The first argument began before Tessa had opened the clinic door.
“The gate made us sick,” a broad-shouldered man said. He stood under the awning with six other waterworks employees, his work vest zipped over a wet shirt. “Tell the city to shut the plant before they bury it.”
“If they shut it, who pays us?” a younger worker demanded. “My rent doesn’t stop because you want an announcement.”
A woman beside them bent over, one hand pressed to her stomach. Leah brought her a chair. The woman tried to refuse, then sat so abruptly that the chair legs scraped across the pavement.
Tessa opened the door. “Inside. The rest of you, give her room.”
Eli moved the waiting chairs while Marisol took the woman’s pulse and asked when the nausea had begun. The woman answered slowly. Her skin was clammy, and she struggled to remain alert. Tessa called emergency services, then asked the broad-shouldered man to clear the path to the road.
“I’m the foreman,” he said. “My name’s Ben. I’ve got eight people feeling like this.”
“Then help us get her out first, Ben.”
He pushed the door wide and moved a delivery crate from the pavement. The younger worker brought a blanket. When the ambulance arrived, Tessa relayed the woman’s symptoms and what little history she had. Ben carried the bag she had dropped and handed it to the paramedic.
The ambulance left with its lights on. The argument did not resume immediately. The remaining workers watched it turn the corner, then looked at the clinic as if deciding whether to enter.
“We can assess urgent needs and arrange referrals,” Tessa said. “We can’t test the water here.”
Ben came inside. “If you don’t tell people the gate did it, they’ll keep drinking.”
“If I tell them the wrong cause, they may stop looking for the real one.”
“The timing isn’t a coincidence.”
“Tell me when each person’s symptoms started.”
He began with the woman in the ambulance. Her nausea had started that morning. The younger worker said he had felt sick two days before the gate was reported. Another said she had been on leave until yesterday and had not worked near the annex at all.
Eli stood beside the appointment table with a pencil. He had been ready to connect the illness to the creature’s cable and the gate. The dates did not fit a single simple story. They did not rule the gate out either.
“Write the time and where they worked,” Tessa said to him. “No names on the sheet we’ll share with the plant.”
A worker named Rosa heard that and shook her head. “I don’t want management reading my medical information.”
“They won’t receive your chart from us,” Tessa said. “Treatment and any research are separate. You can accept care and refuse to share information for a study.”
Rosa relaxed enough to sit. She described her symptoms to Marisol privately but declined to include her history in any research request. Tessa marked the boundary on the chart and did not copy the details onto Eli’s sheet.
The younger worker, Milo, had missed breakfast because his shift began early. Leah brought him a sealed bottle of water and a piece of bread from the bakery. He accepted the bread, then stared at the bottle.
“Where did this come from?”
“A sealed delivery,” Leah said. “Not the plant tap.”
He drank. Ben watched him and looked embarrassed. “I told everyone not to drink anything.”
“You told us not to drink the plant water,” Milo said. “You didn’t say to stop breathing.”
Ben managed a brief smile. It disappeared when his phone rang. The next shift was due at the waterworks within an hour. The supervisor had asked him to report for duty despite his concerns.
Kellan and Sera arrived with Halden’s permission to inspect the public access routes around the plant. Ben offered to walk with them. He knew the older drainage paths and the places where workers had reported leaks. Tessa asked him to return if he felt worse; he said his nausea had passed but promised to call.
At the plant, Kellan found a wet patch beneath a pipe joint well away from the gate. The metal support had been repaired with a mismatched bracket. A worker showed him a maintenance tag dated several weeks before the gate appeared. The tag requested an inspection of the joint; a later note said the repair had been deferred.
“Does that pipe carry drinking water?” Kellan asked.
“It’s a service line. The plan says it connects to a treatment feed, but I don’t know the current routing.”
Kellan photographed the tag and asked Halden for the current maintenance records. He did not tell Ben the leak caused the nausea. The wet patch could be water, condensation or another fluid; the photograph could not identify it.
Sera stood near the drainage access, holding her hand close to the grate. The machinery’s current was familiar from the previous day. A fainter pressure moved beneath it, toward the street rather than toward the annex.
“Did the creature leave a trail?” Ben asked.
“I can’t tell. This current is separate from the strongest gate reading, but I don’t know its source.”
She marked the location and time. A delivery truck passed, and the signal blurred. She waited until it moved away and took another reading. The faint pressure remained, weaker now, through the drainage access.
“Could it be another gate?” Kellan asked.
“It could be a lot of things. I need readings from more than one point.”
A worker opened the grate for inspection. Water ran beneath it, carrying leaves and a strip of plastic. The flow was stronger than Sera expected after a dry morning. She leaned only far enough to hold her hand near the rim; Kellan kept a hand on the grate so it could not swing shut against her arm.
The current flickered, then strengthened for a moment. Sera wrote down the change. Ben pointed downstream.
“That channel runs under the festival district.”
“Does it connect directly?”
“Through two older sections. Some are closed.”
“Can you show us the public access points?”
“I can mark the ones I know. Halden will have the current plan.”
Ben took Kellan to a locked maintenance board beside the break room. The board held carbon copies of repair requests behind a clear cover. He found the deferred joint inspection and two later requests for a chemical storage valve that had been sticking.
