Chapter 3: The Load Between Us

The far hatch opened as Elias reached for the first handhold.

Bronze segments withdrew beyond his fingertips, each locking tooth scraping free with the sound of a knife dragged over stone. Light entered the conduit in a widening bar. So did the smell: old grease, hot metal, blood.

No one waited beyond the threshold.

That was almost reassuring. Machinery generally had fewer knives than people, though it compensated with enthusiasm.

Elias hooked his burned fingers over the handhold and pulled.

The conduit was too narrow for a proper crawl. He moved on one hip, shoulders turned, dragging the splinted right leg behind him. Grit rolled beneath his palms. On the second pull, the cracked outer rail caught a bronze rib and spread.

Something shifted inside his knee.

The passage vanished behind white light.

He stopped with his forehead against the floor and waited for the nausea to recede. The hatch remained open ahead of him. Nothing crossed it. No voice called from the service bay.

Only an uneven mechanical clicking sounded somewhere beyond the wall.

Three quick teeth.

A pause.

Two slower ones.

Elias drew the split rail inward, tightened the loosened binding, and resumed crawling. Every handhold cost him a separate decision. By the time he reached the threshold, sweat had soaked the collar of his coat.

Fresh scratches crossed the hatch’s retaining socket.

They were narrow, parallel, and bright beneath the surrounding grime. A tool had been inserted from the service-bay side and used to force the dog free. Beside the marks lay the bent retaining spike from the mechanism, its hooked end polished by recent leverage.

A bronze key rested half under the hatch track.

Elias did not touch it immediately.

He pulled the acoustic cup from its wall bracket and pressed it to his mouth.

“Far hatch opened as I reached it,” he said. “No visible operator. Fresh tool marks on the retaining socket. Bent spike removed. Bronze key on the floor.”

Cassian’s answer arrived through the tube. “Can you secure the hatch?”

“Assuming it does not object to professional criticism.”

“That means no.”

“It means I’m inspecting it.”

Elias wrapped the bent spike in a strip of cloth, lifted it without brushing the bright tool marks, and drove its straight end through the emergency dog. The hatch could still be withdrawn remotely, but it could no longer descend without first shearing the spike.

Mara came onto the line. “Describe the key before moving it.”

“Bronze. Long ward. Wax in the teeth. Seal on the bow.”

“What seal?”

Elias shifted closer without crossing the track. The movement twisted his splint, sending a pulse up his thigh.

“Marshal.”

Silence held for half a breath.

“Intact?” Mara asked.

“Shallow impression. Unbroken edge.”

“Recorded. Cloth around the bow only. Keep the teeth isolated.”

“I had planned to lick them clean.”

“You joke when you want everyone to forget you’re hurt.”

“Then it is fortunate my jokes are ineffective.”

He lifted the key by its wrapped bow. Dark wax packed its teeth, holding flecks of pale metal and black grit. He folded it into a clean oilskin pocket without allowing the wax to touch his tools.

From inside the wall came another scrape of chain.

No chain was visible. The sound traveled through enclosed guides, moved over a toothed wheel, and ended in one hard click beneath the floor.

Human intervention, then—but no useful direction to chase. The wall contained four sealed machinery throats, any of which could carry the sound from elsewhere.

Elias crossed the threshold.

The service bay beyond was scarcely tall enough to sit in. Pipes covered one wall. The other held a separation assembly built around two opposing bronze plates. Beneath them, a lower bay descended into shadow.

Movement showed through the inspection grille.

Elias froze.

He could see two people below.

The nearer casualty lay against the left wall, one arm extended across the floor. Their position had changed recently: a clean arc interrupted the dust behind one boot, and five bloody palm prints advanced from the back wall toward the assembly. The latest print remained wet.

The second casualty lay farther right.

Dust had settled evenly over that person’s boots and lower coat. A broad blood-darkened patch had spread beneath one hip, but there were no hand marks around them and no disturbance beyond two shallow heel furrows left by someone else trying to drag them.

One mobile. One immobile, or near enough that rescue procedure could not afford the distinction.

Between them lay a narrow brass dispatch bar. Blood obscured most of its face, but the hooked-grey bridge emblem remained visible at one end.

Elias knew the emblem before he wiped a sightline across the grille.

Greyhook Rescue.

Two numbered harness seals had been issued with the bar. One remained clipped to the mobile casualty’s belt. The other hung from the immobile casualty’s shoulder strap. Their serials matched the paired sockets on the dispatch bar.

Two people. One Greyhook team.

Why Greyhook had sent anyone into a tower separation bay was not written where Elias could conveniently curse at it.

He placed the acoustic cup against the floor-side bracket.

“Visual confirmation,” he told Mara. “Exactly two casualties. Both carrying harness seals paired to a blood-darkened Greyhook dispatch bar.”

The words felt unpleasant in his mouth.

Cassian spoke first. “Conditions?”

“One has crossed part of the lower bay under their own power. Fresh palm trail and displaced dust. The second has not changed position. Significant blood beneath the right hip. Drag marks lead from the mobile casualty to them.”

Mara’s voice sharpened. “Any independent track indicating a third person below?”

Elias studied the dust, the blood edges, and the narrow floor around both bodies.

“No third boot pattern. No third harness seal. Dispatch bar has two sockets, both accounted for.”

“Recorded as two casualties established by physical evidence,” Mara said. “Greyhook origin established by paired equipment, not testimony.”

That distinction mattered. Mara made it sound like an accusation against the entire world.

Perhaps it was.

A rope waited beside Elias’s knee, its working end still running back through the conduit to Cassian. The fibers trembled faintly with Cassian’s grip but carried no tension. Elias gathered the slack into a coil and placed it on the dry bay floor, well clear of the lower grille.

“Can you route the line?” Cassian asked.

“Not safely.”

“One of them is bleeding and the other is already trying to move them.”

“I possess eyes.”

“Then give me a route. I can take the weight before the next cycle.”