The System Can’t See Me

The scrape stopped.

Kai listened for it to start again.

Nia stood beside the rail with one shoulder against the wall. Her remaining boot hung open around her ankle. The unlaced tongue had folded under the cuff of her jeans, and the heel kept slipping sideways whenever she tried to put weight on it. Her other foot was bare, gray with dust and streaked dark where the skin had split.

The blue ring around that ankle was brighter than it had been a minute ago.

"Is it moving?" Kai asked.

Nia did not look down. "It is pulling."

The blue band on Kai's right arm tightened at the same time. The red cord took the strain before he could move. One of its frayed strands brushed his sleeve like a loose thread.

Across the sump, the lunch box gave a soft tick against the wall. The belt still crossed the lid. The black bootlace still ran from the buckle frame to the handle. Neither looked strong enough to trust, but the corner gap had not widened again.

For the moment, that was all they had.

Nia lifted her heel from the floor.

The ring of light followed the motion rather than staying on the concrete. It clung to her ankle, then drew into a narrow band pointing toward the floor grate. Her body leaned after it.

Kai reached for her with his left hand. "Get against the wall."

"I am trying."

She pushed her shoulder harder into the concrete. Her loose boot slid. The bare foot skidded across a dry patch and stopped just short of the blue runoff entering the grate.

The ring tightened.

Nia's breath caught. She grabbed the rail above Kai's tethered arm with both hands. The scrape beyond the inner grille began again, slow and ugly, metal dragging across concrete somewhere past the first bend.

Kai could not see it. He could only feel the sound in the rail and the pull in his own shoulder.

Nothing rose through the grate. The trapped boot stayed where it was. The blue runoff only trembled in its shallow channel, then kept slipping between the bars as if the sound below had not happened.

That should have made him feel better. Instead, it left him waiting for the part he could not see.

"It isn't coming through," Kai said.

Nia kept both hands on the rail. "Then why is it pulling us?"

"I don't know."

The blue line on the floor reached the grate. A second thread peeled from it and crawled along the rim, tracing the rusty edge beneath the crushed boot. Nia's ankle jerked toward it.

Her hands slipped on the rail.

She caught herself before she fell, but the move pulled her shoulder away from the wall. Her loose boot turned under her heel again. Kai saw her look down, measure the strip of concrete between her bare foot and the runoff, then set her jaw.

"Do not try to jump it," he said.

"I was checking where I can land."

"There is nowhere."

"Then keep holding on."

Kai caught the back of her jacket with his left hand. The motion pulled the Archive copy loose inside his own jacket. The plastic sleeve pressed against his ribs, then slid downward under the zipper.

He trapped it with his elbow and held on to Nia harder.

"Do not let go," she said.

"Not planning to."

Her bare foot moved an inch. The ring around her ankle flared blue-white, making each small loss of footing harder to stop.

Nia braced the loose boot against the wall and tried to push back.

The boot came off.

It happened without drama. Her heel slipped free, the wet boot rolled across the concrete, and the blue runoff caught it by the toe. For a second it bobbed in the shallow current near the grate. Then it turned sideways and wedged against the outer bars beside the first boot's crushed toe.

Nia was barefoot.

Her exposed heel came down on grit. A fresh line opened across it, and she sucked in a breath. The blue ring stayed tight at her ankle, pulling her in the same direction as before.

Kai tried to shift his good foot under himself so he could give her more of his weight. The rail stopped him. The red cord cut into the numb part of his arm, and the pull went straight into the shoulder he had already damaged in the crawlspace.

He could not reach the grate. He could not reach the lunch box. He could only hold on to Nia's jacket and keep the Archive copy from falling out of his own.

She made a sound through her teeth and nearly went down with it. Kai pulled her jacket toward the rail. His shoulder tore hot under the red cord. The cord stretched across his forearm, and another red fiber snapped near the knot.

The rail held.

Kai did not have room to be grateful. Nia's weight dragged his left arm straight. His fingers had a fistful of damp jacket, nothing more. If she slipped toward the grate, he would either follow her with the cord cutting into his arm or let her go.

"Put your knee down," he said.

"On what?"

