The System Can’t See Me

The fold broke when Kai's bad ankle cramped.

His leg kicked before he could stop it. Nia's left shin slipped off the pressure point on her right calf, and the sudden movement pulled his hip forward beneath the lunch box.

The box edge bit into his damaged shoulder.

Kai made a sound he did not recognize.

Nia's right hand caught the back of his shirt. Her fingers tightened in the fabric, but she had only one hand on him. Her left forearm was still across the Archive copy beneath her jacket.

"Don't move," she said.

He could not answer. The spasm had driven his bad ankle against the wall beneath her scraped left ankle. Pain climbed his leg, met the ruined shoulder, and turned the crawlspace briefly white at the edges.

His body slid another fraction.

The lunch box groaned above him.

Nia pulled at his shirt. It stopped his hip, but not the slow turn of his upper body. His left shoulder was already low and wrong beneath the box. If it dropped farther, he did not know what would catch first: the edge of the box, the broken joint, or the arm that no longer knew how to lift itself.

"Kai. Look at me."

He kept his cheek against the wall and tried to draw a breath that did not shake.

"I'm looking."

"You need to help me hold you."

His left hand lay open on the grit. The fingers did not close when he told them to. His right wrist remained buried under his ribs, blue band cold through the shirt. The good knee had wedged against the wall. The bad ankle was caught beneath Nia's shin.

"I can't," he said.

Nia did not argue. She tried to pull him back with the one hand she had. The Archive copy crackled under her left forearm as her body shifted against it.

Water moved at the crawlspace mouth. A thin thread had crossed the lower lip while they were fighting the fold and ran toward the space below Nia's legs. It carried grit in a pale blue line.

The monster's hook rested beyond it, mostly hidden under the pipe. Nothing about the creature changed. It stayed where it was, close enough that Nia could not lean into the mouth and close enough that neither of them could forget it.

Kai felt his shoulder slip another fraction.

Nia's right hand jerked hard in his shirt.

"I need the other hand," she said.

He knew what she meant before she said it.

"No."

Her breath caught. "Then tell me what to do."

Kai looked at the shape beneath her jacket. The Archive copy had survived the service halls, the grate, the sump, the crawlspace, every wet turn and failed hold. Nia had kept it dry when there had been no reason to believe anyone would ever read it.

It was still there because she had refused to let it go.

His shoulder shifted again.

The box edge pressed through the torn shirt.

Nia's face was close to his back. He could not see her expression, but he felt the tremor in the forearm that held the copy.

"Kai."

"Let it go," he said.

She did not move.

"Nia."

"It is the only thing we have."

"It is paper."

The words hurt to say. Not because they were true. Because they were not true enough.

The Archive copy was more than paper. It was every name and record they had managed to keep from being swallowed by the building. It was proof that something had happened to them before the System, before the blue residue, before the world had found new ways to erase people.

The lunch box gave another hard creak.

Kai's breath cut off.

Nia moved.

She pulled her left forearm away from her ribs and caught the Archive copy before it could slide free. For one second, she held the sealed sleeve between them with both hands occupied: the paper against her chest, Kai's shirt trapped in her right fingers.

Then she looked at him.

"I'm sorry," she said.

Kai shook his head once. He did not know whether he meant no or go.

Nia let the copy fall.

The sleeve hit the concrete beside her right thigh, slid through the grit, and reached the thin blue water at the lip of the crawlspace. The plastic turned once. Kai saw a pale edge of paper through it before the current caught the sleeve and pulled it out of sight beneath the pipe.

Nia put both hands on him.

One at his hip. One higher, flat against the torn shirt below the lodged box. She could not touch the shoulder itself. She did not try to set it. She only held his body where it was and pulled him back toward the wall.

"I am going to pull once," she said. "Keep your knee against the wall."

Kai swallowed. "It already is."

"Then do not let it slide."

