Chapter 10

The folder lay open across Raelin’s knees, its corners soft from years in the toolbox and too many nights handled in secret.

Kiri slept on the mat beside him, one arm outside the blanket, her hand loose against the floor. Her breath snagged now and then, and Raelin’s head came up from the page before he knew he had moved.

For the third time, he found the same label on the diagram and still could not have said what it marked.

Someone had drawn the route in layers: official guide rails first, then service platforms, then the narrow gaps where an unwatched body might pass between them. The line began near the Old Freight District, ducked through Undertown’s industrial edge, and disappeared into the old stone around the base.

He read until the letters blurred, blinked his eyes clear, and read the same section again. If the old ink held anything useful, he had to find it while Kiri slept.

Her days returned to the same loop of medicine, water, sleep, and a few mouthfuls of food when Raelin pushed hard enough. When she was awake, she had to maneuver the room in stages, sitting first, standing with one hand against the wall, crossing from shelf to table to doorframe.

The tremor was less predictable. Some hours she could lift a cup by herself. Other times, she set it down and pretended she had not wanted the water anyway.

On the third morning, he brought the cup to her mouth and she pushed his wrist away.

“I can hold it.”

“Ki.”

“I can hold a cup, Rae.”

Her hand shook when he let go. Water trembled against the rim. She watched it with the severe focus she usually saved for cracked circuitry, then lifted it and drank three small swallows without spilling.

“See?” she said.

Raelin kept his hand near the cup, not touching it. “Perfect form.”

“I expect the full ten points across the board.”

“Of course. It still had water in it when it reached your mouth.”

“Barely.”

“Still counts.”

She lowered the cup to her lap first, then gave it back.

She did not ask about salvage runs, the factory, the Stockpile, or how many points the clinic had taken. Some afternoons her eyes followed him when he checked their stores, but she was too tired to turn the thought into words. Medicine, water, food, sleep.

The folder kept Raelin busy in the extra hours she slept. At first, it had been a chaos of diagrams, copied notices, corrections in different inks, and names that meant nothing to him. After enough nights of study, it became almost familiar.

He started where the route was most thoroughly mapped: the industrial edge, the Shaft service side, an inactive hatch, the outer ladder, the first platform, then the interior transfer.

He copied the route onto scrap and worked back through it one section at a time. Where the lanes were watched, he marked a detour. Where the work lights thinned, he marked the dark areas. Where his father had circled a gap in Eye coverage, Raelin circled it again.

Then he turned the scrap over and walked the route in his head without looking. Old Freight District. Industrial edge. Service side. Hatch. Outer ladder. First platform. Interior transfer. When he missed a turn, he started again.

Farther up, the details thinned. The Habitation Blocks maintenance corridors were marked in fragments. The utility tunnel descent appeared on one sheet, then vanished from the next. Beyond that came copied rosters, access warnings, credential handoffs, and notes in his father’s abbreviated hand.

The backpack was easier.

The nano-torx driver went into the side pocket, where he could reach it without taking the pack off. The compact cutter followed, wrapped in cloth so it would not tap against the flask. Water. Ration blocks. The folder, sealed against damp and slid flat along the bottom.

The rest of the gear stayed on the floor. He reached for the coil meter, then left it. The pry bars, the heavier cutter, the thick gloves. In the Steelroots, carrying too much could save him. For the climb, too much might slow him down or announce him.

When the pack was closed, he lifted it by one strap and listened. No clatter. He put it on, tightened the straps, crouched, stood, and reached overhead as if finding the next rung. He stowed the pack away, ready for tomorrow.

When he reached Lily’s level later the same day, the Technical Quarter was winding down. Half the canvas fronts were tied shut. Bench lamps still shone behind the remaining curtains, throwing hard white strips across wire spools, tool racks, and trays of sorted components. The air held its usual bite of hot metal, rosin, and old insulation.

Raelin knocked twice on the metal post.

