she nearly put her bare foot into the blue runoff. He caught her elbow with his left hand and pulled her back before her heel touched it.

She winced, then looked down at the cord. "We need you by the rail."

"I heard."

"Can you stand?"

Kai pushed off the wall with his good foot. His injured ankle complained immediately, but it held enough for him to shift sideways. Nia went behind him, one hand at the back of his jacket and the other gripping his right arm above the blue band.

They moved in pieces.

Kai took one dragging step. The band pulled toward the grate. Nia hauled him back. He took another. His bad foot slipped, and his shoulder slammed into the wall. By the time his left side reached the rail, sweat had soaked the collar of his jacket despite the cold.

The lower bracket was a U of rusted steel bolted into the wall at waist height. Nia pushed his right forearm across it. The blue band sat just below his elbow, cold and faintly luminous against the dirty metal.

"If it bites too hard, tell me," she said.

"That is not useful advice."

"I am having a difficult day."

She ran the red cord once around the rail above the bracket, then once around his forearm above the blue band. The skin there was already numb. The pull in his shoulder would tell him soon enough if the cord slipped. There was only enough slack to pull the free end through the loop and cinch it tight.

The first pull from the blue band came before she finished.

Kai's arm snapped toward the drain.

The cord caught.

It bit into the muscle above his elbow and drove the rusted bracket against the back of his arm. He made a sound that was more breath than voice. The old cord stretched. Its fibers gave a dry, twisting squeak.

But his hand did not reach the grate.

Nia kept both hands on the knot until the pull eased. Her face had gone pale beneath the dirt.

"It held," Nia said.

Kai watched the fibers twist under the next pull. "It won't hold long."

Kai tested the restraint with a careful movement of his shoulder. The cord stopped him almost at once. It made his arm useless beyond a small range, and every breath tugged the sore joint against the rail.

The blue band did not disappear. It tightened, loosened, then tightened again against the cord's limit.

Nia sat back on her heel. Her bare foot shook once before she planted it flat on a patch of dry concrete.

Across the sump, the lunch box knocked against the wall.

The pipe hanger held.

The leather at the buckle did not.

The prong tore through the wet leather by another fraction. Blue light seeped from the crack in a thicker line and ran toward the grate.

Then something hit the inner grille below them.

The impact came from beyond the locked gate. It was heavy enough to make the crushed boot twitch under the bars.

Kai and Nia went still.

The red cord creaked around his arm.