Episode 263 · Two Orders

The truck blocked half the detachment gate when Soles and Krista reached it that night. Men were unloading shields beside the steps. He waited for one to pass, then sent the report they had finished at home.

Krista checked her copy. The meeting, the opening Varren had made, the strands revealed by the blades. The refusal. Their return without a prisoner.

Received.

Soles put the phone away. His sleeve was still damp from the race. Telling the truth had taken less time than walking here. Now he wanted to know what they had left themselves to work with.

Inside, the long desk had been cleared of bowls. A map of the riverside sector lay beneath a lamp, with the mill at one end and the bridge at the other. The chief stood beside it. A cleaner was drawing lines across the streets.

The chief checked his phone as they entered, and did not put it down.

— You had him.

— We agreed to go down together and leave free, Soles said. He kept his part.

— I asked you to bring him in.

— You asked us to close the breach. We’ve found the root.

The cleaner stopped drawing.

Soles described the thick line and the smaller strands passing into the stone. He kept to what they had seen. He couldn’t say where they ended or what cutting them would do to the people above. That was why they had come back without trying.

The chief pulled the lamp closer to the map.

— Where?

Krista set down the sketch they had made after returning. Her finger followed the mill channel to the chamber.

— Beneath this part. The strands continue beyond what we could see.

— Through the foundations?

— Through stone. We couldn’t follow them farther.

The chief compared the drawing with the map, then moved a pencil mark from one street to the next. Soles leaned forward to read the writing beside it.

ENTRY TEAM.

— What’s that for?

— Getting the remaining occupants out.

The cleaner laid down his pencil.

— Before the operation. If they’ll come.

Beside his elbow, Soles recognized the case Corvin had brought to the detachment. Its lid stood open. The knives were fitted neatly into the black lining.

— And if they won’t? Soles asked.

— You’ve read the order, the chief said.

A man from the truck came in with a board of forms. The chief checked the delivery against the shields outside, initialed a line and turned the page. His pen stopped.

He pushed the board back.

— Not that one.

— They want the clearance with the delivery receipt.

— Then they’ll have to want it for longer.

Krista leaned close enough to read. Soles moved beside her.

SECTOR CLEAR OF OCCUPANTS.

The box beside it had already been checked. Below, the space for the chief’s signature was empty.

— There are people cooking supper down there, the chief said. Bring it back when it’s true.

The delivery man held the board for another moment, then took it outside.

Soles had watched this man recommend their suspension. His report had gone straight through while theirs waited. The pen was still in his hand, above a map of houses he was preparing to destroy.

There was still something he wouldn’t put his name to.

— Help us get them out, Soles said.

— My men have been trying since Saturday.

— The man we found keeps going back. He knows how to leave. He still goes back.

The chief’s attention settled on him.

— What are you saying?

— That marching him across the bridge won’t finish the job.

Krista turned their sketch so both men could see it.

— We need somewhere to take them, she said. People who will stay with them. And time to find out what happens when they’re away from the river.

— You’ve had time.

— We’ve used it. This is what we’ve learned.

The cleaner closed the knife case.

— They’ll be put on transport. That’s what happens when they’re away from the river.

Soles remembered the surveyor rubbing his thumb raw against the cup. A seat on a truck would get him off the street. Someone would have to notice when he got up again.

— Where does the transport take them?

The chief named a reception center outside the sector. Krista wrote it down and asked who was responsible there. This time he gave her a number.

It was something they could use. Soles held on to that while the cleaner reopened the map.

— We still prepare, the chief said. Your report goes up tonight. The order stands until somebody changes it.

— There are eight days on our door.

— Then use them.

Soles put a finger beside the mark for the entry team.

— If your people use power down there, it’ll spread. We pulled once and people got worse. You have that in writing now.

— I have your account.

— And the clearance you wouldn’t sign. Remember that when they ask for the next signature.

The chief put his pen down.

Krista asked him to mark their copy of the sketch as received. Soles waited while he wrote the time beside the chamber. If the warning disappeared into another folder, they would have a record of where it had started.

The cleaner moved to the door. Soles stayed beside Krista while she folded their drawing; the man gave them room to pass.

Outside, the truck was nearly empty. Soles stepped around a shield propped against the wall. From here, the mill roof showed beyond the houses. He could trace the short walk back to the hatch, then the route they had taken underneath it. A squad could follow the same rope.

Krista put the number into her phone.

— I’ll call the center when we get home.

— Ask whether they’ve taken anyone from that street yet. Whether they’ve tried to go back.

She nodded. At the gate, Soles turned toward the river instead of their house, then stopped. He wanted to go straight to the bakery and start asking who would leave. He wanted somebody out of reach of those knives tonight.

Maxim and Tesa needed to hear what had happened first.

He turned back to Krista.

— We tell the others. Then we ask them to help us get people out.

— Even if Varren won’t help?

Soles watched the last shield go through the door.

— We ask the people.