Jalen’s transfer notice arrived before the response to the team’s records request. Sera read his message at the clinic counter, then held her phone out to Tessa.
“He says the assignment starts this morning,” she said. “He hasn’t told us where yet.”
Kellan pinned the warehouse photographs to a corkboard with three nails and a bent sewing pin borrowed from Mrs. Ortega.
The first photograph showed the lower threat rating in the collection paperwork. The second showed the higher notice on the fence. Between them he placed a copy of the public security contract bearing Bram Holt’s name.
Eli watched him draw a line across a sheet of paper. “You don’t need a ruler.”
“I do if you want to see where the dates fall.”
Kellan aligned the ruler with the top of the page. He marked the contract period, the date Jalen had seen Rell tell a clerk to use the lower rating, the warehouse collection, and the hearing. He left the time of the rating change blank.
“Bram’s security contract covers the relevant period,” he said. “The contractor had several teams at the warehouse. This doesn’t put him in the office when Jalen saw the sheet.”
“He could have ordered it.”
“He could have. We don’t have that order.”
Eli leaned against the counter. Bram’s face at the recruitment event had been composed until the private message arrived. Then his expression had changed, briefly and unmistakably. Eli had spent the night imagining what the message might have said. Every version led back to the raid he remembered and the man who had held him while the manifest fell.
“I want to ask him,” he said.
“What would you ask?” Tessa replied.
“Whether he knew about the higher rating. Whether he told Rell to use the lower one.”
“And what do you do if he says no?”
“Ask for the assignment records.”
“Then ask for the records first.”
Eli picked up Bram’s contract. It named the security company, the warehouse employer and a period of service. It did not list every shift or identify who had received inspection reports. The overlap was real. The conclusion he wanted remained beyond the page.
Sera opened a damp folder. She had spent the morning at a public records terminal checking the contractor’s filings. Her hair was wet where rain had blown under her hood, and she set the folder away from the papers on the board.
“Three security teams worked there during the contract,” she said. “One handled deliveries, one monitored the gate equipment, and one covered the upper-floor access. The filings don’t show individual assignments.”
“Which one was Bram on?” Eli asked.
“The contract names him as a contact. It doesn’t say which shifts he attended.”
She handed Kellan the pages. He added the three teams beneath the timeline and drew a bracket around the period when each could have had access. The bracket was wider than Eli wanted it to be.
“Someone must have the shift rosters,” Eli said.
“The submitted request asks about those assignments,” Tessa replied. “If we seek additional named rosters, we should talk to Jalen before expanding it.”
Jalen had testified at the insurance hearing. He had described the lower-rated sheet and the instruction he heard Rell give the clerk. He had also explained what he had not seen: the final assignment delivered to the hunters and the person who approved the rating. Rowan and her son Ivo had received the policy benefit after the panel found Garin’s work was covered. The panel had not decided whether anyone deliberately falsified the rating.
“The office may infer who supplied the dates,” Tessa said. “We agreed Nora would consult Jalen if they ask about the source.”
Eli thought of Jalen on crutches outside the hearing room, asking how the team intended to protect him. Eli had promised protection before he understood how little he could guarantee. Jalen had made him replace the promise with an offer of help.
“I’ll call him,” Eli said.
“Nora should speak with him first. She’s already advising him.”
Sera checked her phone. “He sent me a message last night. He said his work assignment might change, but he didn’t give a location.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Because he asked me not to pass it on until he knew whether it was confirmed. He sent another message this morning saying I could tell you.”
She showed Tessa the latest message. Jalen’s employer had assigned him to a different workplace beginning that morning. He had asked whether the move affected his medical restrictions and was told the new supervisor would decide. He had not said he was in danger.
Kellan called him. The call rang out. He sent a message asking Jalen to call when he could speak privately. No reply came.
The clinic door opened. A patient entered holding a small child by the hand. The child had a paper crown on his head and a plaster across one knee. Leah greeted them at the counter and pointed to the chairs. The corkboard stood in full view of the waiting area.
Tessa took down Jalen’s name before the patient could read it. “We’ll move this upstairs.”
Kellan carried the board while Eli gathered the papers. The sewing pin fell out and disappeared beneath the counter. Mrs. Ortega retrieved it with a magnet tied to a length of thread.
“That’s the second pin this week,” she said.
“I’ll buy you a box,” Kellan replied.
“You already owe me a threshold quote. Add it to the account.”
Upstairs, they set the board against the wall beside the sewing supplies. The room smelled faintly of dust and fabric. Kellan rewrote Jalen’s entry using a letter rather than his name. He kept the key in a separate folder for Nora.
Eli sat at the table and opened the notebook in which he had been tracking the effects of his inherited abilities. The latest entry described a delayed fragment after anchoring practice and the moment he had mistaken Tessa’s words for something from an argument he associated with Garin. He had not written the family’s private conversation. He had written that he stopped the task and told Tessa when he recognized the mismatch.
Sera looked at the notebook but did not reach for it. “Do you need a break before we work on this?”
“No. Why?”
“You’re holding your pen like you want to stab the paper.”
He loosened his grip. “I’m angry at Bram.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I’m here. I know where I am.”
“Good.”