“The valve is on a different route,” he said. “I don’t know if it connects to the drinking line.”
Kellan checked the current plan. The drawing showed a service line leading toward a treatment feed, but the print was faded at the junction. He copied the reference numbers and asked Halden for a legible version rather than tracing a connection he could not see.
A worker passing through the room stopped beside them. She recognized one of the dates and said the floor had smelled sharp that day. She had reported it to her shift supervisor, who told her the ventilation system was being checked. She did not know what the inspection found.
“Can we give your account to the hospital?” Ben asked.
“Not with my name.”
Kellan offered to record the date and description without identifying her. She agreed after reading the note. He gave her a copy and left a blank space for the location she could not remember precisely. Ben wanted to fill it in from the maintenance tag, but Kellan stopped him: the worker had not confirmed it was the same place.
At the clinic, Tessa had called the hospital laboratory. A director agreed to discuss testing but needed properly labeled samples and information about where they were collected. The utility technician had already taken some samples near the filtration controls. Tessa requested additional samples upstream and downstream, with collection times and locations recorded separately from patient names.
Rosa came to the counter carrying a folded shift slip. She kept one finger over the printed name.
“It started Tuesday,” she said. “I told Marisol Wednesday. I counted backward from my next shift.”
Eli reached for his pencil, then stopped. Her chart was inside the consulting room. She had refused the research comparison; the sheet beside him was not hers to correct.
“Marisol needs that for your care,” Tessa said. She called the nurse to the doorway and stepped back so Rosa could explain without the waiting room hearing.
Ben had been watching the slip. “That puts her before the gate too.”
Rosa folded it shut. “I didn’t bring it for your list.”
Ben moved away from the counter. Eli turned his shared sheet facedown. A useful date was standing within reach, and neither of them could put it into the comparison simply because they had heard it.
Marisol took Rosa into the room. When the door closed, the utility technician called: the first package was ready, but he had a second collection route to cover. Tessa asked him to seal it for a courier rather than leave it at an unattended desk. Eli cleared space for the carrier and put the workers’ papers in the drawer. The water samples could travel without taking Rosa’s history with them.
A courier arrived with a sealed package from the utility technician: samples from the filtration area, each labeled with a location and collection time. Tessa checked the seals and called the laboratory before sending them. The hospital requested that the samples remain within the specified storage conditions and that the chain of custody be recorded.
Leah found an insulated carrier. Eli tested the strap and discovered one buckle would not hold. He replaced it with a spare from the supply cart and carried the package to the hospital with Tessa. They did not open it on the way.
At the laboratory reception, a technician checked the labels and accepted the package. The upstream and downstream samples would follow. She warned that the instrument used for the analysis was busy with other urgent work and could not begin immediately.
“How long?” Eli asked.
“The director will review the queue. I can’t give you a time.”
Tessa asked what information the hospital needed to compare the samples. The technician listed collection points, times, recent maintenance and exposure histories where patients consented to share them. She showed Tessa a label format that used codes instead of patient names.
On the way back, Ben called. The new shift had arrived. Management was still distributing tap water in the break room because no official warning had been issued. Some workers had brought their own; others had not.
“Can we get bottled water there?” he asked.
“I’ll see what the clinic and the relief service can provide,” Tessa said. “Tell the workers what we know: illnesses are being assessed, samples have been collected, and the cause isn’t confirmed. Don’t tell them the water is safe or unsafe.”
“That won’t make them listen.”
“Then tell them you’ve requested an alternative supply while the tests are pending.”
Leah called Asha, the relief coordinator, who found a small stock of sealed water at a nearby distribution point. Ben offered to collect it with the plant’s cart. The quantity would cover only part of the next shift. Asha asked the city office for more.
Eli met Ben at the distribution point. They loaded the bottles into crates, balancing the weight so the cart would not tip. Ben pushed the first load toward the plant and nearly caught a wheel in a broken drain cover. Eli steadied it.
“You saved the animal,” Ben said. “Can you save us as quickly?”
“I don’t know what’s making people sick.”
“Neither do I. I’m angry because nobody listened when we reported the pipe.”
“Show Kellan every report you can find.”
“I will.”
They delivered the water to the break room. A supervisor objected that it had not been authorized as a replacement supply. Ben put the crate on the table and asked whether workers were forbidden to drink it. The supervisor said no, then called Halden. Halden confirmed that the sealed water could be offered while the tests were pending.
Milo took a bottle. Another worker declined, saying he trusted the tap. Ben started to argue. Eli touched his arm and pointed to the sign Tessa had prepared: Testing is pending. Sealed water is available here. Ben let the worker choose.
By evening, Kellan had copies of two maintenance reports and a list of missing ones. Sera had three readings near the drain, none sufficient to identify the source. Tessa had a patient in hospital, several workers awaiting follow-up and samples in a laboratory queue. The next shift had water to drink, but not enough for the entire day unless more arrived.
Leah locked the clinic’s supply cabinet after the last patient left. “The hospital called,” she said. “They’ve received an offer of testing equipment from Aegis.”
Eli stopped folding the insulated carrier. He looked at the hospital number written beside the message. Faster testing could answer questions while workers were still on shift. It could also put Rook’s organization close to the results.
Tessa took the message. “We’ll find out what the offer says.”