The System Can’t See Me

Inez cut the sleeve away from Nia's swollen hand.

"I can cover this and keep you from knocking it against things," she said. "I can't put those fingers back where they belong."

Nia watched the scissors. "Then don't try."

"I wasn't going to."

Kai lay on the dragging sheet beside the cabinet. The floor was dry, but he could still feel runoff moving over his ankle whenever he closed his eyes. His right elbow was tucked against his ribs. Holding the marked wrist against his stomach had become a steady effort that he could not afford to forget.

Beck crouched beside him with a folded pad.

"Your side is bleeding through the sheet."

Kai raised his head enough to look. The movement made the aisle tip. He lowered it again and nodded toward the exposed wounds above his hip.

"There. Be careful of the arm."

Beck put the pad against his side. He did it awkwardly, his other hand hovering as if he expected Kai to reach up and help. When no help came, he shifted closer and held it himself.

"Tell me if I'm on the wrong place."

"You're on it."

The pressure hurt. Kai was grateful for it anyway.

Across the aisle, the inspection board still carried the new blue message.

[External witness located.]

[Transfer incomplete.]

Inez covered Nia's hand with soft padding and supported it against her body in a folded triangular cloth from the cabinet. She left the fingers as they were. The other hand remained pale and clumsy; Nia could feel parts of it now but could not make a useful grip.

"What happens when it finishes?" Inez asked, looking at the board.

"We don't know," Nia said. "Every time we accepted a route, it wanted something else."

"That's a reason not to press the button. It's not an answer."

Nia held her gaze. "It's the answer I have."

Inez accepted that with a small nod and came to look at Kai.

She did not begin with the blue band. She looked at the pad Beck was holding, the shoulder he could not raise, and the swollen ankle at the end of the sheet. Then she opened another packet from the cabinet.

"We'll cover what we can before we move you. You need more help than this box contains."

Kai wanted to ask where that help was. He was afraid the answer would be another screen.

"Do you know a healer named Mara?" he asked instead.

Inez shook her head.

"She was at a shelter. A conference hall above a loading bay."

"Which building?"

He gave her the building's name, then faltered. "I don't know how far we are from it. The route went through the station. After that, I lost track."

Inez watched him struggle.

"Tell me later," she said. "A name is somewhere to start."

Behind the pipe bank, something struck the inspection plate.

Beck looked over his shoulder. Inez held a clean pad by its corners as she laid it over Kai's torn right palm, keeping her fingers clear of the blue mark. Neither pretended the sound was plumbing.

"We can get into the service hall," Beck said. "After that, he'll have to go on the cart. We can't carry the sheet up steps."

"Bring it here first," Inez said.

Beck glanced down at the pad beneath his hand.

She took over the pressure at Kai's side, and only then did he stand.

Kai heard wheels rattle farther down the aisle. Beck returned pushing a low maintenance cart loaded with a coil of hose. He set the hose against the wall, checked both wheel brakes with his boot, and spread another folded sheet across the bare platform.

It was ordinary work, performed by a man who still looked at Kai's wrist each time it moved.

That made the help easier to trust than a promise would have.

Inez secured the dressings enough for transport. The bleeding had slowed beneath the pad, though a dark patch continued to spread through it. She wedged rolled cloth beside Kai's ankle to limit its movement. His left arm stayed against his chest, supported by the folded sheet rather than pulled into a position it could not bear.

She covered the split in his left palm too, leaving the thumb clear.

They lifted him onto the low cart by the handles of the dragging sheet.

For several seconds he could think only about keeping his right wrist close. When the platform took his weight, he let his head settle onto a folded corner of canvas and looked up at the pipes overhead.

There was space above his face.

He had to look away before the relief overwhelmed him.

Beck clipped the small counter to the cart's side. Green light passed across Kai's chest and stopped on the bandages.

[Assisted transport: target unavailable.]

Beck frowned and adjusted the counter.

"It usually takes some of the load," he said. "For an injured person."

"Will the wheels still turn?" Inez asked.

"Yes."

"Then leave it."

He did, but Kai could see the question in his face.

"I didn't get a class," Kai told him.

Beck looked at the counter, then back. "It found a man under a fallen wall this morning. I thought it was checking for a pulse."

"My class assignment failed. All I got was an error."

He thought of the office, of everyone staring through their first blue windows while he waited for a mistake to correct itself. The waiting had lasted far longer than that morning.

Beck opened the assessment screen. The level field already showed zero. He ran the scan again; the number stayed there, and an error appeared beneath it. Kai could read the display without lifting his head.

[Level: 0]

[Class: --]

[Vital assessment: no valid target]

Beck held his fingers against Kai's left wrist for a moment, just above the new dressing. He watched the counter while feeling the pulse beneath his fingertips.

"This isn't a vital assessment," he said quietly.

He unclipped the instrument and put it in his pocket.

Inez sat Nia on a low stool near the cart. Her bare feet rested on a clean folded cloth. For a few minutes nobody asked either survivor to crawl, grip, or decide where the next danger might be.

Kai could hear Nia trying not to cry.

He kept his eyes on the pipes. She had spent too long protecting him to need an audience for that now.

The familiar ache in his left palm returned while Inez checked the dressing at his waist.

