The System Can’t See Me

Nia pressed her cheek close to the inspection cover again.

"Then put the counter down and listen. My name is Nia. The man beside me is hurt. We need the plate off before whatever is behind us gets through the bend."

Kai could hear the effort in her voice. She had spent everything getting through the case and was trying to sound like somebody who could still bargain.

"What man?" asked a second voice beyond the cover.

"Me," Kai said.

A tool stopped scraping.

The woman spoke again. "I'm Inez. Don't touch the valve. If that test line is open, I can't take this plate off."

"It's closed," Kai said. "Square handle against the stop. I turned it myself."

"How much water on your side?"

"A little on the floor. More behind us. Some of it is blue."

The silence after that was longer.

Kai watched the gap beneath the plate. Green light swept over it, then withdrew. The cool air kept coming through, bringing a smell he had almost forgotten: hot dust from electrical equipment.

"That's collection runoff," the second voice said, farther from the cover now. "Inez, look at the fault line."

Nia shut her eyes.

Kai held his right wrist against his stomach. The band pulled toward the abandoned case and the sump beyond. It had not loosened when he left the core behind.

"There's a mark on my arm," he said. "It pulls back toward the pit. It hasn't stopped."

Nia looked at him sharply. He kept his eyes on the plate.

They were about to ask strangers to put their hands on him. Hiding the band until someone got caught in it would not make the strangers more willing to help.

"Can you take it off?" Inez asked.

"No. It's under the skin."

Beyond the bend, the case shifted with a short scrape. Nia moved her knees away from the opening without taking her eyes off Kai.

"We can hear two voices," the man outside said. "That doesn't mean there are two people."

Kai remembered the collector wearing Derek's face. He could not honestly tell the man that hearing a voice proved anything.

"Open it enough to look," he said.

A pause. Then Inez told the other man to bring the lamp.

The fastener nearest the floor began to turn. A patch of rust shook loose around its head. Kai and Nia moved their faces away as far as the pocket allowed, and the plate tilted outward at its lower edge.

White light cut across their feet.

Nia's bare heel was streaked with dried blood. Kai's swollen ankle lay beside it, bent at an angle he could no longer straighten without help. The beam climbed over both sets of legs and stopped at the blue light on his wrist.

The man with the lamp breathed in sharply.

"Higher," Inez said. "Show me their faces."

The beam moved.

Kai blinked into it. He could see part of a gray sleeve through the gap and a face above it, turned sideways to look beneath the valve casting. Inez had a deep crease between her eyebrows. The hair at her temples was white with dust.

She looked from Nia to Kai and back again.

"Beck. Two."

"The counter says a witness signature. One retrieval load."

"I can see them."

"And an unassigned collection fault. You can see that too."

The plate moved another inch. A tool scraped against the upper fastener, which Kai had not been able to reach behind the valve body.

Inez did not ask the counter another question.

"Can either of you walk?"

Nia looked at Kai's ankle before answering. "He can't. I might, with help. Neither of my hands works properly."

She lifted the crushed one just enough for the light to find it. Beck moved the beam away almost immediately.

"Don't do that," Inez said to him. "I need to see what we're moving."

Kai lowered his head. He had expected disgust, suspicion, perhaps an argument about whether he was worth the trouble. The simple fact that she needed a better look at his injuries made his throat tighten.

The upper fastener came free.

Inez and Beck lifted the plate away. It was an inspection opening, wider than it was high, with the lower lip only a few inches above the floor of the valve pocket. The valve casting obstructed the top, leaving a low gap beneath it for their shoulders. On the other side, a narrow service aisle ran beside the backs of gauges and pipe couplings. The floor there was dry.

An amber lamp blinked over Inez's shoulder.

[Auxiliary access open.]

[Witness retrieval available.]

The words appeared on a small wall display. Beneath them was a green control marked CONFIRM TRANSFER.

Beck reached toward it.

"What does it transfer?" Nia asked.

He stopped with his hand still raised. "The retrieval."

"To where?"

He looked at the display again. There was no destination beneath the button.

Nia tucked both hands against her chest. "Don't press it for me."

Inez glanced at the screen, then at Beck. "Leave it. We opened this with a socket wrench. We can take them through without signing anything."

"It will log the access fault."

"Then it will log it. Get the dragging sheet."

He hesitated, jaw tight. For a moment Kai thought he would refuse. Then he set the lamp on a coupling and went down the aisle.

Inez stayed at the opening.

"That mark on your arm," she said. "If it touches us?"

"I touched the light on her ankle. After that, it started pulling me instead. I don't know what touching this would do to you."

Inez looked at his wrist. "We'll keep our hands off the mark. Hold it against you, and tell us if you can't."

He nodded.

Nia had been looking past Inez into the aisle. "Why were you down here?"

"Water coming out of a supposedly isolated branch. We heard you while we were checking it."

She pointed at the back of a gauge without taking her eyes off the bend behind them.

"Beck wanted to close the whole bank. I wanted to know what we'd be closing it on."

The case knocked against concrete again.

Inez shifted the lamp until the beam reached the bend. A wet black edge moved in the blue light, then vanished behind the remaining shell.

She stopped asking questions.

