At 2:13 in the morning, the transfer station's ventilation stopped, and Renata heard Jonas's patrol app reroute them.
"West stairs," its flat voice said. "Nearside remains with Fixedpoint."
Beyond the service doors, reserve batteries held enough charge to keep three neighborhood clinics and an assisted-living tower cool through the hottest night of the year. On Renata's phone, the station diagram showed a breaker fault in red and an access alarm in amber. The west stairs curled around two locked landings. The cable trench ahead was open, straight, and four metres across.
"The trench is faster," she said.
Jonas stood behind her on the concrete steps, broad shoulders blocking the emergency light. "The app says west."
"You wrote the app."
"I changed one permission."
"Mine."
Somewhere below, metal struck metal. The temperature display beside the door read forty-one degrees. A second access sensor turned amber.
"We can have this fight upstairs," Jonas said. "Two sensors, nobody on camera, and the trench puts you in the open with nothing behind you. West stairs. Now."
Renata looked through the open gate at the landing beyond the trench. Four metres, clear line, no one visible. She went Nearside.
Space caught her behind the eyes. The landing replaced the step beneath her boots, and the world tipped left before righting itself. She kept one hand on the rail until the depth returned. First transit.
"Renata."
Ahead, through another open grille, the main-floor catwalk ran beside the reserve bus. Less than five metres. The shortest route had always been a chain of small, certain things.
She made the second transit before Jonas reached the trench.
This landing arrived doubled. Two yellow rails slid together, then apart. She blinked until they agreed on one position, but by then a woman in insulated work clothes had stepped within arm's reach of the lighting conduit.
The lights died from her outward.
The dark was three metres across, and it moved with the woman as active circuits emptied into the two silver cells mounted on a low sled behind her. Brownout. Livia Kade turned her bare hand over, measuring the last blue thread of current across her palm.
"She's early," Livia said.
"Still on sequence," Xavier Kade answered from above.
Two amber tags flashed on the catwalk. The west shutter behind Renata started down. A weighted baffle swung across the catwalk, its offset steel slats showing only other steel. Xavier Kade, Downforce in the case files and Brownout's husband of nine years, stepped out on the overhead gantry with a battery harness tight against his ribs.
Renata turned toward the last place she had seen Jonas. No clear line remained.
A pale plane grew under the falling shutter, rigid and translucent, and caught it a metre above the floor. A second formed at the far edge of his six-metre sight, reaching toward the baffle. Jonas had committed both at once. For perhaps a second, Renata saw him between them: jaw set, hands spread, trying to make two paths exist where she had left him none.
Livia crossed close to the wall conduit. His comm light went black.
Xavier touched two fingers to his harness. The tagged shutter multiplied its downward load. Jonas's first plane sank into cracked concrete as the floor failed beneath it, and the shutter came the rest of the way down hard enough to star the slab. The second vanished when he pulled one numbed hand toward the manual latch. Too late. Another shutter sealed him into the relay bay.
The baffle struck Renata across the shoulder and drove her into a floor cage. A U-shaped anchor yoke closed over her ankles. Xavier planted a tag on it, and the steel became too heavy even to rock.
"That's three," Livia said.
"West shutter. Relay shutter. Anchor," Xavier said, touching the harness once for each.
The last slat locked into place. Every opening in Renata's cage faced a backing plate. She could see strips of floor, pieces of equipment, one of Jonas's boots six metres away. Nowhere she could go.
Above the bus, the red reserve clock, counting down what the batteries had left at this draw, changed from 45:00 to 44:59.
Livia pulled the first cell's leads toward the live cabinet. "Starting draw."
The Kades did not celebrate.
Livia positioned herself beside the active reserve circuit and let current vanish into the cell within her living field. Xavier checked the cage, the relay shutter, then the west shutter and the loading ramp behind it. He marked each task on a grease board clipped to the sled.
"Return before auxiliary," he said.
"No, after. Auxiliary, then return." Livia watched a meter tremble and didn't look up. "Close return first and the clinic feed sees the sag, and somebody at the utility wakes up and looks at a screen."
Xavier studied the switch labels for a long moment, erased one arrow with his thumb, and drew it again beneath AUX. Livia glanced at the board and went back to her meter.
Renata hated them more for how ordinary it looked.