“Shop’s closed,” Lily warned.

“It’s Raelin.”

A chair scraped back inside. Lily muttered something Raelin could not make out, followed by the quick shuffle of things being moved aside.

“One second,” she called.

When the curtain pulled back, Lily had her magnifier visor shoved into her copper hair and a dark smear across one cheek. Behind her, contacts lay heaped in one tray, a coil of red wire hung half-caught from a drawer, and a grease-rimmed cup sat behind the lamp.

“That is not the face of someone bringing me good salvage,” she greeted him.

“I’m not.”

Lily glanced past him into the corridor.

“No Spark?”

“Not tonight.”

Lily’s mouth closed on the next joke. She stepped aside. “Come in.”

“Kiri?” she asked.

“At home.”

Lily stayed by the curtain, one hand still holding the edge aside.

Raelin’s gaze dropped to the bench. “She had another bad night.”

“How bad?”

“Clinic bad. Zane helped me carry her,” Raelin sighed.

Lily let the curtain fall closed.

“What did Voss say?” she asked.

“Medication. Rest. No scavenging.” He rubbed his thumb against the seam of his sleeve. “Not much more they can do from down here.”

Lily’s mouth tightened. “Then why are you here?”

“I’m checking out a site farther than usual. Might be a day or two.” He looked up from the bench. “Can you check on her tomorrow? Maybe the day after, if I’m not back.”

“Yes.”

“She’ll say she’s fine,” Raelin said.

“Of course she will.” Lily pulled a scrap of paper from under a coil spool and found a pencil worn to a stub. “What did Voss tell you to watch for?”

Raelin looked at the paper too long.

“Rae.”

He took the pencil. “If she passes out. If the chest pain doesn’t ease. If her breathing gets worse.” He paused, then added, lower, “Last time she got cold. Shaking. Couldn’t keep water down.”

Lily’s mouth tightened, but she only nodded. “I’ll go by before I open. If she tries to wave me off, I’ll tell her I found a cracked filter housing and need a second opinion.”

“She’ll hate that you know that will work.”

“I know.” Lily tucked the note under the bench lamp. “That’s why it will work.”

Lily opened a drawer under the bench and pulled out a sealed paper packet. She set it beside his hand. “Filter tabs.”

“Lily…”

“Do not turn two filter tabs into a financial conversation.”

“Thank you.”

“Good.” She nudged the packet closer with two fingers. “Come back, loot boy.”

“I will.”

Raelin walked home, his fingers worrying the packet of filter tabs in his pocket.

Kiri was asleep when he got back, curled on her side beneath two blankets. The cup stood empty beside her mat. The medication tin was closed. One of the old manuals lay open near her hand, the page slipped half under the blanket.

He knelt by the pack beneath the table and slid the packet into a side pocket.

On the mat, Kiri shifted. One eye opened, then the other, slower and unimpressed.

“You need to work on your stealth,” she murmured.

Raelin froze with his hand in the side pocket. “What gave me away?”

“Your pocket betrayed you.”

“Bad pocket.” Raelin pulled his hand free.

“Blame the equipment. Classic.”

“Go back to sleep.”

“Bossy.” She pushed a loose strand of hair off her cheek and squinted at him. “You smell like Lily’s shop.”

“New fragrance. Burned wires.”

“Very manly. Why were you there?”

“I asked if she needed anything hauled tomorrow.”

“Shocking. Lily, helpless, waiting for you to rescue a box.” Her eyelids lowered, then lifted again with effort. “Tell her the shop makes you smell dangerous.”

“I’ll put that on the list.”

Kiri’s eyes stayed closed. Soon she was breathing steadily.

Raelin opened the medication tin beside her mat. Enough for the week, if nothing changed. He set it back where Kiri could reach it.

He turned his wrist and woke the OmniLink beneath the skin. The recent charges appeared first: clinic, medicine, food. The positive score entries from their last run had already been pushed off the list.

