The System Can’t See Me

The lunch box moved again.

Kai heard the plastic scrape before he saw it. The sound came from the bend ahead, low and rough against concrete. The blue light under the box shook across the floor, then settled into a thin pool beneath one corner.

He stayed on his right side with his cheek against the wall.

Nia lay behind his bent legs, facing the crawlspace mouth. Her breath was quieter now. That did not mean she was resting. It meant she was trying not to move her heel against the grit beneath it.

The red pipe pressed into the back of her shoulder. The Archive copy made a hard rectangle under her jacket where her forearm held it in place.

"Did it come closer?" she asked.

"A few inches."

Kai watched the gap between the box and a broken line in the concrete. He did not trust himself to give her a useful measurement. The box had been caught across the bend for too long. Now its lower corner had slipped off whatever had held it. The base sat at a new angle, aimed down the slight slope toward him.

Nia was quiet for a beat. "Can it fit through the mouth?"

"It'll reach me first."

Kai looked at the cramped space between his chest and the box. If the lunch box cleared the bend, it would not roll neatly into the mouth. The crawlspace narrowed around it. It would strike his shoulder, jam against the wall, and leave them pinned behind it with the cracked lid somewhere near his face.

"It'll jam on my shoulder."

Nia's fingers tightened once in the fabric at his back.

The box scraped again.

A broken ridge of concrete crumbled beneath the box's lower corner. The base tipped down the slight slope toward him.

The faded yellow side emerged from the bend. The crack in the lid stayed high on the far edge, tipped away from him. Blue light seeped down the plastic and collected underneath.

The lower edge was close enough to reach. The lid was still too far forward and too high to risk. Kai could not see what lay behind the box, and he did not need to. The valve was beyond it. The passage was blocked. Nothing had changed except the distance between the plastic corner and his face.

Kai's left hand was still wrapped around his right wrist. The forearm trapped between his chest and the wall had begun to ache in a different way, deep and numb. He could keep it close while he held on. He could not reach the box at the same time.

"I need my left hand," he said.

Nia did not answer immediately.

"Your right arm is wedged," she said at last. "Can it stay there?"

"For a few seconds."

"Then that's all we have."

She sounded calm because there was no room for anything else. Kai respected it more than reassurance.

He kept the breath small and low.

The first draw hurt under his ribs. The second made his shoulder throb. He did not expect either to fix anything.

Breathing had never made pain disappear. It only gave him four seconds before the pain crowded out everything else.

He counted the air leaving him.

One.

His right forearm pressed against his sternum and the concrete wall.

Two.

Nia moved one hand from the back of his jacket to the outside of his left elbow.

Three.

The box slid another inch.

Four.

Kai let go of his right wrist.

The arm tried to pull free at once. His shoulder twisted. The wall caught his forearm before it could swing toward the mouth, but the force drove pain through his chest hard enough to blur the concrete in front of him.

For a second, the blue band on his wrist was hidden under his own ribs. Then his arm found a little space and pressed outward again. The concrete stopped it, but only by forcing his shoulder farther forward. Kai kept his cheek against the wall. If he lifted his head, he would lose the narrow line of the box's lower edge.

Nia clamped down on his left elbow.

"Now," she said.

Kai reached forward with his left hand.

The lunch box came toward him at the same time.

He did not touch the lid. He did not touch the blue light leaking from the crack. His palm hit the lower corner, where the plastic was cold and ridged under old dirt.

The box did not stop.

Its weight shoved his hand backward. His wrist folded. The base scraped over his palm until his fingers found the concrete ridge at the side of the passage.

His middle finger bent back against the ridge. The joint gave a dull, sick pressure, not a clean break. Kai tried to spread his hand anyway. There was no room for his palm to lie flat. Every adjustment put more of the box's weight on one knuckle or another.

Kai braced his left forearm against the floor and pushed.

For an instant, the box balanced on the heel of his hand. The corner of its base bit under his thumb. The faint blue light stayed beneath the cracked lid, separated from his skin by dirty yellow plastic and the narrow strip of floor he was trying to keep between them.

Then the box settled again.

