The System Can’t See Me

The water crossed the lip while Kai was trying not to breathe too hard.

It came in as a thin sheet, no higher than the ridges in the concrete. Blue light slid over the floor beneath Nia's folded ankles and broke around the blood she had left there.

Nia lifted both feet at once.

Her shoulder struck the red pipe.

The Archive copy shifted under her jacket. She caught it with her scraped palm before the plastic sleeve could scrape along the wet floor.

"It's inside," she said.

Kai heard the water before he could see it. A shallow run beneath the small sounds of the crawlspace: his breathing, Nia's sleeve, the plastic pressing into his shoulder. He kept his cheek to the wall and looked back as far as his neck allowed.

Blue water had covered the entrance behind Nia's calves.

It did not rush. That made it worse. There was no moment to spend fighting a wave, no clean point at which they could say the floor had changed. The thin sheet kept arriving, feeling its way around the grit and the low places in the concrete.

It carried fragments of gray mortar with it. One small piece tapped against Nia's ankle and spun away. Another caught in the crease of Kai's bent knee. The water was too shallow to carry weight, but it found every part of the floor they had been using to brace themselves.

Nia held the copy against her ribs with one arm and kept her feet off the ground with the other hand braced behind her.

"Can you move forward?" Kai asked.

"Not past you."

His bent legs filled the center of the crawlspace. The bad ankle lay twisted behind his other knee. The moment he tried to pull it tighter, pain climbed through his shin and stopped beneath the box on his shoulder.

"Then move at my hip," he said.

Nia looked toward the yellow plastic pressed against him.

"There isn't room."

"There has to be enough."

Her eyes held his for a second. The answer she did not give sat between them: there was not.

Her supporting arm gave. Her left foot slipped down until the sole touched the water.

Nia pulled in a breath through her teeth. Her knee jerked, and the muscles in her calf locked.

She set her heel down anyway.

The water covered the cut.

Her face went still.

Kai knew that look. It was the one she used when the pain had become too large to speak around. Her fingers tightened over the Archive copy until the plastic sleeve creased. The water made a faint, slick sound around her heel. She did not pull it away again.

Kai shifted his good knee toward his chest. The movement dragged his bare heel across concrete and turned his bad ankle a fraction. Pain broke hard enough through him that the lunch box scraped against his shoulder.

Nia froze.

The box did not slide. It only settled into him again, a hard reminder of where it was.

The pressure ran from the top of his shoulder into his neck. He kept his chin low so the box could not catch it if it moved again. His ribs were already working around the weight with every breath. Moving his knee had bought them less than an inch and charged him for all of it.

Kai waited until the white blur at the edge of his sight cleared. His left hand lay against the floor beneath his chest, palm open. He could not close it around anything. He lifted it an inch and used the back of his fingers to push at his own thigh.

"Now," he said.

Nia moved.

She turned her hips toward the wall and tried to slide into the narrow space Kai had opened. The red pipe caught the back of her jacket. She stopped halfway, one shoulder trapped, her feet in the water, the Archive copy pressed under her chin.

Kai heard the plastic sleeve drag against the inside of her jacket.

"Wait," he said.

"I am waiting."

"The copy."

"I have it."

She did. Barely. Her scraped palm was flat over the sleeve, and the other hand was twisted behind her to keep her from dropping into the water. Her elbow shook against the concrete.

Water crept under her heel and along the outside of her ankle. She could not lift the foot without losing the little balance she had.

Kai pushed at his thigh again.

The bad ankle protested. His shoulder answered a moment later, the lunch box biting down above his collarbone. He kept moving the knee anyway, not far, just enough for Nia to clear the angle of his hip.

Her jacket tore with a soft sound.

The Archive copy slipped free.

Nia caught one edge.

The other edge landed against Kai's bloody left palm.

For a second neither of them moved.

The paper was cold through the plastic sleeve. Kai could not close his hand around it. He flattened his palm as best he could and held the loose corner against the floor beside his ribs.

