The System Can’t See Me

The monster put its weight on the lunch box.

Kai felt it through his shoulder before he heard the plastic move. The yellow corner pressed down above his collarbone, then scraped a fraction along the wall.

He shut his eyes.

Nia's breath changed behind him. "It's moving."

"A little."

The box gave another small creak. Water moved around the hook at the mouth. The creature's plated head stayed low behind it, black shell catching no more light than wet concrete.

Kai opened his eyes again. His cheek was still against the wall. The narrow strip of floor ahead ended under the lower lip of the box. Beyond it, the bend was dark.

The box had been wedged there before the creature found them. Now the thing outside was using it without needing to understand what it was. Each time its weight came down, the cracked plastic carried the pressure into Kai's shoulder. The crawlspace was too tight for the box to swing free. It only had room to settle deeper.

He tried to tell himself it was not on his chest yet.

That distinction did not make breathing easier.

Nia's left leg lay folded along his calves. Her right knee was still behind his legs, too close to the mouth and the water. The creature did not need to fit its whole body into the crawlspace to reach that far.

"Get your other knee forward," he said.

She went quiet.

"Kai, your shoulder--"

"Get it in."

The Archive copy was under her chin, held between her forearm and chest. Her scraped hand had gone stiff around the sleeve. She could not use it to pull herself without dropping the papers lower. The red pipe held her shoulder down; Kai's hip and bent legs took the rest of the space.

"I need to move you," she said.

"You don't. Move your leg."

Her mouth tightened. She looked past him, toward the blind angle where her knee was trapped, then toward the creature's hook. The water at the mouth had already carried silt over the floor. It made the denim dark and slick around her shin.

The monster leaned again.

The lunch box shifted into him.

Pain ran through the left side of his chest. His breath caught high and stayed there. The blue-bound wrist beneath his ribs pressed farther into the wall, a cold line under his shirt that he could not see or reach.

Nia's right hand came up from the Archive copy.

"Don't touch the box," Kai said.

"I wasn't going to."

She reached toward her right knee instead, fingers finding the wet denim behind his legs. There was no clean way to pull it around him. She would have to make room by moving him, and he could not move without forcing his bad ankle or the box.

Her fingertips slipped once. The Archive sleeve knocked softly against the pipe when she tried to keep it pinned with her jaw. She stopped, drew one careful breath through her nose, and tried again.

The hook was still too close.

The creature's hook slid forward under the red pipe.

It stopped beside Nia's trapped knee.

Kai put his damaged left palm on his own thigh. The skin tore again when he pressed down. He could not close his fingers, but the heel of his hand still had enough shape to push.

He drew his good knee closer.

The bad ankle turned under it.

The pain was not sharp at first. It was a deep, spreading pressure, as if the joint had become too small for his leg. Then it caught up with him all at once. His jaw opened against the wall. No sound came out.

His left palm slid on the wet grit. He caught himself with the heel of that hand and felt the split skin open again. The shock ran up his forearm, but it held his thigh in place long enough for his good knee to stay where he had forced it.

Nia saw his body lock.

"Stop," she whispered.

He shook his head once.

The box pressed harder into his shoulder. The creature was still leaning on it. Kai could feel a slow, indifferent weight from the other side, nothing he could push back with a broken hand and a ruined angle of bone.

He did not know whether the thing wanted the box, Nia, or simply the space they were occupying. He did not have to know. It was there, and the knee behind his legs was still within reach of it.

He moved the knee another inch.

Nia pulled.

Her right leg slid across the wet floor until the hook caught the denim at her calf. The creature did not pull right away. Its hook held the denim against the concrete.

Nia froze with one hand on her own knee and the Archive copy pressed between her jaw and shoulder.

The fabric had twisted around the hook. She could feel it through Kai's legs: the pull in her calf, then the tiny recoil when she tested it and stopped. Her fingers tightened on the denim at her knee. If she let go of the sleeve under her chin, the copy would slide down between them and the water. If she kept it there, she had only one arm to work with.