It was faint without the exposed core nearby. He followed it from the palm toward the inner forearm, distinguishing it from the sharper pain in his shoulder. The old meridian was still there beneath all the other damage.

Kai let his breathing slow. He did not draw anything toward himself. There was no core in his hand, and he would not have tried to take more from it in this condition.

He watched his left thumb.

When the faint warmth reached the base of it, he tried to move it inward.

Nothing happened.

He waited until the deep ache receded, then tried again as it returned. The thumb moved a little against the dressing. A bright sting followed the movement up his arm, and he stopped.

Beck saw his face tighten. "What happened?"

"Tried to move my hand."

"Don't. She's just covered it."

Kai left the thumb still.

He could not tell how much movement would return with rest and how much depended on the warmth beneath his skin. He had only managed it once.

He wanted Mara to see that. He wanted time to try it when trying would not spend the last of him.

The inspection board chimed.

Inez looked up from the cart.

[Witness transfer available.]

[Destination: Collection intake.]

Below it, an arrow pointed toward the door at the near end of the service aisle.

Nia stopped hiding her face.

"We aren't going there."

"That door goes to the loading passage," Beck said. "It didn't say collection before."

He crossed to it and looked through the narrow wired-glass window.

His hand left the handle.

"There's somebody outside."

Inez picked up her wrench. "Who?"

"I can't see a face. Dark coat. Gloves."

Kai bent his right elbow harder. The band had begun pulling toward the door instead of back toward the inspection opening. His forearm shifted across his stomach, lifting the edge of the blanket Inez had laid over him.

"It's changed direction," he said.

Nobody asked which part of him he meant.

Nia looked from his arm to the board. The faded trace around her bare ankle showed blue beneath the new cloth at her feet.

"We brought it with us," she said.

Inez looked at the closed inspection plate, then at the near door. "Can it come through?"

"I haven't seen this one before," Kai said. "I wouldn't wait here to find out."

The person outside knocked once, with something heavier than knuckles.

Beck stepped away from the window.

Inez lowered the wrench. She had looked at the door as if the problem might be a man who could be frightened off. Kai watched her reconsider.

"Other end," she said. "West service hall. Beck, you take the cart. I'll help Nia."

"The guide says that hall is closed."

"Was it closed when you brought the hose through?"

He looked down the aisle. "No."

"Check it again. Use your eyes."

Beck went.

Nia stared at the distance to the far door. It was no more than twenty yards, but she had not stood since the pipe came down on her hand.

"My leg might fold," she said.

"We'll find out with me beside you."

Inez passed a folded length of canvas behind Nia's back, beneath her arms, and held the ends from the side. Nia leaned into the support and brought her feet under her. Her right calf shook immediately.

She sat back down before it gave.

Inez waited without pulling her up again.

Another knock came from the near door. Beck called from the far end of the aisle.

"West one's open."

Inez glanced at the cart, then at Nia. "There's another dragging sheet in the bottom of the cabinet. I'll take her on that. You take the cart."

Beck brought it over and helped Nia lower herself from the stool onto the canvas. Inez took its handles. They kept Nia's injured hand supported against her chest and her legs straight enough not to twist the damaged calf.

Kai hated watching them work around all the parts of his body and hers that could not help.

He hated the door more.

"My wrist is pulling toward that one," he said, nodding at the near end. "Keep the cart away from it."

Beck positioned the cart lengthwise toward the west door and released the wheel brakes.

The person outside spoke.

"The witness is required at intake."

Its voice came through the wired glass without urgency. It did not ask about the injured man on the cart.

Inez looked at Nia. "You don't want to go with that person."

"No."

Inez nodded once. She drew the sheet toward the west end of the aisle while Beck pushed Kai's cart beside it, slowly enough that Nia's feet did not strike the pipe supports.

They passed the inspection board.

The green arrow brightened toward the other door.

Beck kept both hands on the cart and followed Inez.

At the west threshold, he stopped long enough to lift the front wheels over a raised strip of metal. The platform jolted. Kai curled around his bound wrist and waited until the rear wheels crossed.

Then they were in the service hall.

It smelled of dry concrete and smoke. Bare bulbs lit a run of pipes overhead. Farther down, a torn curtain hung in an open doorway, moving in air that came from somewhere beyond the machinery.

Beck helped Inez draw Nia's sheet across the threshold. He checked that her feet were clear before he shut the door.

Kai watched him put a hand on the latch and hold it there.

The knocking in the service aisle stopped.

For a moment all four of them listened.

Then Inez took the front of Nia's sheet again. "Where does that curtain lead?"

"Workshop," Beck said. "There's an old freight ramp past it."

"Wide enough for the cart?"

"Should be."

"Go and make sure."

Beck set the cart's brake, walked to the curtain, and pulled it aside. After a moment, he turned back and nodded.

Inez began drawing Nia toward him.

Kai lay still and kept his right wrist against his stomach. The band was pulling. His left thumb had stopped moving.

When Beck returned for the cart, he checked the brake with his boot and bent beside Kai's head.

"The ramp turns left," he said. "I'm going to keep you level. Tell me before your arm moves."

He waited for Kai's nod, then started pushing.

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