Blood spread across the outside of the clear plastic sleeve in a thin red fan.

"Don't let go," Nia said.

"I can't hold it."

"Then press." Her voice broke on the word, then steadied. "Just press."

Kai pressed.

The split in his palm opened again. His fingers trembled against the sleeve. The box forced every breath shallow, but he kept the corner down while Nia pulled herself one more inch forward.

Her shoulder scraped under the red pipe. She made a small sound and got her elbow past Kai's hip.

The copy dragged across his hand.

Nia gathered it under her jacket again, this time higher against her chest. The bottom corner of the intact plastic sleeve was wet with blood. A narrow blue smear crossed its outside where the runoff had touched it, but the pages inside remained dry.

She did not look at them. Opening the sleeve would put the papers on wet concrete, so Nia held it tight against her chest.

The torn edge of her jacket darkened where it touched the sleeve. Kai watched her fingers settle around the packet and left it alone.

Nia settled on her side in the small space beside Kai's hips. One knee was still behind his legs. The other had made it forward, pressed against the wall below the red pipe. Her feet were no longer in the deepest part of the runoff, but water still ran around one ankle.

Her toes flexed once against the floor, then went still. The wet denim at her calf clung to the marked leg. She held the ankle off the lowest groove as long as she could, using the wall for balance, but the position made her knee shake against Kai's thigh. The only way to ease it would have been to move back into the water.

Kai felt the shift in every part of the crawlspace. Nia's hip had stopped against his lower back. Her forward knee pinned the hem of his jacket against the wall. The red pipe kept her shoulder low, so she had to hold the Archive copy high and close, leaving no hand free for either his wrist or the lunch box. The small space they had made was already occupied by the cost of using it.

Water touched the back of Kai's calf and ran around the torn skin at his heel. He did not move the foot. The bad ankle was wedged badly enough that trying would only drive his knee into Nia's ribs. He kept his leg still and listened to her breathing change whenever the pipe pressed deeper into her shoulder.

The move gave Kai a little more room behind his knees.

It took away the last clear space at his hip.

He could no longer move his good leg without pushing into her ribs.

"Are you clear?" he asked.

Nia let out a breath that shook at the end. "Clear enough."

The words sounded wrong as soon as she said them. She looked at the water around her ankle, then at the lunch box pressing into Kai's shoulder.

"Sorry," she said.

Kai did not answer right away. His right wrist had shifted when he moved his knee. It had slid a little farther under his ribs, trapped between his side and the wall. The blue band lay against his shirt, cold enough to make the skin beneath it ache.

He could not see it without turning into the box.

He could not reach it with his left hand. The hand still held a red smear in its palm and refused to fold.

"Don't be," he said.

Nia's eyes moved to his left hand.

"The copy?" he asked.

She pressed her forearm tighter over the sleeve. "Still here."

"Can you keep it off the floor?"

"I'm trying."

The answer came out tired, not sharp. Nia shifted the sleeve higher under her chin and used the side of her face to hold it while she adjusted her scraped palm. The movement drew another breath through her teeth when the pipe pressed into her shoulder.

Kai wanted to take the copy from her. His left hand lay useless against the floor. Even if it had closed, he would have had to reach past the box and the blue line at his ribs to get there. He left the thought where it was.

The water continued under them.

It spread slowly around the low edge of the box, not deep enough to lift anything, only enough to make the grit dark and slick.

Nia's knee trembled from holding her ankle above the lowest groove. She pressed it against Kai's thigh until it stilled.

Kai tried to shift the weight off his shoulder.

The lunch box scraped.

Nia's hand came up at once, stopping short of the plastic.

"Don't," she said.

He stayed where he was.

The scrape stopped. The box remained against his shoulder. His right wrist stayed beneath his ribs. Nia kept the Archive copy dry against her chest as well as she could, with water circling one ankle and blood darkening the bottom of the sleeve.

The water covered the mouth behind them. Ahead, a short patch of dry concrete showed beneath the lower lip of the box and ended at the blocked bend.

Kai could not reach it.

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