Chapter 73: Found One

Nate kept one hand near Graveshare.

The man at the end of the aisle noticed. "Relax. Continuance." He touched the white emblem on his harness as if Nate couldn’t already see it.

"That doesn’t answer much."

"It answers whether I’m one of the things trying to eat you."

"Does it?"

The man considered that. "No." At least he didn’t pretend otherwise.

He was somewhere in his thirties, broad across the shoulders, with dust ground into the knees of his field trousers. A compact scanner hung from one wrist. The other end of a thin cable disappeared around the shelving behind him.

Nate looked past him. "Where are the civilians?"

"No idea."

"Darek Voss. Joss Merin."

"No idea." The man’s expression changed when Nate said Joss’s name. "You came in with Merin?"

"Yes."

"Then he’s probably making someone carry a chair they don’t need."

Nate lowered his hand slightly. "You know him."

"Worked two collapses with him." That was more useful than the emblem.

The stranger raised his wrist scanner. "Can you walk?"

"Yes."

"Anything broken?"

"No."

He nodded toward himself. "Come here."

Nate stayed where he was. The man exhaled—continuing Recovery Division. My team entered through the south loading annex nine minutes ago. Then the building decided the annex had never existed."

"You came in before the Tide?"

"About thirty seconds before."

"Why?"

"Because there were a hundred people trapped in a library."

The answer was plain enough that Nate moved. The aisle changed before he reached him. The shelves on Nate’s left flickered, becoming metal racks for a second, then wood again.

Kellen stopped. "Don’t touch anything when that happens."

"Why?"

"One of my people touched a desk."

"What happened?"

"It remembered somewhere else."

Nate waited. Kellen looked at him. "So did his arm."

Nate glanced at the nearest shelf and stopped walking quite so close to it.

The cable led through three rooms that shouldn’t have fit inside the library. Kellen kept one hand around it as they moved.

"What’s that?"

"Return line."

"Skill?"

"Equipment." That surprised Nate. Kellen noticed. "Continuance does disaster recovery for people who can’t solve every problem by punching it."

"I wasn’t going to."

"You looked disappointed." Nate hadn’t. Probably.

They entered an old office. Half the ceiling had been replaced with open sky and was undamaged. Replaced. Black stone stood beyond it, the same dark surface Nate had seen when the Tide hit. Nothing in Varen looked like it.

Kellen stopped underneath the intact portion of the ceiling. "You saw that too?"

"Before everything changed."

"What was there?"

"Open ground."

"Anything moving?"

"Far away."

Kellen’s grip tightened slightly on the cable. "How big?"

"I couldn’t tell."

"Guess."

"Big."

"Useful."

Nate looked at him. "You sound like Tessa."

"I don’t know Tessa."

"Probably better for both of you."

Kellen crouched beside the wall. His scanner emitted a short pulse. Nothing. He adjusted it—another pulse. A pale line appeared across the display. "There."

Nate leaned closer. "What?"

"Signal reflection."

"From what?"

"Something that still agrees with where it is." That took Nate a second.

Kellen tapped the screen. "Normal buildings give us fixed return points. Structural beams. Foundations. Utility lines. When everything around them shifts, we can sometimes use those points to navigate back."

"Sometimes."

"That’s doing a lot of work today."

Nate looked at the cable. "You anchored it outside?"

Kellen didn’t answer immediately. "No."

"Then where?"

"To one of those fixed points."

"Inside the building."

"Yes."

"If it changes?"

"We get lost." Kellen stood. "That’s why we’re walking."

They found the first Continuance worker two rooms later. She was sitting on the floor with her back against a filing cabinet. Alive. Her left hand was wrapped in a compression sleeve.

Kellen knelt beside her. "Risa."

She opened her eyes. "Took you long enough."

"Can you stand?"

"I can complain standing."

He helped her up.

Nate noticed the sleeve. "The desk?"

Risa looked at him. Then at Kellen. "You told him?"

"He asked."

"Don’t touch the furniture." Nate nodded. She flexed her fingers once. Nothing happened.

"Your arm stayed?"

"Mostly."

Kellen checked the sleeve. "The displacement ended at the wrist."

