The System Can’t See Me

The fob went white in Kai's hand.

Blue light moved through the water around his knee.

Nia had one hand on his wrist and the other pressed against the lunch box at her hip. The valve still rattled under Kai's palm. Rusty water kept pouring through the grate, each pulse carrying more blue threads into the recess.

"Get it off you," she said.

Kai looked at the fob.

The white display did not change.

RETURN WINDOW EXPIRED

SOURCE OBJECT: RETAINED

MANUAL RECOVERY REQUIRED

SOURCE CARRIER: CONFIRMED

"It doesn't say I can give it away."

"It says it's tracking the hand holding it."

"That's not permission."

"Neither is waiting here."

The blue threads touched the toe of his shoe. Cold moved through the wet fabric, then up into his injured ankle. His body reacted before he decided to. He jerked his foot back and hit the concrete wall with his shoulder.

Pain flashed across the back of his neck.

Nia let go of his wrist only long enough to pull the red cord from under his fingers. The cord was thin, greasy, and stiff with age. It had been looped through the fob's cheap metal eyelet when he found it in Room 31B. Now she held it out toward the bent wire guard around the flow-test valve.

"If it pulls the object first, we get a few seconds," she said.

"If it takes it, we lose the only source object we have."

"I know."

She did not look away from him when she said it.

Blue light reached the brass wheel.

Kai pressed the fob against the concrete beside the valve. His hand shook once. He threaded the red cord through the bent guard, looped it twice around the rusted wire, and pulled it tight.

The fob hung just above the running water.

His palm came away empty.

For one breath, nothing happened.

Then the blue threads in the drain turned.

They gathered around the fob instead of following the water toward Kai's knee. Light climbed the red cord in thin lines. The white display vanished behind a blue sheen that made the black plastic look submerged even though it was still in open air.

The burn did not ease. It shifted into a hard pull from his palm to the fob on the valve guard, like a wire drawn tight beneath his skin.

Nia saw his face. "Still there?"

"The debt is."

"But the scan?"

Kai looked at the water.

The nearest blue threads stayed wrapped around the fob. More light moved down through the open valve and disappeared beneath the grate.

"It wants the object first."

"Then move."

The grate shuddered.

Both of them froze.

It was not the blue light. The water pressure under the square drain had lifted one corner of the iron cover from its frame. The grate dropped back with a clack, then rose again as another pulse of water struck it from below.

Nia crouched beside it.

"Hold the valve," she said.

"You just told me to move."

"The drain is moving."

She slipped her fingers under the lifted corner before it could settle. The grate was heavier than it looked. Her shoulder dipped with the weight. Water spat up through the gap and soaked the front of her jacket.

Kai kept one hand on the valve wheel. With the other, he reached for the grate.

His shoulder protested before his fingers found the edge.

"Do not pull with that arm," Nia said.

"I only have two."

"Use the one that works."

He hooked his right hand under the iron bar and lifted. The grate rose another inch. It was a square frame, wider than a normal floor drain and set over a deep concrete throat. The water below did not empty into a thin pipe. It fell in a hard brown sheet along one wall.

Cold air came up from the opening.

Kai leaned close enough to see past the spray.

The sump was a narrow maintenance pit. It dropped maybe eight feet below the recess. The bottom was hidden by moving water and shadow. A rusted vertical rail ran down one side, bolted into the concrete at uneven intervals. It was not a ladder. It was close enough to one that someone had probably called it one before the building started falling apart.

At the bottom, a red-painted pipe crossed the pit and disappeared through a low opening in the far wall.

"It gets us lower," Nia said.

"It isn't a route."

"It is the only way out of this recess."

Blue light brightened around the fob above them.

The valve wheel jumped under Kai's hand. He tightened his grip. The flow had begun to pull at his fingers through the wet brass.

"You first," he said.

Nia looked at the lunch box.

"I can't climb with this."

"I will lower it."

"With one hand on the valve?"

Kai looked at the fob. Blue light wrapped it now from cord to casing. The scan had not taken it. It was measuring it, or waiting for a way to pull it loose.

"It's holding for now," he said.

"You don't know that."

"No. But it's the only way to get the box down."

Nia set the lunch box on the concrete beside the sump. She kept the lid facing up and one hand on it until Kai reached for the handle. The box was damp from her jacket, its faded lettering almost black.

WORLD'S OKAYEST MANAGER.

The joke no longer felt like one.

He took the handle with his right hand. The weight pulled at his shoulder, but he could manage it for a few seconds.

Nia slid one leg into the opening and found the first rail bracket with her boot. She turned sideways to protect the Archive copy under her jacket. The second bracket held. The third bent under her weight, but she was already low enough that she could drop the rest of the distance.

Her shoes struck water below with a hard splash.

"You all right?" Kai called.

"Still here. Lower it."

He eased the lunch box over the grate. The handle cut into his palm. Nia reached up from the pit, one hand braced on the rail, and took the box carefully from below.

The lid clicked once.

Both of them stopped.

Nothing came out.

Nia tucked the box against the far wall of the pit. "It's closed."

Kai nodded, though she could barely see him through the falling water.

The blue light at the valve pulsed.

The fob jerked against the red cord.

Not hard enough to break free. Hard enough to make the wire guard sing.

Kai let go of the valve wheel.

Water surged through the opening. The grate frame shook beneath his forearm. Blue threaded through the brown flow and spilled into the sump in narrow, wavering lines.

"Kai," Nia said.

He swung one leg over the opening.

His bad ankle hit the rail instead of the next bracket. Pain took his balance. He caught the grate with both hands and hung for a second with his chest pressed to the concrete rim.

Below, Nia left the lunch box against the far wall and reached up.

"Don't jump," she said.

"I was not planning to."

"Then stop moving like you are."

He found the next rail bracket with his good foot. The metal flexed but held. Water hit the back of his neck and ran down inside his collar. His injured ankle scraped concrete as he lowered himself one careful step at a time.

The blue threads reached the rail above his hand.

Kai moved faster.

The final bracket was missing. He had to let go.

Nia caught his jacket at the shoulder as he dropped. His good foot hit first. His injured foot came down a beat later and buckled under him. He landed on one knee in water that reached halfway up his shin.

The impact drove a sound out of him before he could bite it back.

Nia kept hold of his jacket until he stopped shaking.

"Can you stand?"

"Not yet."

"Then don't."

Above them, the blue light climbed the inside of the sump.

Kai looked up.

The fob still hung beside the valve. It was almost hidden now. Blue light covered the cord and the wire guard in a solid sheet. The red cord stretched once, then went slack.

The fob was gone.

No sound marked it. No flash. One moment it had been there; the next there was only the empty loop of cord tapping against the guard.

Kai's palm burned hard enough to make him fold it against his chest. The pull toward the fob was gone. The debt was not.

The fob had drawn the first pull. It had not shut down the scan. Blue light still followed the open fire line, moving with the water into the sump after them.

Nia looked toward the low opening behind the red pipe. "There."

The opening was less than three feet high and half full of runoff. Blue threads already skimmed the surface inside it. A cracked metal plate had been bolted beside it.

MANUAL RISER

RESET VALVE

Kai leaned against the wall, breathing through the ache in his foot.

The valve sat beyond the opening, large and red, with a square steel handle held in place by a corroded pin. It was too far away to reach without crawling through the blue water.

Blue water curled around their boots.

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