He wanted to tell her that the knee was not a handle. It was only the last part of him that still answered when he asked it to move. But Nia had both hands in his shirt now, and the box was taking more of his shoulder with every breath. There was nothing useful in arguing about what his body could not do.

She counted under her breath to keep herself from yanking too hard.

On the third number, she pulled.

Kai tried to move with her.

His good knee scraped the wall. The bad ankle screamed under Nia's left shin. His left arm dragged across the floor without helping. The right wrist remained trapped under him, a cold weight he could not free.

His hip came back less than an inch. The lunch box creaked overhead. Its cracked corner rubbed against his shoulder, then caught. The pressure did not go away, but it stopped changing.

Nia kept both hands on him.

Her right calf began bleeding again.

Kai saw the dark line form beneath the torn denim and join the water at the mouth. Nia saw it too. Her mouth tightened, but she did not move a hand from his body.

The fold around her leg had opened when she released the Archive copy. Her left shin was still across Kai's bad ankle, but it no longer held the right calf firmly enough to slow the blood. The old scrape at her left ankle pressed against his skin. He felt the heat of it even through the dirt and wet denim.

"The copy," Nia said.

Kai listened to the thin water moving below the pipe.

"It's gone."

She pressed her forehead briefly into his back. Then she lifted it again.

The creature at the mouth moved one of its plates against the concrete. The sound was dull and close. Neither of them could see the Archive sleeve anymore.

Nia's hands remained on Kai's hip and side.

Without the copy beneath her jacket, her left forearm was free. That did not make either of them safer. It only meant she could hold Kai with both hands while blood ran from her calf and the box stayed above his shoulder.

The empty place under her jacket showed when she shifted. The fabric had been pulled tight across the sleeve before. Now it moved against her ribs with nothing inside it but damp air.

Kai watched the blood leave her leg in small, dark drops. The runoff took the drops apart as soon as they reached the blue water. He did not look for the Archive copy among them. There was nowhere to look. The pipe hid the lip of the channel, and the crawlspace gave them no room to reach past each other even if it had not.

"Your leg," he said.

"I know where it is."

"You cannot keep holding me."

Nia's fingers dug into his shirt again. "I can keep holding you for a minute."

"And after that?"

She did not answer. Her breath touched the back of his neck, slow at first and then uneven when her calf tightened against the wall.

Kai tried to lift his left arm. His shoulder answered before the hand did. Pain shut the attempt down so fast that his fingers only scraped the grit beside him.

Nia felt the movement. "Do not."

"I was trying to give you one hand."

"You did not."

There was no anger in it. That made it worse.

At the mouth, water lapped against the concrete and slipped back beneath the red pipe. The black plates beyond it did not come closer. They did not leave either. Kai could see only the wet edge of one plate and the hooked shape low behind it. He stopped trying to read either one.

Nia adjusted the heel of her hand at his hip. The change kept him from drifting forward, but it pulled her right side tight. A fresh line of blood ran from the tear in her jeans.

"Tell me before you move," Kai said.

"I will."

He waited for her to say more. She did not.

Kai felt the place under her jacket where the sleeve had been. The torn fabric lay flat against her ribs now. Empty.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Don't."

"I told you to."

"Then don't make me hear you say it twice."

He shut his eyes.

The water continued beneath the pipe. Kai did not try to picture where the sealed sleeve had gone. The torn front of Nia's jacket lay flat against her ribs. Her hands stayed in his shirt.

Nia shifted her grip on his shirt without letting go. Her fingers were slick now, either from the wet floor or the blood from her own leg. She set one hand higher along his ribs and the other deeper at his hip.

"Can you stay there?" she asked.

Kai took a shallow breath. The box still pressed his shoulder. The bad ankle still lay under Nia's shin. His left arm was dead weight on the floor. His right wrist was trapped beneath him.

"Until my ankle cramps again," he said.

He held his good knee against the wall and listened to Nia breathe behind him.

Nothing came back from beneath the pipe.

Nia's hands stayed locked in Kai's shirt.

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