Episode 257 · Bring Him In

Soles was reading the pilot terms beside Krista’s drawing when his phone lit up. It was Sunday evening. Tomorrow they would take their own ropes to the mill, and he wanted to know whether the detachment could stop them.

The message came from the number he had called before accepting Vatra.

Come to the detachment. Ask for me.

Krista read it over his shoulder. She pulled the terms free of the drawing and held out the copy.

— Take these.

— He wrote them.

— Then he won’t need long.

Soles folded the sheets. Across the table, Tesa was watching him.

— I’ll bring back what he says, he told them.

He went down the embankment to the old customs building. Through the windows he could see the cleaners eating at the long desk. The chief stood when Soles entered, then stepped aside from his office door.

— In there.

The man in gray sat at the chief’s desk with an open folder. He looked up, indicated the chair and waited for the chief to shut the door from outside.

Soles sat with his good ear toward the desk. The folded terms rested on his knee.

— We need access to inspect the breach, he said. Your chief’s put tape across it. He’s also sent you a report saying we made it worse.

— You did make it worse.

— Using power to get a woman out. Our report explains what happened.

— I have it.

The man turned a sheet in the folder. Soles recognized their own report by its file number.

— Yesterday you called it under analysis.

— It still is.

— The other one seems to have finished being analyzed.

The man slid a page across the desk.

Pilot team widened breach unassisted.

Below it were lines about the tape, the warning and the order Soles had ignored. He read far enough to find the recommendation: suspend the pilot pending inquiry. The chief’s name was at the bottom.

Soles laid the page back down.

— The man who wrote this was on the cold side. His cleaner was sitting in the street, waiting to die.

— And you brought him out.

— Yes.

— Good.

The word left Soles angrier than the accusation had. He pressed his thumb against the folded sheets until the paper edge hurt.

— Then read ours.

— I have read yours. It doesn’t make this disappear.

The man put one finger on the chief’s recommendation.

Soles could describe the rope, the false request, the signature that didn’t belong on it. Each fact would go into the folder. He had seen what happened after that.

He unfolded the terms instead.

— We close it, or we give your researchers an explanation they can verify. Every finding in the report. That was what we agreed.

— You haven’t closed it.

— We’re still working. Nine days left on our door.

— The evacuation period belongs to the town. It isn’t a guarantee of nine more days for your unit.

Soles looked down at the copy. The terms had given them a way to fail without becoming the failure themselves: show what made closure impossible, let somebody check it. He had made the others hear that part before they agreed to come.

— You can send researchers to check what we’ve found, he said.

— I can. There’s something you can do for me first.

The man drew the recommendation back toward himself.

— We have information that Varren is coming to the river.

For a moment Soles could hear the men eating outside. A spoon struck the rim of a bowl. He had been looking at the report, and now the room contained someone else entirely: Varren standing in a doorway, asking him for something he could not bear to give.

— Here?

— That’s the information.

— When?

— You’ll have to find him.

Soles sat back. The movement pulled at the cut under his left sleeve.

The channel ran beneath the houses. They had a way in, ropes to test, a man willing to hold the end. He had come to argue for that work. Across the desk, the man in gray waited for him to abandon it.

— Bring him in alive, he said.

— You sent us to close a breach.

— And I’m telling you what keeps your pilot open.

He lifted the recommendation by its corner.

— Without the pilot, this proceeds. Your team will face charges for what happened here. Not just you. The others were part of the intervention.

There it is. All their names, and my answer.

The old bargain rose easily: agree now, take the danger himself, make it safe before they heard about it. For a few seconds he could almost believe he would manage it better this time.

He flattened the terms against his knee.

— Put the new condition in writing.

— So Miss Krista can put it on a wall?

— So she can read what you’re asking her to pay for.

The man watched him. Then he pulled a clean sheet from beside the folder and began to write. Soles waited through the scrape of the pen.

— My chief can supply men, the man said. Equipment. Transport.

— The same men who supplied the rope?

— You’ll want help if you find him.

Soles kept his hands on the old terms. He wanted to take the offer far enough to learn what they knew. He also knew how easily a question could become agreement in somebody else’s report.

— I haven’t said yes.

The pen stopped.

— You haven’t said no.

— You asked for an answer from a unit. You’ll get one.

The man finished the line and pushed the sheet toward him. The written order named Varren and called for his capture. Soles looked for the threat about the inquiry. It wasn’t there. He folded the order separately from the terms they had accepted.

Outside the office, the chief was eating with the cleaners. He moved his bowl to let Soles pass.

On the walk home Soles kept to the upper side of the street, away from the warm grates. A nine stood under the cross on their door. Through the kitchen window he could see Krista’s drawing still spread across the table, held flat by Maxim’s hands.

He reached inside his coat.

The old terms and the new condition had fitted in the same pocket. Before he went in, he took them out and separated them.