"Felt farther."

"What happened?"

Risa looked toward the filing cabinet. "It changed under my hand. My fingers were suddenly somewhere else."

"Where?"

"No clue. Cold room. Metal floor."

Nate’s chest tightened. "Did you see anything?"

"A boot."

Kellen stopped adjusting the sleeve. "What?"

"Someone standing beside the desk."

"Human?"

Risa shook her head. "I saw the bottom of a leg. That’s it."

Nate remembered the open black ground. Something enormous moving far away. A nonhuman thought tried to form. He pushed it aside. Not enough information.

Risa noticed Graveshare. "You’re Calder."

Nate looked at her. "Why does everyone know that?"

"Train survivor. Weird arm."

"Graveshare."

"That’s the weird arm."

Kellen handed her the return cable. "Stay between us."

Risa glanced at Nate. "He’s with us?"

"Until we find his people."

"Did he sign anything?"

"No."

"Then legal is going to love this."

Nate looked between them. "Do you always talk about liability while trapped inside impossible buildings?"

Risa started walking. "Only when we’re getting paid." That sounded more like a real company than anything Nate had heard about Continuance so far.

The next room contained twenty-eight people. Not current civilians. Reconstructed ones. They sat at long wooden tables reading. Some wore school uniforms. Others wore ordinary clothes. Nobody reacted when Nate entered.

Kellen stopped in the doorway. "Don’t talk to them."

"Why?"

"We tried."

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

Risa answered from behind him. "Then one followed us."

Nate looked at her. "For how long?"

"Until the room changed."

"What happened to him?"

"He wasn’t there anymore."

Nate watched a teenage boy turn a page. Ink marked two of his fingers. He was breathing. Nate could see the rise of his shoulders. One girl leaned toward another and whispered something. The second laughed quietly. They weren’t frozen copies. They behaved like people.

Forsaken Claim stirred. Weakly.

Nate stepped closer. Kellen caught his vest. "I said don’t."

"I didn’t touch."

"You were about to."

"No."

Kellen released him. "Then we’re both happy."

Nate watched the students. "What year was this room?"

Risa checked a wall calendar. "Thirty-four years ago."

"Could any of them still be alive now?"

"Probably."

That mattered. Nate didn’t know why yet.

He opened his terminal. No network. But local files remained. He photographed the room.

Kellen saw. "Good."

"You sound surprised."

"Most people see dead-history ghosts and forget they own cameras."

Nate took several more. Faces. Calendar. Classroom number. A teacher’s name written on a board. If Seris wanted records, she could have records.

One of the students looked up, directly at Nate. His eyes followed the camera. Nate lowered it.

The boy spoke. "Are you lost?"

Kellen stopped. Risa whispered something under her breath. Nate didn’t answer.

The boy pushed his chair back. "Sir?" Everyone else in the room kept reading.

Kellen pointed toward the next doorway. "We’re leaving."

The boy stood. Nate moved with them. "Wait." The voice came from behind him. Nate kept walking. "You’re not supposed to have that."

He stopped. Kellen didn’t. "Calder."

Nate looked back. The boy was staring at Graveshare. Not at Nate. At Graveshare. "What is it?"

The student looked confused. Then frightened. "You brought one back."

Forsaken Claim struck so sharply that Nate’s vision blurred.

REJECTED RESONANCE DETECTED

Another line tried to form. Letters appeared. Broke apart. Returned.

ORIGIN...

Gone.

The room shuddered. Kellen grabbed Nate. "Move."

The students disappeared. Not gradually. Tables remained. Chairs remained. Twenty-eight people simply ceased to exist. The lights went dark. A crack opened across the ceiling. Black stone showed beyond it. Something moved over the gap. Fast. Much closer than before.

Risa pulled Nate through the doorway. The room folded inward behind them. The return line snapped.

Kellen stared at the loose cable in his hand. Nobody spoke for a moment. Then Risa sat down against the wall. "That’s bad."

Kellen looked at the cut end. "It didn’t break." Nate crouched beside it. The cable ended cleanly, no torn metal, no damage. It simply stopped.

"As if the rest isn’t here."

