Chapter 85 – Leave It Behind

Kai drove his knee into the damaged side of the case.

The wall braced his back. His right forearm kept the broken edge from sliding toward his neck, and he held his left arm against his chest. He knew where to put his weight now. Knowing did not make his body any stronger.

The case bowed inward, then sprang back when his knee slipped.

Behind him, Nia drew her legs out of the way. She rested her crushed hand in the crook of her other elbow. Neither palm touched the floor.

"It's catching at the top," she said.

He looked up along the side he had broken. The far rim was jammed against the narrowing concrete. Pushing the entire case deeper would only drive that rim harder into the wall. He needed to collapse the near side and leave the far side where it was.

Kai moved his knee lower, into the space left by the missing corner.

The panel bent around it. This time it stayed bent.

A crack opened beneath the lid. Blue light fell across Nia's face, and the old line in his left arm tightened so sharply that he stopped breathing. Something inside the case struck its lower wall with a small, hard tap.

He pulled his knee clear before it moved again.

"Don't put your face there," he said.

Nia turned toward the wall. "Did it come out?"

"I can't see."

He waited with his cheek against the concrete until he could separate the pain in his shoulder from the deeper pull along his meridian. The pull came from the split, close to the floor. He had felt it near the core before. That told him where to keep his skin away; it told him nothing about what might happen if the case broke completely.

The creature scraped at the entrance.

Kai could hear it behind Nia but could not see past her legs. The red pipe rang once. She flinched and looked back, then returned her attention to the opening he had made.

"I can get through that," she said.

"Wait until the side stops moving."

"It has stopped. You're the one moving it."

He realized he was still pressing against the bent panel with his forearm. He eased away. The rim stayed caught against the wall; the near side remained folded into the empty part of the case. Along the floor, the gap was now tall enough for a head turned sideways.

Nia measured it with her eyes.

Kai had gone first through too many openings simply because the danger was following him. This one put her injured hands next to an exposed core. It also put her smaller shoulders through the gap before his weight could shift the case again.

"Go along the wall," he said. "Keep your hands against your chest."

She looked at his swollen ankle and then at the bent side. "If you jam, I can't pull you."

"I can still push with one foot."

"For how long?"

He did not know. She saw that in his face and stopped waiting for an answer.

Nia lay on her side with both forearms across her stomach. She set her cheek almost flat against the floor and worked her head through beside the wall. Her hair caught on the broken rim. Kai lifted the strands away with his thumb, moving slowly enough that he did not drag the cut palm across her face.

"Clear," he said.

She pushed against the floor with the toes of her left foot. Her scraped ankle shook with the effort as she dragged the injured right leg after her.

Her shoulders passed. The case rubbed over the back of her jacket, holding her for a moment at the ribs. She let the air out of her chest and slid farther without asking him to push. He watched the sleeve containing her crushed hand pass under the torn edge.

Then her hip was through, and only her legs remained beside him.

She made a muffled noise when the damaged calf crossed the grit. He stayed still. Pulling or shoving her without warning could roll her onto the hand she was protecting.

At last her bare heels disappeared around the bend.

"Nia?"

"I'm here. There's room at the valve."

The answer was ordinary enough that he shut his eyes for a moment.

"Come through," she said. "Head toward my voice."

Kai lowered himself almost onto his stomach, tipped toward his right side. He tucked the bound wrist against his stomach and put his left forearm beside it. His fingers could not hold the arms together. He had to keep them there with his chest and elbows as he eased his head into the opening.

The broken side hung close to his temple.

Blue light showed through a split above him. He turned his face toward the wall and pushed with the toes of his less injured foot. His head passed under the case. His right shoulder followed. The left met the folded panel and stopped.

He could hear Nia breathing beyond the bend.

"It's my shoulder," he said.

She moved closer but did not reach for him. "Can you turn farther onto your side?"

"A little."

"Do that before you push."

He rolled the rest of the way onto his right side, bringing his injured left arm uppermost. The movement drew the wounds along his waist over the concrete, and his eyes watered so badly that he lost the gap. He waited for one breath, then another. The case pressed against his upper arm instead of the joint.

He pushed.

His shoulder passed beneath the folded side with a slow scrape. The case shifted behind him. He felt its edge drag down his ribs and stop at his hip.

A hard object clicked against the floor.

Kai's left meridian clenched. For an instant the old pain filled his arm so completely that he could not feel his hand. He stopped with his face against Nia's bare knee.

She looked past him.

"There's something behind you. By the split."