She pulled against the anchor yoke. Its added load drove the cuff edges through her suit and into bone. Xavier glanced over.
"Don't," he said. "It won't get lighter because you're angry."
"The cooling wards lost twelve minutes last month," Renata said. "People in that tower can't sweat properly."
Livia's meter climbed. "They've got room batteries."
"Forty minutes' worth."
"So your utility has forty minutes to clear a breaker fault. It's a breaker."
"If your staged fault didn't cook the switchgear."
Livia looked at the scorched cabinet, then at the charging cell. "Xavier. Housing."
Xavier crouched and put his light on the thermal strip along the cell housing. "Fifty-three."
She turned back to her meter.
From the relay bay, Jonas said, "How many transits do you have left?"
Renata found his face through two misaligned slots. "Work your latch."
"I am working the latch. I need the count. If it's two, I hold the baffle, you go the second that anchor gets light, and you go again to my release. If it's one, it's the baffle or the release, not both, and I have to know which before I spend my hands on the wrong one. If it's none, I stop counting you in and think of something else. Which is it?"
"Ask the app. It knows what I'm allowed."
He wrapped both hands around the manual lever. They did not close properly. Concurrent planes always numbed his fingers, beginning at the tips and moving inward. Renata had watched him fumble keys after patrol and teased him for refusing mittens in winter. Tonight the lever slipped from his palms.
"No more transits," he said. "Not until I can get you a line and support the landing."
Renata leaned back from the slots.
The first minute ended. Amber light faded from the anchor tag, and some of its crushing weight released. Xavier's harness fans spun up to cool the spent cycle. He tested the yoke with his boot before Renata could lift it, then renewed the downward load as soon as the tag answered.
Jonas had been counting too. "Sixty seconds," he said. "And he was on it before you could lift. So a second of window. Two if his fans run slow, and they won't every time. Renata?"
She gave him nothing.
At 31:18 on the reserve clock, Livia moved the intake leads from the first cell to the second. The first was the size of a carry-on case, finite and nearly full, its charge bars wavering orange. Xavier peeled the cooling west-shutter tag from its mount and braced it against the cell housing to reseat a clamp.
"Hold it there, hold it on the housing," Livia said. "I'll pull the spike."
"No."
She looked up.
Xavier opened his hand. The center of his glove had blistered glossy over a burn. "Housing's over limit. Ceramic handle or it waits."
Livia's eyes went to the thermal strip, then to the glove. She fetched the handled clamp without a word and set it within his reach. He seated it. She pulled the spike down into her field, and the cell steadied.
Xavier returned the tag to the west-shutter mount without engaging it.
"Strip hits seventy-eight, we leave it," he said.
"You said that in the van. Twice."
The reserve clock continued to fall. Behind the far maintenance door, somebody struck twice, paused, then struck twice again. Utility workers. Alive, at least. The station display showed clinic demand rising with the outside temperature.
Renata waited for the anchor to cool, jammed her fingers beneath it, and heaved. One edge rose a centimetre. She twisted her right ankle. By the time she shut her left eye and the doubled cuff became one, pain ran up her shin, and the yoke slammed down when Xavier renewed the tag.
"Your eye," Jonas said. "You keep shutting it."
"My ankle's fine."
"I didn't ask about your ankle. You shut it to look at the cuff. You did it at the slots before." He stopped, then started again, lower. "Is that the concussion? How many transits do you have?"
"Enough."
"Enough for what?"
Renata fitted her fingers back under the yoke's edge and counted the tag down.
Livia crouched by the second cell. Its charge indicator jumped, fell, then blinked amber.
"You seated it wrong." She was on her feet. "Xavier. It's crooked, it's arcing, look at it."
Xavier did not turn from the sled. "I seated it. I checked it." He set down the grease pencil. "I seated it and I checked it, Livia."
"So why's it moving?"
"Then something changed."
Livia put her hand beside the intake without touching it. Current made a fine blue web across her knuckles, and the station lights nearest her dimmed. She checked the reserve meter, then the cell, then the meter again.
"It's the bus. The bus is sagging, it's not your clamp." For a moment she didn't look at him. "I read it as the clamp. I yelled at you about the clamp."
Xavier came back. "Like the dryer."