Kellen looked at him. "Exactly."

Nate checked his field transmitter. Static. Then a pulse. Another. "Darek?" Nothing. "Seris?" Static. He changed frequency. "West Operations, Calder."

A voice broke through. "...ate?"

Seris.

Nate stood. "Say again."

"Calder?"

Clearer.

"Here."

For several seconds, he could hear nothing except background noise around her. Then: "Where the hell are you?"

Nate looked around. "Library."

"No, you’re not."

Kellen glanced over. Nate ignored him. "What does my beacon show?"

"Two hundred and eighty-six metres below street level."

Nobody in the room moved. Nate looked at the floor. "We didn’t go down."

"I know." Seris sounded angry now. Not at him. At the data. "Darek and Merin are back in the current structure. Fifty-eight civilians accounted for. Five still missing."

Nate’s stomach tightened. "Five?"

"Four civilians and you."

"Joss is okay?"

"Yes."

Kellen leaned toward the transmitter. "Tell Operations Continuance Recovery Kellen Marr and Risa Dane are with him."

Seris heard. A pause. "Continuance?"

Kellen raised his eyebrows at Nate. "She sounds thrilled."

Nate pressed the transmitter. "Two of them."

"Of course there are."

Risa whispered, "I like her." Nate looked at her.

Seris continued before he could answer. "We’re trying to establish a route. Do not move."

Kellen shook his head. "We can’t stay."

Nate relayed it. "Why?"

Kellen pointed toward the floor. A dark line had appeared between the tiles. It widened. Not a crack. Something black was growing through it—the same material as the ground outside the reconstructed ceiling.

Risa was already standing. Kellen took the transmitter from Nate. "Operations, this is Marr. We have precursor material entering the current space."

Seris answered immediately. "You can identify it?"

"No. I’m calling it that because ’black impossible floor’ sounds stupid over radio."

A different voice entered the channel. Tessa. "Describe spread."

"Fast."

The dark material reached the wall. The room’s filing cabinets flickered. Nate felt the pressure. Forsaken Claim reacted again. But this time something changed. The sensation wasn’t coming from the room. It was coming from below. One direction. Clear.

Nate looked down. "There’s something under us."

Kellen handed the transmitter back. "You can tell that how?"

Nate had no good public answer. "Same way I knew the corridor was going to change."

Kellen studied him. That wasn’t disbelief. It was interest. Nate didn’t like it.

Seris spoke through the transmitter. "Calder."

"Yeah."

"Your signal just stabilized."

"Meaning?"

"Whatever you’re standing on is giving me a fixed position."

Kellen looked at the black material. His expression changed. "A return point."

Risa stared at it. "That’s not Varen."

"No."

Kellen crouched and held his scanner over the floor. The device pulsed. For the first time since Nate met him, the display produced a clean result. Kellen read it. Then read it again.

"What?"

He turned the screen. A depth measurement. A stable one. Beneath it sat a second value.

STRUCTURAL CONTINUITY: CONFIRMED

Seris heard the result. "Send that."

Kellen connected his scanner to the transmitter. Data began transferring. West Operations went quiet. Then Tessa spoke. "That’s impossible."

Risa looked at Nate. "Nice to know professionals still say that."

Nate barely heard her. Seris was reading something on the other end. "That structure is two hundred and ninety-one metres below current street level."

Nate remembered Sector Three. The old surveys. Human construction ending at thirty-seven metres. The responses around two hundred metres.

He looked at the black floor spreading beneath his boots.

Seris continued. "Calder, whatever you’re standing on..." She stopped.

Nate waited. "Seris?"

When she answered, her voice had changed. "...it isn’t part of the city."

The black floor split open. Not down. Sideways. A narrow seam of white light appeared beneath Nate’s feet.

Forsaken Claim filled his vision.

REJECTED RESONANCE DETECTED

ORIGIN NOT WITNESSED

CLAIM UNAVAILABLE

Then, beneath those familiar lines, something new appeared.

RECLAMATION PATH AVAILABLE

Nate stared at it.

Kellen looked at him. "Calder?"

The seam widened.

And somewhere far below them, something answered.