The city posted the bounty at six in the morning. By seven, someone had written easy money beneath it in thick black marker.
Eli stood at the public notice board with Kellan and read the official page. The reward was small, the rating low, and the assignment described an unidentified creature near the water filtration annex. The notice required a report and either removal or containment. It said nothing about the pipes.
Kellan took a photograph. “The person with the marker isn’t paying for repairs.”
A young hunter beside them studied the figure, then checked the number against an application form folded inside his jacket. He had marked several other jobs in the margin. “If it’s low-rated, why wouldn’t you take it?”
“Because the building around it matters,” Kellan said.
The hunter shrugged. “Break a pipe, the city fixes it.”
“And the people who need water while they fix it?”
The hunter looked at the notice again. “I didn’t say I’d break one.”
“No. I’m saying plan for it before you enter.”
The hunter copied the bounty number and left. Eli watched him go. Another team might reach the gate first; the notice made it sound like a simple contest for a prize. They could not control who applied, but they could make sure their own agreement did not reward a reckless strike.
At the clinic, Tessa had collected three reports of cloudy water. She had not linked them to the gate. One came from Mrs. Patel, one from a shop two streets away and one from a resident whose building had old plumbing. The public water service had issued no notice of contamination. Tessa wrote down the locations and times and asked the callers to report their observations to the utility.
“Do we have enough drinking water for the day?” Leah asked.
“We have the ordinary supply. We don’t have a reason to tell everyone to stop using it.”
Mrs. Ortega brought down two sealed jugs she kept for power outages. She set them beneath the counter.
“These are for whoever is here if the tap stops,” she said. “Don’t count them as medicine.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Leah replied.
“You looked at the ledger.”
“I look at everything as a ledger now.”
Nessa arrived with Davin’s written response. The city would extend limited injury coverage to registered independent participants for the inspection period, but the policy excluded unauthorized entry and required incidents to be reported promptly. Nora had reviewed the summary and marked questions about the claims procedure. The guaranteed fee remained modest; the team’s share depended on the city accepting the completed work.
“We can ask for clarification before signing,” Tessa said.
Davin had also provided an equipment list: two fighters, a scout, a restraint net, lights and a basic medical kit. It did not include pipe supports or a water-quality testing kit.
“Did the facility ask for testing?” Sera said.
“Nessa asked. Halden is checking with the utility’s laboratory,” Tessa replied. “We need to know who is responsible for it.”
Eli read the evacuation clause. A paragraph required workers to follow the team leader’s instructions. Another allowed withdrawal when an immediate hazard threatened life. The space between those sentences worried him.
“What if we think the pipe is going to fail before anyone is in immediate danger?” he asked.
“Then we need the right to pause the work,” Kellan said.
“And a retreat route that doesn’t run past the creature,” Sera added.
Tessa called Davin and requested a meeting at the facility before entry. He sounded impatient but agreed. The city had given the team until the end of the next day to begin the inspection; a second registered team had expressed interest in the bounty.
“That’s the pressure,” Eli said after the call. “If they go first, we get nothing.”
“We also don’t know whether they’ll protect the pipes,” Tessa said.
At the waterworks, Halden met them in the visitor room. He had brought a current plan and a maintenance log. Davin stood beside a whiteboard with two fighters, a tall woman named Valea and a younger man named Orrin. Neither wore full gate armor. Their equipment lay on a table: short weapons, lamps, a coiled net and a set of protective masks.
“Low-rated animal,” Davin said. “We find it, net it, bring it out. If it resists, we put it down.”
Halden spread the pipe plan across the table. “This valve controls the line feeding the eastern district. This one isolates the annex. If you strike the first, I can shut it, but residents lose pressure while we repair it.”
Valea studied the diagram. “How much room between the pipes?”
“Less than a meter at the narrowest point.”
Orrin lifted his weapon, a short weighted staff. “I can use this without a wide swing.”
“Can the creature?” Kellan asked.
Davin crossed his arms. “We can’t negotiate with an animal.”
“We can choose where we encounter it.”
Halden pointed to the control room. The scout’s reading placed the strongest signal near a bank of filtration controls. A creature startled there might strike a valve, pull a cable or retreat through an opening behind the equipment.
“Do workers have symptoms?” Tessa asked.
“One reported a headache. Another felt sick after a long shift.”
“Were they assessed?”
“The first went home. The second saw the plant nurse. I don’t have permission to share their records.”
“I don’t need names. Is anyone checking the water?”
“The utility takes routine samples. We’ve requested an additional test. The laboratory hasn’t given a result.”
Tessa wrote down the hospital contact and the utility’s reporting number. If the team found a possible exposure, she would need to direct workers to qualified care and provide the laboratory with an accurate description of where they had been. She could not determine water safety by looking at a glass.
Davin tapped the bounty notice. “The city wants an inspection, not a research project.”
“The city also wants the system working afterward,” Halden said.
Orrin leaned over the map. “Can we close the valve before we go in?”
“We can isolate the annex. Closing the district line would interrupt service. I’d rather not do it unless there’s an immediate need.”
