The System Can’t See Me

The click did not come again.

Kai waited for it anyway.

He kept his eyes on the low opening beneath the red pipe until they watered. The crawlspace mouth held only darkness and a weak blue reflection on the concrete. Somewhere around the bend, the lunch box lay across the passage with his belt under it and Nia's lace gone around the handle. The valve was farther in. The last sound had come from deeper than the box.

Nia stood with one shoulder against the wall beside him. She had folded her arms, not because she was cold, Kai thought, but because neither of them had a good place to put their hands.

"You turned it all the way shut?" she asked.

"The reset valve?"

"What else is in there?"

Kai looked at the opening again. "I didn't count turns. I kept going until it stopped."

Nia nodded once. She did not say that a stopped wheel could still move later. She did not have to.

Water made a quiet ticking sound somewhere near the floor grate.

Kai shifted his gaze. The boot caught above the grate hung at the same angle as before, its toe pressed against the metal. A drop fell from it, struck concrete, and spread into a thin blue crescent. Another followed after a few seconds.

The blue did not run far. The floor sloped toward the drain, but the edge of the crescent had already reached the place where Nia had put her left foot.

She saw it at the same time.

"Move," Kai said.

There was nowhere to move quickly. The strip along the wall had room for them only because they had been standing almost on top of each other. Nia stepped sideways first, sliding her palm along the concrete. Kai tried to follow, and the red cord caught hard against the rail.

Pain went through his right shoulder before his body stopped moving.

He sucked in air. The blue band above his wrist tightened under the cord. His arm had been numb for so long that the sudden pain felt borrowed, like it belonged to someone standing behind him.

"Easy," Nia said.

"I'm trying."

She was already close enough to catch him with her left hand if he went down. Her right hand hovered over the front of his jacket, where the Archive copy was tucked inside. She looked at it, then at the wet concrete gathering blue at their feet.

"Give me the copy."

Kai shook his head.

"You need your left hand."

"It's dry where it is."

"So am I, for the moment."

The argument was over before he found another answer. He worked the plastic sleeve free with his left hand, keeping his elbow close to his ribs. Nia took it by the edges and slipped it under the front of her jacket, flat against her stomach. Her shirt was damp at the hem, but the sleeve stayed above it.

"If that gets wet--" Kai began.

"Then blame me later."

"I will."

That earned him the smallest lift at one corner of her mouth. It disappeared when the boot dripped again.

The crescent met the toes of Kai's bad foot.

He drew back too fast. The cord jerked. One of the wet fibers near the knot made a faint tearing sound.

Nia heard it.

"Don't pull against it."

"I know."

"You keep saying that right before you do it."

He would have answered, but the scrape beyond the drain started again.

It was not loud enough to cover their voices. It came in three slow strokes of metal against metal. The Return Gate remained out of sight around the first bend. The grate stayed still.

Nia's weight shifted toward the wall. The blue ring on her leg stayed low and dim. Kai could see the tension in her calf where she was trying not to put weight on the foot that had touched the smear by the crawlspace.

The new blue crescent widened between them and the grate.

Kai looked at the broken pipe hanger lying flat near the rail. Its rusted edge had left a brown line where Nia had dragged it. He thought about kicking it farther away, then remembered he could barely move one foot without putting tension on the cord. The bent steel took up a strip of floor that neither of them could spare.

"Take the wall side," Kai said. "If the cord goes, stay clear of the drain."

Nia shook her head. "No. We move together. Tell me before you try to pull."

"I can't promise that."

"Then tell me before you make it worse."

The blue crescent touched the pipe hanger. A bead of water slid along the metal's bent channel and stopped at the highest point. Kai watched it tremble there. His right arm had gone cold from shoulder to fingers. The cord was the only thing between his forearm and the grate, and the cord was no longer much of a thing.

Nia checked the front of her jacket with the back of one wrist. The Archive sleeve had not slipped. She nodded to herself and looked down at the floor again.

"There's a dry mark beside your heel," she said. "Then a seam. Don't put your foot past the seam."

