Chapter 37: The Current Under Seal

The failing hood had made K-2 an address. It had not left any of them fit to work there.

Mara led them out of its immediate noise with the sealed recorder under one arm and a meter case pulling at the other. The next pressure door took nine seconds longer than its posted cycle. She counted each one while cold metal pressed through her gloves.

Beyond it, the passage widened around the Continuity service ring. Environmental machinery sent a low vibration through the deck. The air smelled of disinfectant residue and warmed insulation rather than the hood’s scorched filters.

Orra set down her case and flexed her left hand twice.

Mara noticed. “Grip loss?”

“Cramping.”

“Fine control?”

“Present. Reduced endurance.”

Mara opened the capacity field on the witnessed record. “Duration before reassessment?”

“Twenty minutes.”

Vale leaned against the bulkhead without pretending he had chosen the posture. His lips were dry, and one sleeve carried a white trace where disinfectant had dried.

Mara offered him the electrolyte pouch.

He examined its faded label. “This may be older than the annex.”

“Then it has institutional experience.”

He drank and passed it to Orra.

Mara recorded Orra’s limit, then entered her own: no injury, mild hand cooling, no impairment. Vale gave her a flat look before admitting to fatigue and a pressure headache without visual disturbance.

“Exhausted witnesses produce vulnerable evidence,” he said.

“That sounded almost cooperative.”

“Record only observable behavior.”

For several breaths, nobody moved toward K-2. Orra warmed her fingers around the pouch. Vale sat on the closed equipment case. The machinery beneath the deck continued its patient hum, indifferent to rank and accusation.

Then Mara restarted the record.

They approached by the outer service route rather than crossing the yellow isolation line. K-2 remained sealed behind its black pressure plate. No indicator invited access.

The first meter went on the preserved feed upstream of the annex junction. Vale verified its calibration against the sealed reference cell. The second remained electrically independent and attached at the service-ring distribution rail.

Before accepting either reading, Mara had them walk the route.

The deck vibration strengthened near the environmental trunk, then weakened beside K-2. Fan pitch changed with the ring’s ordinary circulation cycle, but the current at K-2 did not follow it. A cable carrying shared compartment services felt faintly warm through Mara’s sleeve. The registered K-2 feed remained cooler.

At the second pressure door, Mara timed the seal. Its closure produced a brief pressure correction across the passage. Both gauges registered the change; K-2’s power draw did not.

“Continuous load is isolated from door compensation,” Vale said.

“From that compensation,” Mara corrected.

He entered the narrower statement.

Orra fixed thermal probes at the intake housing and feed insulation. No condensation marked the plate. The baseline current held beneath one kilowatt, steady across both meters. A low mechanical tremor reached the custody studs without any matching movement at the release.

Orra compared vibration, temperature, and draw. “Environmental support. Local and continuous.”

“Contents?” Vale asked.

“Not measured.”

“Maintaining device?”

“Not identified.”

Mara attached both exclusions. The baseline proved that K-2 was not dormant. It did not tell them what required the environment or who had kept it supplied.

The service schedule reached its next marked interval.

The current rose on both meters.

Vale’s display followed the exterior recorder by less than a breath. Neither reading flickered.

“At three,” he said.

Orra moved her probe along the intake insulation. “Three-point-two.”

At three-point-five kilowatts, a dark crescent appeared around the intake housing. Clear beads gathered along it, trembling against the metal while the rest of the plate remained dry.

Three measured knocks passed through the seal.

The last reached Mara through the deck.

Seven seconds.

The feed insulation warmed in a narrow line. No broader thermal rise crossed the plate, and the environmental fan kept its earlier pitch.

“Separate service circuit,” Orra said. “The pattern follows the intake feed. Associated with intake preservation, not general compartment operation.”

At eleven seconds, the current fell. Both meters returned together to the continuous baseline. The warm line began fading. No alarm followed.

Vale lowered his slate. “Almost considerate.”

“Don’t encourage the architecture,” Mara said.

The corner of Orra’s mouth moved. It was not quite a smile, but the service ring felt less narrow for a moment.

Mara preserved the full interval. The trace aligned power, temperature, pressure, vibration, and exterior signal traffic.

At the pulse peak, K-2 had issued two authenticated stages of a receiver handshake.

INTAKE READY.

QUARANTINE CHANNEL RESERVED.