Kellan placed a cup of water by his elbow. Eli took a drink. He had told the team enough about the delayed effects of Anchor to make a safety plan without sharing the private memory. The others knew what to watch for in a shared task. They did not know he remembered another life, and he still struggled with how much of his urgency he could explain without exposing that secret.
Nora arrived after lunch. She had heard from Jalen’s housing adviser that the transfer was confirmed, but neither had spoken with him since his shift began. The new assignment was at a distribution workplace operated by a contractor named on one of Sera’s filings.
Nora had already submitted the limited request with Jalen’s approval, leaving his name, medical details and testimony out of it. The portal acknowledgment had warned that a response might arrive after the Tower registration deadline. Today the office sent an interim message: the request had been routed to the contract custodian, but no assignment records were attached.
“They’ve acknowledged it,” Nora said, showing the message. “That doesn’t answer where Bram was. If they ask about the source of the dates, I’ll speak with Jalen before responding.”
Eli wanted to call the office and demand the records immediately. Instead he looked at the message for a contact number. “Can we ask whether they received the preservation request too?”
“That’s a follow-up I can make without changing what Jalen approved.” Nora called. The clerk confirmed that the preservation request had been routed with the records request and gave her the custodian’s reference. The clerk could not say whether the custodian had taken action.
Kellan added the acknowledgment date to the timeline. He left space beneath it for whatever came back, including anything that might contradict their suspicion. Eli had promised the team they would see the whole response. The blank space made the promise visible.
An hour later, Jalen called from an unfamiliar number. The line was noisy. Kellan handed the phone to Tessa when Jalen asked to speak with her.
“Are you at the new workplace?” she asked.
“Yes. I’m on a break.”
“Can you talk privately?”
“Not for long. I’m outside by the bins.” A truck reversed nearby, its warning signal cutting across his words. “The work is mostly checking packages. I can sit for some of it.”
“How is your leg?”
“Sore. They gave me a stool after I asked.”
“Do you want us to help with the transfer?”
“I don’t know yet. They took my identification at intake. Said they’d return it after processing.”
Tessa looked at Nora. “Have you asked when?”
“At the end of the shift. The supervisor said it might take longer if the office is busy.”
“Do you want help asking for it back?”
“I want to see whether they give it back first. Don’t come here.”
“We won’t. Can Nora call you?”
“After six. Not on this number. I’ll use mine when I get it back.”
“What happened to your phone?”
“They put it in a locker while I’m working. Everyone does that.”
Tessa did not know whether the arrangement was voluntary or whether Jalen could leave the shift. She asked whether he could leave if he needed medical attention. He said the supervisor had told him to ask before leaving the floor. The truck’s warning signal sounded again; Jalen said he had to return and ended the call.
Eli stood. “They have his identification and his phone.”
“They say they’ll return both after the shift,” Tessa said. “He asked us not to come.”
“That’s exactly when someone can’t call for help.”
Nora wrote down the time and the number Jalen had used. “I’ll wait for his call at six. If he doesn’t call, I’ll try the workplace number. We should also find out whether he has another contact there.”
Sera showed her the message from that morning. Jalen had given the name of a coworker who could pass along a message, though he had not asked anyone to contact that person yet. Nora wrote it down without calling.
Eli paced the room. The corkboard’s loose sewing pin glinted beneath the edge of the paper where Kellan had placed it. Eli straightened it, then realized he had bent the new timeline.
Kellan flattened the sheet. “If he calls and wants help, we’ll go.”
“And if he can’t call?”
“Then Nora calls the workplace. We agreed on the next step.”
Eli looked at the clock. It was only three. Three hours had never seemed so long when the danger was somewhere else. He wanted to take the tram to the distribution workplace and stand at the gate until Jalen appeared. Jalen had specifically asked him not to come. Eli could not make that request disappear because waiting frightened him.
He opened the public contract again. This time he wrote three headings beside the timeline: CONFIRMED, WITNESS ACCOUNT, QUESTIONS. Under confirmed he listed the contract period and the two visible ratings. Under witness account he listed Jalen’s description of Rell’s instruction, with a note that Jalen had not seen the final assignment. Under questions he wrote Bram’s shift, the authorization for the rating change and the reason for Jalen’s transfer.
At five forty-five, Nora’s phone rang. It was a patient calling about an unrelated appointment, not Jalen. She took the call in the hall, returned with the number of a referral service, and wrote it on a note for Leah.
At six, the clinic closed. Leah brought the appointment book upstairs and asked whether anyone wanted tea. No one did. At six twelve, Jalen called Tessa from his own phone.
“I got the phone back,” he said. “The identification is still in the office. They say come back tomorrow.”
“Can you get home?”
“Yes. I’m at the bus stop.”
“Would you like Nora to call?”
“Yes. I want to know what I can do without losing the job.”
Tessa gave him Nora’s number and asked whether he wanted someone to meet him. He declined. The bus was already approaching, and he wanted to get home before his leg stiffened.
When the call ended, Eli looked at the board. The transfer did not prove retaliation. The missing identification was a concrete problem, and Jalen had now asked for advice. Nora moved to the phone while Kellan copied the workplace address from the message.
Eli put the contract back in the folder. He had wanted to confront Bram about a past that existed only in his memory. The next person who needed an answer was Jalen, standing at a bus stop without the document he had handed over that morning.