The motion pulled his injured shoulder again. His right arm strained against the wall. He felt it begin to slide across his chest, slow and ugly.

"Kai," Nia said.

"I have it."

He did not. The box was small enough to carry under normal circumstances. The corner still drove his palm into the concrete whenever it crept forward.

His fingers began to slide.

The floor was damp with old grit, though the blue water had not reached them yet. Dust pasted itself to the sweat on his wrist. Kai tried to curl his fingers around the underside of the corner, but the plastic offered no grip. His thumb shook once and went numb to the first joint.

Nia moved behind him.

There was no room for her to get beside him. She could only reach over his hip and along the floor, flattening herself against the concrete. Her palm landed over the back of his left hand, well below the cracked lid and blue seam.

The Archive copy stayed under her jacket. Kai could hear the sleeve crinkle as she held it tight with her other arm.

The movement dragged her bad heel over the grit. Her breath broke once. The blue ring behind her knee brightened through the torn denim, then went dull again. It gave her no warning and no help. She kept her palm where it was.

Kai felt the tremor in her hand. It was not weakness. She was holding herself still against the red pipe, the Archive copy, his weight, and the lunch box all at once. He wanted to tell her to put the copy down somewhere safer. There was nowhere safer. The crawlspace floor ran only from the flooded mouth to the box.

"You can move back," Kai said.

"No."

"Nia, the copy."

"It's dry." Her fingers pressed harder across his knuckles. "Keep the corner down."

There was no room in her voice for him to make the choice for her. Kai felt the pressure of her hand, small and shaking against the larger weight of the box, and pushed with what remained of his left arm.

Together, they stopped the box for half a breath.

The lower edge caught against the cracked mortar ridge.

Kai's knuckles were still beneath it.

The box settled.

Pain went sharp through his left hand. He made a sound before he could swallow it. Nia's palm pressed harder over his, trying to keep the corner from taking more weight.

"Can you pull your hand free?" she asked.

Kai tried.

The box shifted a fraction, pressing harder across his knuckles.

Kai flexed one finger. The movement reached him late and weakly. He could feel the cold plastic across the back of his hand, the grit under his palm, the separate throb in his torn heel behind him.

His ring finger answered. His little finger did not. He could not tell whether that was the pressure or the cold. He did not try a second time. The first pull had shifted the weight, and he had nowhere else to take it.

"No," he said. "If I pull, it moves."

Nia's face was close to his shoulder, pale beneath the dirt. "Then we keep it braced. Can you feel your fingers?"

"Barely."

Her expression tightened. His left hand was still trapped under the box.

His right forearm moved against the wall.

Kai's breath caught.

Without his left hand around the wrist, he could not correct it. The wall and his chest still kept the arm close, but his shoulder was already shaking from the effort. Nia had one hand over his trapped knuckles and one arm locked around the Archive copy. She could not reach the blue band without leaning past him into the box.

"Keep the box from shifting," Kai said.

Nia looked from his trapped hand to the right arm pinned against the wall. "I can't hold both."

The box gave a small settling sound beneath their hands.

Kai looked at the bent outline of his left fingers and then at his right arm trapped against the wall. A faint blue shine lay under the box, pooled in the dirt. It did nothing but make the narrow space look colder.

His shoulder shook again. The wall held the right forearm close, but he could feel the pressure changing by degrees. He could not reach back for the wrist without taking Nia's hand off the box. He could not ask her to do it. She would have to lean over his ribs, past the cracked lid, with no place to put the Archive copy.

He took another low breath and held it.

"The box."

Nia did not argue.

She shifted her palm until the heel of her hand pressed against the box's lower edge and her fingers covered Kai's knuckles. Her injured heel scraped behind her, but she stayed where she was.

Kai adjusted only enough to put his forearm more firmly against the floor. The effort pulled at his ribs and made his bad ankle drag against the concrete. Nothing improved. It only gave the box one less chance to settle forward before he lost the strength to hold it.

Kai let the right arm drag a fraction farther across his chest.

The movement sent white pain through his shoulder. His left hand remained trapped under the lunch box.

For the moment, neither thing moved enough to crush them.

Outside the crawlspace mouth, blue water ran quietly across the floor they had lost.

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