"The dry side. Left of the rail."

"There is no dry side."

He looked past her. She was right. The runoff had spread into a dull blue smear around the base of the wall. It was thin enough to miss in the bad light and wide enough to touch if she chose the wrong place.

Nia twisted, trying to find a foothold without putting her bare sole into it. Her right knee struck concrete. Her left foot caught behind the vertical rail, toes curling around the base like that could give her purchase.

The blue ring rose to the bottom of her calf.

Kai felt the answering tug in the band around his arm.

She stopped pulling straight back long enough to turn her body with the force. The movement brought her shoulder beneath the rail. She hooked her left elbow around the vertical rail below Kai's tethered arm, pressed her back to the wall, and used the metal as a brace.

The line at her ankle pulled again.

This time the rail took most of it.

Nia's head knocked against the concrete. Her eyes shut, but her elbow stayed hooked around the rail.

Kai loosened his grip on her jacket by one finger at a time. He could not let go completely, not while her feet were still close to the runoff, but the rail was holding her now.

The line around Nia's ankle climbed no farther. It held at the bottom of her calf, bright enough to show through the water on her skin. She pressed the side of her face to the wall and waited until the shaking in her bare feet slowed.

"You all right?" he asked.

Nia opened one eye. "I am trapped in a basement drain with no shoes. What do you think?"

"Fair."

For a few breaths, they stayed where they were. Kai pinned the Archive copy against his chest with his elbow. Nia leaned into the rail, bare feet folded awkwardly beneath her. The red cord and the blue line around her ankle both trembled under their separate loads.

Across the sump, the lunch box clicked once.

Nia's eyes went to it.

"Do not," Kai said.

"I was looking."

"Look from here."

"That is the plan."

The box did not move again. The thin blue leak kept heading to the grate, but the bootlace stayed taut over the buckle frame. The two loose boots had formed a crooked black shape against the iron bars. One was crushed below the grate. The other was caught above it, soaked through at the toe.

Neither was going to help them walk.

The scrape beyond the inner grille stopped a second time.

Nia's ring dimmed by a shade. It did not release her. The blue band around Kai's arm eased just enough to let him breathe without the cord biting deeper.

"It changed when the sound stopped," Nia said.

"Maybe it changed because you got leverage."

"Maybe."

She did not sound convinced. Neither was he.

Kai looked down at the red cord. Two fibers had broken near the knot. The rest were dark with water and pulled tight enough that he could see their individual twists.

"The cord is worse," he said.

"The shoe is gone. The box is still held. We have made excellent progress."

She kept her eyes on the red cord as she said it. Her fingers tightened around the rail.

"Don't say that yet," he said.

Nia's mouth moved, almost a smile. It disappeared when her jacket pocket crackled.

Both of them went still.

She reached inside with her free hand and pulled out Mateo's audit summons. The paper was creased and damp at one corner, but the central block of text was dry. The blue light did not come from the page. It came from a thin line beneath the letters, bright enough to show through the paper.

Nia held it away from her body.

Her trace tightened as the paper cleared her jacket. Kai could not tell whether it had reacted to the summons or to the scrape beyond the grille. The page lay limp and cool in her hand, unchanged except for the thin blue line beneath the printed words.

The line sharpened.

WITNESS HOLD: DEFERRED

Below it, new words appeared one letter at a time.

PROXIMITY EVENT RECORDED

Kai read them twice.

"What does that mean?" Nia asked.

"It recorded that something was close," Kai said. "That is all I have."

"That is not an answer."

"No."

The text faded before either of them could do more than stare at it. The paper went gray again. The scrape beyond the inner grille did not start up.

Nia folded the summons along its old crease and shoved it back into her pocket.

"It recorded us," she said.

Kai looked at the grate. The blue runoff continued disappearing between the bars. Somewhere beyond the first bend, the locked gate kept whatever was making that scrape on the other side.

"Maybe. Or whatever is still behind the gate."

Nia glanced at the thin red cord around his arm, then at the box held by a belt and a shoelace.

"Same problem," she said. "We are still here."

Above them, the empty pipe hanger gave one long metallic groan.

The lunch box shifted against the wall.

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