"Not now." She rubbed her knuckles hard against her thigh.
"Can you hold half?"
"Forty-six."
He went for the clamp. She caught his burned wrist before he got there. "Open."
He opened his hand. Two fingers curled; the others shook.
"You don't renew the west shutter until that cools," she said.
"Then it stays light. Anybody coming down the ramp can lift it."
"I know what it leaves."
"All right."
She released him. He switched hands, and they returned to the cell without filling the silence.
Renata pressed her forehead to the cage steel. She had expected vanity, cruelty, one of them performing dominance for the other. What she got was Livia holding a burned wrist until the fingers opened. They could do that and still watch the clinic demand climb.
At 12:06 remaining, Jonas said, "I can make one reliable plane. Two, and I won't have hands for the release."
Renata looked through the lowest slot. Xavier's anchor tag would gray at the end of its minute. Each time it did, his harness fan ran while he checked the sled wheels. To move the charged cells up the ramp, he would need the sled loaded downward for traction against the vibrating floor. Three tags, no fourth. He had rehearsed the transfer twice with his eyes.
"One," she said.
Jonas went still.
"Two tonight. One left." She swallowed. The cage seemed to lean toward her. "After the concussion, the second makes edges split. The third takes depth. Last time, seventeen minutes. I couldn't tell the floor from a step."
"Last time?"
"Three weeks ago."
His breath left him through his nose. She waited for the contingency tree: dates, reporting failures, the predictable list of all the ways she had made them unsafe.
"What can you see now?" he asked.
"The near slat. Your boot when you move it. Not their faces unless they cross the middle gap."
"All right."
The words sounded unfinished in his mouth.
Renata gripped the yoke. "Tell me what you've seen."
"Baffle pivots toward me when the anchor tag cools. Hinge opening is five point six metres from my left slot. His transfer takes four seconds. The sled crosses your middle gap after the tag seats."
"Can your plane hold the baffle?"
"About thirty seconds. Less if he loads it."
He waited.
Renata measured the strip of concrete beyond the middle gap. Four metres, perhaps four and a half. It doubled if she stared too hard, but both versions were inside her limit.
"On the next transfer," she said. "Wedge the baffle. I lift the yoke when the load drops. I go to the clear patch by the sled."
"You'll land blind."
"Nearly. You'll route me to your release."
His boot shifted into view, then stopped. "Yes."
At 8:41 remaining, the anchor tag went gray.
Renata lifted. The yoke came off the floor, ordinary steel again, heavy but possible. Jonas's pale plane grew through the left slot, a single rigid sheet expanding into the baffle hinge. Metal screamed. The offset slats opened three centimetres, then ten.
Xavier looked over. His burned hand hovered near the tag.
"Sled first," Livia said. "We're below exit traction."
He tore the amber marker from Renata's yoke and slapped it onto the sled frame. The cells sank against their suspension. Their weight bit the wheels into the floor.
The middle gap cleared.
Renata chose the patch of floor she could see and went.
The cage vanished. Concrete struck both boots at once. Then the room lost its distances.
Rails floated near and far. Livia became two dark figures beside a blue flare. Renata dropped to one knee before the false floor could move under her. Her stomach surged. Third transit. There would be no fourth for hours.
"Forward two paces," Jonas called. His command voice caught on the first word, then changed. "Your pace. Handrail at your right knee."
Renata found the rail by sweeping her hand. Behind her, Xavier threw the unweighted west shutter up onto its catch and hauled at the loaded sled. Livia left the bus to intercept, and the charge stream broke as soon as the active circuit passed beyond her three-metre field.
"One pace," Jonas said. "Relay release is shoulder height. Orange handle. Twenty centimetres left."
There were three orange blurs. Renata closed one eye. Two remained.
"Which one?"
He didn't answer at once. "Farther left. Your hand is below it. Up."
Her fingers struck the handle. She pulled.
The relay shutter lifted. Jonas ducked under it as Xavier renewed the tag, and the metal crashed onto the plane Jonas formed beneath it. One plane. His right hand hung half closed.
"Main isolation?" Renata asked.
"Six paces behind you. Yellow wheel."
Livia moved back toward the bus, choosing the cells over Renata. Current flared again. Xavier abandoned the sled and came toward Jonas, one tag control in his good hand.
