The System Can’t See Me

Nia's left shin was still across Kai's bad ankle when her fingers started to slip in his shirt.

She caught herself before he moved. Her hand closed again at his hip, hard enough to pull the torn fabric into a knot. The other hand stayed higher under the lunch box, flat against his ribs where it could keep his upper body from rolling forward.

"I need to move my leg," she said.

Kai kept his cheek against the wall. "Which one?"

"The one crushing your ankle."

The answer came sharper than she meant it to. She took a breath and tried again.

"My left leg. I need it out from between yours."

Kai looked down as far as he could. Her scraped left ankle pressed against the outside of his bad one. Above it, her shin crossed his lower leg. Her right calf remained jammed against the wall beneath the red pipe, torn denim dark where the bleeding had started again.

If she moved the left shin, the pressure on her calf would be gone completely.

"Your leg will open up," he said.

"It already has."

Blood ran from the rip in her jeans in slow drops. The blue water at the mouth took each drop as soon as it reached the thin moving sheet. Kai watched it happen once, then forced his eyes back to the wall.

"Can you keep me there?" Nia asked.

"With what?"

"Your knee."

His good knee was still bent against the wall. It had been holding a small part of his weight since she pulled him back from the box. The muscle above it shook whenever he tried to press harder. His bad ankle had gone from hot pain to a deep, ugly throb that waited beneath everything else.

"I can try."

Nia did not say thank you. Her thumb moved once against his shirt, testing the fabric.

"Do not try to help with your arm," she said. "You will make it worse."

Kai looked at the left hand on the floor beside him. Dirt had packed into the torn skin at the palm. The fingers lay loose, curled only because the concrete tilted them that way.

"I know."

At the mouth, a black plate shifted against the floor.

Nia stopped breathing for half a beat. Her hands stayed exactly where they were.

The hook lay low behind the red pipe. Kai could not see its full curve. He saw only the wet metal-dark edge near the water and the hard line of shell above it. It stayed where it was.

Nia waited until the small sound from the plates had died.

"When I move," she said, "you push that knee into the wall. Do not turn."

"All right."

She shifted her hips by a fraction.

Kai felt the change first at his ankle. Nia's scraped left ankle lifted from the outside of it, dragging grit across his skin. Her shin loosened, then settled again when her balance failed.

She made a low sound through her teeth.

"Sorry," she said.

"You did not do it yet."

"I know what it is going to feel like."

Her right calf trembled against the wall. The movement darkened the fabric around the cut. Kai could not see the wound itself, only the damaged denim and the blood below it.

"You do not have to count," he said.

"I am counting anyway."

She counted once under her breath, then moved on two.

Her left knee came back toward her body. The shin slid over Kai's bad ankle. Pain flared so bright that his good knee almost came off the wall. He caught it again before his hip could follow.

The lunch box scraped across his shoulder.

Nia pulled him toward the wall with both hands. The motion stopped there. The box stayed lodged. Kai's shoulder did not drop, but the effort sent a hard pulse down the arm on the floor.

His left fingers twitched once.

He stared at them until the movement was gone.

Nia's left leg had not cleared him. Her shin now rested along the side of his calf instead of across the ankle. It gave him a little room to breathe around the joint, but she was holding herself at an angle that could not last.

"Again," she said.

Kai wanted to tell her to stop. He could hear the strain in her voice now. It was no longer hidden behind the flat words she used when she was trying to get through something.

"Your calf," he said.

"I heard you the first time."

"Nia."

"Kai, if my leg stays where it is, your ankle stays under it. Pick one problem."

He had no answer for that either.

The blue water moved against the lower lip of the crawlspace. The Archive copy had gone into that same narrow current. Kai did not look beneath the pipe.

Nia bent her left knee tighter.

This time she did not lift the shin cleanly. Her scraped ankle slid down Kai's leg, caught against the wall, and tore free. The sudden loss of contact pulled her lower body toward the mouth.

Her left foot went into the water.

Nia's breath broke. Her toes scraped at the concrete under the runoff, searching for a place to stop. There was only slick grit. Her heel knocked once against the lower lip and slid again.