Beck returned with a folded canvas sheet, stained white along one edge. He spread it in the aisle. Handles had been sewn into its corners; two were already repaired with thick cord.

"Woman first," he said. "She's nearest."

Nia's face hardened.

"I am coming out," she said. "Then he is. Tell me that's what you mean."

Beck looked at the counter clipped to his sleeve.

Inez took one corner of the sheet. "That is what we're doing. Nia, can you turn onto your hip? We need your legs through the opening first."

Nia moved slowly. She used her elbow and the side of her body, keeping both hands off the floor. Inez guided one ankle over the lip while Beck supported the other calf well below the wound.

Kai held himself against the wall to leave her room.

When Nia's hips reached the opening, Inez slid folded canvas beneath them. She and Beck took the handles and drew her across the low edge. Nia cried out once, then pressed her mouth into her sleeve until her torso was clear.

They lowered her onto the dry aisle floor.

Inez steadied Nia on her side while Beck eased the canvas out from beneath her hips and drew it back toward the opening.

She turned immediately to look back through the opening.

"Kai."

"Still here."

"I can see you. Come closer."

Without her beside him, there was room to move his hips along the wall. He drew his less injured knee into the space she had left, keeping his right wrist against his stomach. With short pushes from his heel, he pivoted on his hip until his bent legs lay toward the bend and his face was toward the inspection opening. He lowered his chest without putting weight on his left shoulder.

The damaged case was in plain view beside his feet. The core glowed low beside it.

A black hook slid around the case and struck the floor.

Kai pushed toward the inspection opening. His right arm dragged backward, the band drawing tight under the skin. He pressed the forearm into his stomach and used his knee again.

Inez reached for his shoulder.

"Left one's bad," he said quickly.

She withdrew her hand and looked down his body. "Can you turn your legs toward me?"

He looked back at his legs. Getting his feet toward her again would mean lifting the swollen ankle around the valve casting instead of dragging it along the floor. He could not lift it himself.

"Keep me this way. My ankle won't come around."

"Then headfirst. Beck, bring that end under his chest."

They fed the canvas over the lip and eased its folded leading edge beneath his chest. Inez positioned it beneath his left upper arm so the edge of the opening would not catch the shoulder directly. She and Beck took up the loose fabric and drew him toward them. Kai kept his right elbow close to guide his body while they supplied the pull; the torn palm stayed curled against his stomach.

Nia watched from the floor, her injured hands held against her ribs.

"His ankle will catch last," she told Beck. "You have to lift it. He can't."

The hook scraped behind Kai's feet.

He pushed with his toes. His chest crossed the lip. Inez and Beck took his weight through the canvas, drawing him outward while he kept his bound wrist clear of their hands.

For a moment his hip hung at the edge. His waist wounds pressed into the fabric. He could not get enough air to speak.

"Stop," Nia said. "Lower that side. You're twisting him."

Beck adjusted the sheet. Kai's hip came through, followed by his less injured leg.

The blue band pulled hard enough to turn his wrist away from his stomach.

"Arm," he managed.

Inez let the sheet settle beneath him. Nobody grabbed the mark. Kai bent his elbow and pressed the wrist into his own ribs until the drag stopped carrying his hand backward.

Beck leaned into the opening, caught Kai's bad leg beneath the calf, and lifted the ankle over the lip.

With his ankle clear of the lip, Beck supported both calves while Inez pulled the loose end of the canvas beneath his hips and legs. They lowered him beside Nia with his full weight on the sheet.

He lay there breathing through his mouth. Dust stuck to the wet side of his face. It was the first thing under his cheek that had not smelled of the sump in what felt like hours.

Beck turned back for the plate.

The hook struck the inside lip before he could set it in place.

He dropped one corner. The plate hit the aisle floor with a crash, and the hook scraped through the gap above it.

Inez shoved the upper edge into its frame with her boot. Beck caught the plate from the side and brought it upright. Metal rang against metal. He held it while she drove the lower fastener home with the wrench.

Something struck the other side.

The plate bowed into the aisle, then held as Beck tightened the upper fastener.

Inez pointed down the aisle. "Past the yellow cabinet. We put the pipe bank between us and this."

Beck picked up the rear handles of the sheet. Inez took the front. They moved Kai first, keeping the canvas low so his legs stayed supported. Nia followed by sliding along the floor on her hip, moving her legs with small, uneven pushes.

It was slow. Nobody told her to hurry.

At the far end of the aisle, Beck's counter chimed.

He looked down.

[Retrieval scan - registered signatures: 1]

[Collection fault: unresolved]

Nia had reached the yellow cabinet. Kai lay beside it on the sheet. Beck could see both of them without turning his head.

He tapped the side of the counter once and lowered his arm.

"It's still doing it," he said.

Inez opened the cabinet. Rolls of cloth, a sealed bottle, and a pair of scissors stood behind the glass.

"Then count them yourself."

She knelt beside Nia and took the scissors out.

Kai watched the cabinet door swing shut. On the opposite wall, an ordinary inspection board listed three numbered pipe banks. Below the chalked maintenance notes, new blue letters began to form.

[External witness located.]

[Transfer incomplete.]

Inez saw them over her shoulder.

Her hand stopped on the scissors for one beat. Then she turned back to Nia's swollen fingers.

"Show me where I can touch," she said.