"It has me," she said.

Kai looked at the sliver of wet black metal past her knee. The hook was not buried in her. That was the only good part of the situation, and it was not enough to make it good.

He set his left palm against the floor again. The grit bit into the open cut. His shoulder was already taking the box's weight. Moving his good knee farther would pull the damaged ankle under him. Leaving it where it was left Nia caught at the mouth.

Kai could not reach the hook. He could not kick it without moving the bad ankle again. He could not put his right hand on it without turning his body toward the box.

The only space he had made was the space Nia needed.

"Pull," he said.

Her eyes found his over the line of his shoulder.

The hook tightened.

Kai shoved his good knee in as far as it would go.

His bad ankle gave under the twist.

The lunch box dropped another fraction. Its lower edge drove into his shoulder and chest. White flashed through his vision. Somewhere behind his ribs, his right wrist slipped lower. The blue band scraped his skin through the shirt and left no room for him to draw a full breath.

Nia tore free.

The denim on her right leg ripped from knee to ankle. The hook scored the outside of her right calf as she pulled the leg over Kai's thighs and folded it against the wall.

She hit the concrete with her hip and made a sound through clenched teeth. The Archive copy slipped against her chest. For one terrible second, Kai thought the sleeve had come free. Then she trapped it again with both forearms, holding it high and out of the runoff.

For a moment, both of her legs were inside.

Then the creature struck the box.

The blow came through the plastic, through Kai's shoulder, through the wall against his cheek. The lunch box did not fall into the crawlspace. The narrowing held it diagonally, but it settled lower across the top of Kai's chest.

Kai bit down on his own sleeve to keep from shouting.

Nia pressed herself flat against him and the wall. The Archive copy stayed locked under her chin. Her scraped palm covered the torn sleeve. She had no hand free to touch his shoulder, and he was glad of it. There was nowhere she could press that would not make the box move.

The monster's head scraped the underside of the red pipe. It did not fit through the opening the box had made, but its hook did. The point came forward and stopped on the wet concrete between Kai's feet and the waterline.

Nia held still. Her torn right calf was against the wall now, her knees drawn tight to her chest. There was blood on the outside of the denim, but both heels had cleared the runoff.

The monster's hooked limb withdrew from the crawlspace by inches.

It did not leave.

Kai could see its red points through the gap below the red pipe. They shifted behind wet plates while its head remained close to the mouth.

Nia's legs shook against his. The new cut at her right calf bled into the torn jeans, but her heels were clear of the water now. She kept both knees bent tight, making herself as small as the crawlspace allowed.

"Copy?" Kai asked.

"Dry."

The answer came fast. Too fast. She swallowed and said it again, quieter. "Still dry."

Kai nodded because he could not do anything else.

"Your leg?" he asked.

"It hurts."

That was all she gave him. It was more useful than pretending it was nothing.

His left hand lay against the floor beside his chest. The palm had reopened. It stuck to the grit whenever he tried to lift it. His bad ankle pulsed with each shallow breath. His right wrist was no longer under his ribs exactly. It had slid below them, turned toward the concrete under his side. The blue band held it close enough to hurt and far enough that he could not find it.

The monster pressed its head against the lunch box again.

Plastic groaned.

Kai felt the box settle a little more over his chest.

Nia's forearm tightened over the Archive copy. Her shoulder scraped against the red pipe as she shifted the sleeve higher under her chin. Both feet were inside now, but the price of getting them there was written in the way she could no longer move her hips without pushing into Kai's back.

The creature shifted at the mouth. Its hook dragged back through the water, then came forward again and rested beneath the box. It paused there, making only the small scrape of something finding a place to wait.

Water ran beneath the lip of the crawlspace and around its hook. The sound filled the space between Kai's breaths.

The lunch box stayed pressed across Kai's shoulder and upper chest. Nia's legs were finally clear of the water, folded hard against him and the wall.

The monster remained on the other side of the box.

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