He could not turn enough to see it. His body was still half beneath the case.

"Small?"

"Dark. Blue lines inside it."

The core had slipped out.

He remembered it on the shelter floor, threaded with a mark too regular to have grown there. He remembered the projector failing when it moved. For all the damage it had caused, it had also been proof that the monsters and the System were connected.

The Archive copy was gone. The summons was gone. Now the core lay within reach of a hand that could not pick it up.

Nia kept her forearms against her stomach. "We can't carry it loose."

Kai stared at the concrete beside her knee.

He had no container. No working grip. Nothing left to wrap around it that would make contact safe. Getting his shoulder clear had already taken more strength than he could count on having again.

"Leave it," he said.

Nia looked at him for a moment, then shifted her knees aside.

He drew his hip out from beneath the case. His ruined jeans caught and tore loose at the edge. By the time his feet passed through, he was shaking too hard to help Nia guide the bad ankle over the floor with her forearm.

She settled it beside his other foot and leaned back against the wall.

Neither went back for the core.

They had reached the shallow pocket around the reset valve. Kai recognized the square steel handle against its stop and the maintenance tag beneath it. The valve was still closed. A slow drip struck the floor below the stem, ordinary water darkened by rust before it joined the blue seep behind them.

There was enough height to sit with their heads bent. For the first time since Nia's hand had gone beneath the pipe, they could face one another without twisting through somebody else's injuries.

Kai tried to straighten his back. A tremor ran through him, and he lowered himself against the wall instead.

Nia looked down at her hands.

"I don't want to look at those fingers anymore," she said.

He knew which ones she meant. "Then look at me."

She did, briefly. "You aren't much better."

It was so plainly true that he almost smiled. The effort pulled at his split lip. He let it go.

Through the bend came a scrape, followed by a dull knock against the case. Kai turned his head. The remaining shell blocked most of the opening behind their feet. Beyond its bent side, blue light moved over the floor. He could not tell whether the thing had touched the core or only the box.

The damaged case shifted and settled again.

They could not rely on it holding.

Nia studied the valve. "We closed that."

"It's still closed."

"I mean we don't have to do it again. We already found out what it does."

Kai took his eyes off the square handle. She was right. It had stopped the incoming flow. Turning it now might let the flow back into the sump.

He looked for something else.

Most of the pocket was concrete and pipework. Behind the valve body, low on the far wall, was a rectangular inspection cover. Its upper edge was hidden by the heavy valve casting. From the entrance, the casting and the bend had blocked the lower edge as well. Sitting beside it, Kai could see the heads of two fasteners and a thin line of dust around its frame.

There was no handle on this side.

He leaned toward it. Cooler air reached his cheek through a narrow gap at the lower corner. Faint light showed through it.

"Something's on the other side," he said.

"A room?"

"Air. That's all I know."

Nia shuffled closer on her hip, keeping her feet clear of his ankle. She bent her head beneath the valve and spoke against the cover.

"Hello?"

Her voice came back flat from the metal.

She listened, then tried again, louder.

Kai almost told her to keep quiet. The hook was already following them. He had no reason to think silence would make it leave, and somebody beyond that cover might hear a voice before they heard the thing in the crawlspace.

He put the heel of his less injured foot against the cover and knocked. The first sound was barely more than a tap. He shifted closer and struck it again, three times, hard enough to make the panel ring.

Pain ran through his scraped knee. He lowered the foot and waited.

Something knocked against the case behind them.

Then, through the cover, came a scrape of metal across metal.

Nia sat straighter.

"We're under the reset valve," she called. "Two people. We can't get back to the sump."

There was a long pause.

Kai watched the line of dust beneath the cover. A shadow crossed the light at its lower corner. Someone, or something, had moved close enough to block it.

"Move away from the inspection plate," a voice said.

It was a woman's voice, muffled by the metal. Kai could hear strain in it and the sharp sound of another person asking her a question farther away.

"There's a valve in the way," Nia said. "We can get our heads clear. That's about it."

"Do that."

They leaned back together. Kai pulled his feet away from the cover. When his right wrist slid toward the bend, he bent the elbow and pressed his upper arm against his ribs, holding the wrist against his stomach with a shaking effort.

A thin green light crossed the lower gap.

The woman spoke to someone on her side. Kai could make out only the last word.

"One."

Nia looked at him.

He knew that pause. He had heard it in the shelter when a screen gave people less information than their own eyes.

"There are two of us," she said, very clearly.

The green light stayed on her bare foot.

"I heard you," the woman replied. "My counter didn't."