Kai followed her pointing hand. The mark was only a pale patch in the concrete where old dirt had dried differently. The seam ran crookedly toward the drain. It was not a route. It was just a place the blue crescent had not reached yet.

"You first," he said.

"No. I need to see where your foot lands."

"You can't see it if I'm behind you."

"Then stop making this harder."

He almost laughed, and the movement pulled at his shoulder. He settled for lowering his chin.

Nia shifted the sleeve farther under her jacket, high against her ribs. Her free hand returned to the wall. She flexed the toes of her left foot once, then stopped when the witness ring gave a faint blue flicker around her calf.

Kai watched her face, not the light. "Can you do this?"

"I can take one step."

It was a narrow answer, but it was an answer.

Kai put his left hand around the rail. The metal was slick with condensation. Nia turned sideways in front of him, close enough that her shoulder brushed his chest. Her left foot found the dry patch, then stopped.

Kai tightened his grip on the rail and dragged his bad foot a few inches along the wall. That was all the cord allowed.

The knot took the strain.

One wet strand gave. Then another.

The loop around his forearm loosened just enough for his right arm to swing free and pull him sideways. His left hand lost the rail. His bad foot skidded on the damp concrete.

Nia caught the front of his jacket before he hit the floor.

The Archive copy was no longer there to cushion his ribs. Her fist closed in the empty fabric instead. Kai's shoulder struck the wall. His right forearm scraped along the rail and the blue band clamped down hard enough that black spots crowded his vision.

His left knee folded. Nia drove her hip against his and held him upright with more stubbornness than leverage. The blue crescent lay less than a foot from her bare toes. She could not step back. Kai could not take weight on his right side. For several breaths they stayed at the wrong angle, held up by the wall and the fact that neither had let go.

"Your foot," she said.

"It's under me."

"That wasn't what I asked."

He forced himself to look down. His bad foot had landed on the dry side of the seam, twisted but not in the blue. The relief lasted only until he tried to straighten it and pain climbed through his ankle.

"Still dry," he said.

"Good. Keep it there."

For a second, the drain seemed close. He could hear water slipping through the grate below the scrape. The pull in his arm tilted him toward it.

Nia planted both bare feet.

Her face went white.

"Don't let go," Kai said.

"Wasn't planning to."

She pulled him up by the jacket and pushed him back into the wall. The motion sent pain through her marked leg. The blue ring flashed to the back of her knee again, bright enough to show through the dirt on her jeans. She made herself breathe through it and kept one hand on his chest until she was sure he could stand.

Kai's right arm hung at his side. The red cord trailed from the rail in a wet tangle, still looped through the metal but no longer around him. A short piece remained caught against his skin above the blue band. He tried to peel it away with his left hand.

"Leave it," Nia said.

"It's cutting me."

"Then let it cut you for ten seconds. You are standing." She swallowed. "I need that much."

He stopped.

The blue crescent spread until it touched the mark left by his boot. It did not reach his skin. Nia had him pinned between the wall and her shoulder, and there was nowhere else for either of them to put their weight.

Behind the grate, the scrape ended.

The silence that followed was worse than the sound. Kai could hear Nia's breath against the front of his jacket and the faint crackle of the Archive sleeve under hers. A drop fell from the trapped boot and broke against the floor.

Nia looked toward the crawlspace. "Can you still feel it pulling?"

Kai thought about lying.

"Yes," he said. "Not all the time."

"Toward the grate?"

"I don't know."

That answer was true. The blue band hurt when he moved. It hurt when the scrape began. It had hurt when the lunch box shifted. The pain did not point anywhere he could trust.

Nia nodded as if he had said something useful, then shook her head at herself.

"Okay," she said. "Then we don't pretend it means anything."

Kai looked at the red cord hanging from the rail.

"It meant I wasn't falling."

"It meant you were tied to a rail that was already tearing up your arm."

"It did both."

For once, she had no quick answer.

The last loose strand of red cord slid down the rail and settled beside the pipe hanger.

Without the cord, Kai's right hand drifted an inch toward the grate. He caught his wrist with his left and held on.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!