Kai pressed his good knee into the wall until the skin over it burned.

Nia's hands tightened in his shirt. The upper hand kept his ribs from turning. The lower hand dragged him back by his hip. For a second, neither of them was holding their legs where they wanted them. They were only keeping the box from taking more of Kai's shoulder.

Then the slide stopped.

Her left foot remained in the shallow water, bare and turned sideways. Her right calf still rested along the wall, no longer caught under her own shin. Blood ran freely from the torn denim. Her left leg was no longer across Kai's ankle.

Kai let his bad foot settle as flat as it could against the concrete.

The relief lasted less than a second. The joint throbbed with its own weight, and the pressure of Nia's scraped ankle had left a hot line along his skin. Still, when he flexed the toes, they moved without driving deeper into the wall.

He stopped there. There was nothing else he could do with that small change.

"Are you off it?" Nia asked.

"Yes."

"Do not move it again."

"I was not planning to."

Her mouth made a brief, pained shape that might have been a smile. It disappeared when another drop of blood reached the water by her foot.

Kai saw the blood touch the blue sheet. He saw the water pull it away. The black plates beyond the pipe stayed still.

Nia followed his look and then looked away first.

"It is in the water now," he said.

"I know."

"You are standing in it."

"I know that too."

Her left foot had no boot, no sock, nothing between the scrape at her ankle and the runoff. The water moved over the side of her foot and around her heel. She did not pull it back. There was nowhere to put it that would not drag her shin across Kai again or make her lose the hold on him.

"Can you feel your ankle?" Nia asked.

Kai looked at her hand in his shirt. "It hurts."

"That was not what I asked."

He let the bad foot rest for a moment. The pain sat in the joint, dense and steady. When he moved the toes, the movement reached all the way to the end of them. It brought another hard throb, but it was there.

"Yes," he said. "I can feel it."

Nia let out a breath that sounded more tired than relieved. "Keep it flat, then. I need it away from my calf."

"It is away."

"For now. Do not make me put it back."

Her left heel slipped under the water again. She tried to pull it onto the drier concrete by the wall, but her bare sole found only grit. The effort tugged at her hips. Kai felt it in the lower hand at his shirt before she stopped trying.

"No footing?" he asked.

"There is floor," she said. "It just will not stay under me."

The right calf tightened against the wall. Nia bit down on the inside of her cheek. Blood darkened the water around her left foot in a thin cloud and thinned away along the lip of the crawlspace. She kept both hands on Kai.

Kai's good knee shook against the wall. He pressed it harder and felt the skin drag under the denim.

"Your knee is giving out," Nia said.

"It has not slipped yet."

"Keep it that way."

He almost laughed. Nothing came out. The movement in his chest made the lunch box edge grind across his shoulder, and the thought died in the pain.

Kai tried to shift the good knee higher on the wall. His jeans caught on the grit. The small movement pulled his hip away from Nia's lower hand.

"Stay," she said.

He stopped.

The hook struck the concrete outside the pipe.

The sound was not loud. It still filled the crawlspace. Nia went rigid behind him. Kai felt the tension travel through her hands into his shirt.

For several seconds, the only thing moving was the water around Nia's foot.

Kai did not ask what the sound meant. He did not think she would answer. There was no answer that would make room where there was none.

The monster stayed at the mouth.

Nia's right calf shook once. Her fingers slipped again, then caught in the fabric below the lunch box.

"How long?" Kai asked.

"Do not start doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Asking me for numbers I cannot give you."

He closed his mouth.

After a moment, she said, "I will tell you before I have to move."

Kai nodded against the wall. The gesture hurt his shoulder more than it should have.

His bad ankle lay free of Nia's shin now. His left arm still lay useless in the grit. His right wrist remained trapped beneath him. Nia's two hands kept him from sliding. Her left foot stayed in the blue runoff, and blood from her right calf reached it in dark threads.

Nia's shin no longer pressed against Kai's ankle.

Nia did not let go.

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