They countered on different instincts and blocked each other's route.
"Xavier," Livia said. "Housing's at seventy-two."
"Sled or him?"
"Sled. Give me the route."
He stepped back at once and dragged the sled sideways, clearing her path to the live cabinet. "Two metres. Clamp high. Then ramp." He was already moving. "Clamp high."
Jonas could have put a second plane across them. Renata heard his breath catch the way it did before he built something, and at the edge of her sight a second pale sheet began to thicken across the Kades' path.
"One wall," she said.
The second sheet thinned and was gone. His one plane stayed where it was, under the relay shutter.
"Wheel is five paces now," he said. "Drift right."
Renata moved through the swimming geometry. At the yellow blur, she used both hands until she found the rim. It resisted, then turned. The reserve bus separated with a blow she felt in her teeth. Behind the mechanical switch, the clinic feed was out of Livia's reach.
The cells remained charged. Their rig whined against the cut circuit, hunting for a path.
"Ground bar," Jonas said. "Low left."
"I can't find low."
"Stop."
She stopped.
"Your left boot is touching the housing. Bar is on the housing. Slide your heel back."
Metal knocked her boot. Renata crouched without trusting the floor and closed both hands around the insulated grip.
Livia saw what she held. "Don't."
Renata pulled the station's emergency ground into place.
The siphon load went down the copper braid. Both cells flashed white. Livia broke her field and stumbled away from the cabinet. Xavier caught the back of her harness, keeping her clear of the arcing leads without touching them.
"Seventy-six," she said.
"Ramp is open."
"Seventy-seven."
Xavier reached for the sled, burned hand failing around its handle. The cell casing ticked as it expanded.
"Seventy-eight," Livia said.
He let go.
Together they backed toward the open west shutter and the loading ramp beyond it, Xavier counting the steps twice when smoke hid the edge. They ducked under. On the far side he knocked the shutter off its catch and tapped the still-mounted tag with his good hand as it fell, loading it on the way down.
The west shutter hit concrete between Renata and the ramp. Up the ramp, a lock died with a click, and a door banged wide.
Jonas's hand came up toward the shutter, the fingers half closed.
He did not make another plane.
"Pursuit?" he asked.
Renata listened to the pounding behind the maintenance door. One worker's strikes had become uneven.
"No. Staff first."
"Yes."
They grounded the cells, released the damaged switchgear from the reserve, and opened the maintenance room by hand. One technician had a bleeding scalp. The other lay beside a fallen tool cabinet with an ankle swelling inside her boot. Jonas formed a single plane as a rigid litter while Renata, moving by touch and his plain directions, kept the technician level. They carried her to the cooler stairwell and waited for responders instead of the Kades.
At 3:28, exactly seventy-five minutes after the ventilation had stopped, a hospital physician shone a narrow light across Renata's eyes.
"Tell me every transit in the last six hours," she said.
Renata sat on an intake bed with a basin between her shoes. Jonas stood by the curtain, his hands wrapped in warming pads. A patrol supervisor waited on speakerphone beside the blood-pressure cuff.
"Three," Renata said. "Two before capture, one to get out."
The light stopped on her left eye. "Your file says concussion last month, cleared for duty. Any change since?"
"Yes."
"Does medical know?"
"No."
The physician tipped her head toward the curtain. "Does he?"
"Since tonight."
The physician recorded it without looking at Jonas. "Observation until the depth loss clears. You agree?"
"Yes."
On the phone, the supervisor asked, "Why did your route split?"
Jonas shifted a warming pad from one palm to the other. "I added a field veto to our patrol app. Command didn't know."
Renata looked toward him and found two Jonases at the curtain.
"Remove the veto," she said.
"Now?"
"Now. Leave the route log intact for review."
"Okay." His fingers would not work the phone. "Will you unlock it for me?"
She did. He talked her through the settings but did not touch her hand. The permission changed from PARTNER OVERRIDE to SHARED CONFIRMATION.
The physician rolled a visual-field target to the end of the bed. "Do you want him in the room for the assessment?"
Renata considered the two blurred figures at the curtain.
"For the assessment, yes."
Jonas looked at the empty spaces on either side of her. "Left or right?"
"Left."
He moved there and waited while the physician raised the first light.