“What about moving the creature?” Eli asked.
“It’s an animal,” Davin repeated. “It may not cooperate.”
Sera pointed to an open area on the plan. “Can we lure it away from the controls and close a barrier behind it?”
“Maybe. We don’t know what it eats.”
“Do we have to feed it? A light or sound could draw it.”
“Or drive it into the pipes,” Valea said.
They needed to see the space before choosing a lure. Eli proposed a limited inspection from the entrance: Sera would map the currents, Kellan would check the supports, and Halden would identify controls that could not be disturbed. The fighters would hold position without attacking until the route was agreed.
Davin frowned. “That gives an animal more time.”
“It also gives us a route that doesn’t break the waterworks,” Kellan said.
“Who’s responsible if another team takes the bounty while we inspect?”
“We each know the payment depends on the result,” Eli said. “We should put our inspection fee in writing so preparation isn’t unpaid if the city changes the assignment.”
They negotiated at the table. The independent team would receive a defined fee for the inspection, with a separate share if it participated in a successful removal. Kellan and Sera could call a pause if their observations changed the risk; Tessa could stop work for an immediate medical emergency. Davin retained coordination of the official hunters, but the independent group could withdraw from a route it considered unsafe.
The revised terms did not give Eli control over the entire operation. They gave his team a role and a way to refuse a dangerous instruction. Nora reviewed the wording by phone and asked for one sentence about payment if the city canceled after the inspection began. Davin added it after a short argument about the amount.
Halden called the laboratory while they signed. The additional test had been scheduled, but samples had not yet been collected from every point. He arranged for a technician to meet them in the morning. Tessa asked whether the workers who reported symptoms had access to medical follow-up. Halden said the plant nurse was checking and agreed to pass on the hospital contact without sharing names.
Before they left the meeting room, Valea tested the restraint net on an empty chair. Orrin threw it from three paces away. The weighted edge struck the chair back and caught on one leg; the rest fell across the floor.
“That’s a chair that doesn’t move,” Valea said.
Orrin retrieved the net and folded it again. “The room is smaller than I thought.”
“Use the short throw,” Davin said.
They tried again with Valea moving the chair on a trolley. The net caught the back but dragged the trolley sideways into the wall. Halden winced at the impact.
“Imagine that was a valve,” he said.
Orrin set the net down. “Then we need something between the animal and the controls.”
Kellan examined the weighted edge. “A barrier might work better than throwing this across a narrow room. We can use the net once it’s in the open passage.”
Davin did not look pleased, but he asked Valea to bring a folding barrier from the equipment store. She returned with two light panels and a set of feet. The panels were too broad for the narrowest passage, so Kellan measured the smaller one against the plan and marked where it could be placed.
“We still have to see the actual room,” he said.
“Tomorrow,” Davin replied. He wrote BARRIER on his own copy of the equipment list, beneath the net. Orrin rolled the net tightly and checked that the weighted edge was free of tangles before returning it to the case.
Outside, the team walked the public edge of the facility. A fence separated them from the service passage. Sera held her reader near the mesh. The currents beyond it pressed together: machinery, markers and one stronger source that seemed to pulse rather than move.
“Can you locate it?” Eli asked.
“Near the annex. Not precisely from here.”
Kellan examined the maintenance exit through the fence. A stack of empty containers blocked the door. A worker could clear them with a cart, but the door’s lower edge was buried beneath gravel.
“That exit needs work before it’s a retreat,” he said.
Davin came out behind them. “You can inspect it tomorrow.”
“Can the workers clear the containers tonight?”
“I’ll ask Halden.”
The worker who had brought the plan overheard and offered to move them after his shift. Kellan asked him to wait until Halden confirmed the area was safe and the containers belonged to the facility. The worker looked disappointed; he had already reached for the cart.
“I’m not trying to stop you helping,” Kellan said. “I don’t know what’s behind that door.”
The worker set the cart down. Halden checked the passage from inside and approved moving the containers, but left the gravel for the maintenance crew. The worker returned with another person, and together they cleared enough space to see the door. Its handle was intact. The bottom still needed to be freed.
Eli watched them work. A few minutes of preparation had changed the exit from an invisible line on a plan to a door the team could reach. It had not yet made it usable. He wrote the remaining task on the briefing sheet.
At the clinic that evening, Tessa updated the volunteers. The city had posted a bounty and the team had agreed to a limited inspection. The water service had not issued a contamination notice. She gave Leah the hospital and utility numbers and asked her to record any new reports without diagnosing them.
Noah found the small boat drawing in Nessa’s returned notebook. She had added a second boat beside it, with a tiny pipe drawn beneath the water.
“Is that a monster?” he asked.
“It’s a pipe,” she said.
“That’s less exciting.”
“Tell the pipe that when it breaks.”
He considered, then drew a third boat. Eli put the signed inspection terms in the team’s folder. Tomorrow they would enter a building full of machinery with a creature they had not seen, a modest fee and a reason to keep every pipe intact.