Morning came gray and muted, with pale light seeping through the gaps in the ceiling far above.

Raelin lifted the pack from beneath the table and settled it on his shoulders.

Kiri had propped herself against the wall, the blanket bundled around her. She watched him over the top of it, hair loose around her face, eyes clearer than they had been the night before.

“I’m checking a site farther out,” he said. “Might take a day or two.”

“That far?” Kiri’s eyes sharpened. “You’re not going outside the city, are you?”

“I’m not that desperate yet.”

“Good.”

He tried to smile. “Could be worth it.” He looked toward the door. “Don’t worry if I don’t make it back tonight.”

“I always worry when you start with don’t.”

“Ignore that part, then.”

“Gladly.” She tucked the blanket under her chin. “Be careful.”

“Always am.”

“Mostly.”

He crossed to her and kissed the top of her head. Then he knelt and drew her into a careful hug, one arm around her shoulders, the other holding the blanket in place.

“Don’t squeeze me like I’m glass,” she muttered against his shirt.

“Stop acting breakable.”

“Rude.”

He held her a moment longer before letting go.

“Zane hovers enough for three people anyway,” Kiri continued.

“I’ll see you soon,” he promised.

“You better. Someone has to keep me out of trouble.” Her smile was tired.

He smiled back, then left before she could see it fade.

The Old Freight District had barely woken. Raelin crossed it with the early workers, his boots finding the dry edges of the uneven floor by habit.

Near the Washerworks, he woke the OmniLink long enough to send Zane a quick message. Out a day or two. Can you check on Ki when you have the time? A friend is looking in too.

The reply came before he reached Undertown’s industrial edge.

I’ll look after her. Watch yourself, boy.

The three domed bases rose ahead of him from the open cavern floor, with the Shaft dominating the center. Far above, it vanished into the stone ceiling on its way to the Habitation Blocks, a column of metal and reinforced concrete threaded between the old support pillars.

Authorized workers kept to the marked lanes near the cargo platforms. Badges flashed at checkpoint posts before the gates let them through. An Eye turned above the nearest gate, following the flow of workers one face at a time.

Raelin stayed wide of the marked lanes and crossed toward the service side of the nearest base. A bundle of conduits ran down the elevator shell there, hiding a narrow strip of floor from the nearest Eye. His father’s notes had marked the blind spot.

He kept his pace even until the conduits blocked the camera, then stepped over a bolted safety rail.

A maintenance hatch sat beyond it, its paint chipped, its warning label bleached almost blank.

Raelin knew the route now without opening the folder: hatch, ladder, transfer, maintenance corridor, utility descent. After that came the parts which were less clear. Authentication protocols. Old credentials. Names marked inactive in L.V.’s hand. Not nothing, but also not enough.

The rest would not answer itself from Undertown. It needed the door in front of him, the lock under his hand, whatever old system still waited behind it. He had spent his life opening dead machines with patience, careful touch, and whatever sense the old manuals had taught him. If the notes could get him that far, maybe his hands could find the next step.

Raelin checked the lane behind him to verify he was alone, then set his hand against the hatch. The metal vibrated faintly under his palm as the massive cargo lift ascended inside the elevator body.

He pushed. The handle moved half a finger’s width and stopped. At first he was afraid it was locked, but then he closed his eyes and pushed again, feeling for the way it moved.

He had opened enough dead factory cabinets to recognize the way it snagged. A locked latch stopped abruptly. This one dragged, metal weight pressing down on hinges that had not been serviced in years.

He braced one shoulder under the hatch edge, lifted until the frame gave a dull tick, and pulled the handle again.

The release gave with a soft click.

Raelin slipped inside and pulled it shut behind him.

The passage smelled of grease and old metal. Ahead, the first ladder rose into darkness, hugging the outside of the dome.

He tightened the pack straps, reached for the bottom rung, and began to climb.