Tessa applied for the expedition at the clinic counter, between a call to the hospital and a request for clean water.
She used the telephone number on the notice Eli had copied. A man answered after the third ring. Tessa gave her name, described her medical experience, and listened while he explained where the contract meeting would take place. She asked him whether the expedition would provide its own supplies. His answer made her reach for Leah’s pencil.
“I’ll discuss it at the meeting,” she said. “I won’t commit our clinic’s stock.”
She wrote down the time and hung up.
Eli had been sorting sealed gauze into a plastic container. He set the last packet down without closing the lid.
“You applied.”
“Yes.”
“You shouldn’t go.”
Tessa placed the pencil parallel to the edge of the notebook. “I applied to hear the terms.”
“You shouldn’t go into the gate.”
“Why?”
The answer came too quickly, a picture he had carried through ten years and a death: Tessa at the end of a broken corridor, calling his name while the dark moved between them. In that future she had been trying to reach him. He remembered the sound of her voice, the way he had tried to turn toward it and could not. He remembered no rescue. He had died with her somewhere beyond the reach of his hand.
That had not happened here. The clinic counter stood between them, and the morning light caught the cord of Darius’s badge inside her jacket. She was alive, waiting for a reason she could use.
“The layout might have changed,” Eli said. “We don’t know the leader. We don’t even know what the survey team found.”
“That’s why I’m going to the meeting.”
“You don’t need to be in the expedition at all. The clinic needs you.”
Leah looked up from the appointment book. She had been pretending not to listen, badly. A patient in the back room called for Tessa, who held up one finger to Eli and went through the door.
He replaced the lid on the container. Leah closed the appointment book and opened it again on another page.
“She can make the decision,” she said.
“I know.”
“You told her she shouldn’t go.”
“I don’t know what kind of team Corvin runs.”
“Neither does she. That’s why she asked about supplies.” Leah checked the clock above the counter. “Will you carry this to the back? I promised Marisol more gauze.”
Eli picked up the container. In the storeroom, Marisol was checking a dressing on a man’s forearm. She directed him to set the gauze on the shelf. Eli did so and left before the patient had to ask for privacy.
At the counter, Leah was helping a caller find the hospital’s billing office. She wrote a number on a slip of paper, repeated it slowly and waited while the caller read it back. Eli went outside and checked the clinic notice. The morning hours were nearly over. Three names remained on the appointment sheet, and one belonged to a woman who had not yet arrived.
He wanted to be useful. At the gate, usefulness had meant asking about contracts and noticing the survey team’s early entry. Here he had taken Tessa’s own reasons and used them to argue that she should stay. The clinic did need her. It also needed supplies, and she was the person who had spent the previous day calculating what those supplies would cost.
She came out twenty minutes later and asked Leah to call the late patient. Eli waited until the call was underway.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
Tessa checked the clock. “The next appointment is in ten minutes.”
They stood by the shop window, where the morning light fell across spools of thread. Mrs. Ortega had moved the display aside to make room for the clinic notice. A spool had come loose and rolled against Eli’s shoe. He picked it up and set it back on the shelf.
“I was wrong to tell you not to apply,” he said.
“But you still don’t want me to go.”
“No.”
“What do you know about the danger?”
“The gate has been surveyed, but the report isn’t public at the information tent. Corvin’s name wasn’t familiar to me. Someone who knows a porter he hired said he paid her but gave her a load she hadn’t expected. I couldn’t verify that from the porter herself.”
“Anything else?”
“I don’t know whether the inside is stable. I don’t know what creatures are there, how quickly the team can get out, or whether the medical supplies will be adequate.”
“Those are reasons to ask questions. You sounded as if you knew I’d be killed.”
He looked at the street. A delivery cart rattled over a seam in the pavement. He could say that gates killed people every day, that being afraid was reasonable, and both statements would be true. Neither would explain the force with which he had spoken.
“My fear is personal,” he said.
“How personal?”
“I’ve seen what can happen when a team can’t reach an injured person.”
“Here?”
“No.”
“Then tell me where.”
He had promised her an answer about the memory that came with Darius’s talent. He had not promised to tell her everything else he knew. Yet she was asking him to explain the warning he had aimed at her, and his silence left her to guess whether he had evidence he was withholding.
“I can’t explain all of it yet,” he said. “I know that makes it difficult to judge what I’m saying. I shouldn’t have given you an order on the strength of a reason I won’t share.”
Tessa’s expression hardened. “You keep asking me to trust things you can’t explain.”
“I know.”
“My father asked you to find me. You did. Then you took an ability and found out something private about him. You told me what happened when I asked, but you couldn’t tell me what it meant for him.”
“I still can’t.”
“And now you’re telling me you’re frightened for me because of something else you won’t explain.” She folded her arms. “You can be frightened. You don’t get to make the choice for me.”
He wanted to tell her that in another life she had tried to reach him through a corridor full of things he had failed to stop. He did not know what telling her would accomplish. She might reject the story. She might believe him and still choose to go. Either way, he would be asking her to weigh a memory from a life she had never lived against the work in front of her.
“You’re right,” he said.
“That doesn’t make the problem disappear.”
“No.”
She looked toward the counter. Leah was still on the phone, holding up a finger to say the late patient had answered.
“I know what I can do in an emergency,” Tessa said. “I also know what I can’t do with an empty bag. The expedition is looking for a medic. If I go, I’ll be able to judge its supplies and make sure the team understands what happens when someone is hurt.”
“Can you judge the team before you’re inside?”
“Not completely. Can you?”
“No.”
“Then we ask what we can, and we decide whether the answers are good enough.”
Leah ended the call. The patient was on her way, delayed by the buses. Tessa had enough time to make tea before the appointment, but instead she opened the supply notebook and turned it toward Eli.
“We have this many dressings,” she said. “The donation helped. If everyone comes back for the checks we’ve scheduled, we’ll have a small remainder tomorrow evening. We don’t have enough of the medicine Dev needs to order.”
“How much of the fee is guaranteed?”
“We don’t know. That’s another question.”
“I can keep looking for other work today.”
“And I can talk to Marisol about the clinic. Neither of us has to decide before the meeting.”
A woman entered carrying a folded coat. Tessa went to meet her, and the conversation ended. Eli stayed at the counter, making calls to the numbers he had copied from the registry board. The warehouse sorting job had already filled its morning shift. Another employer offered a trial day without pay. A third required him to buy protective equipment from a list whose cheapest item cost more than he had left.
He wrote down what each person said, including the names where they were offered. When a caller promised a large share but would not explain when it was paid, Eli asked for the contract. The caller told him to come in and sign it. Eli asked whether he could read it first. The line went quiet, then disconnected.
At noon, Marisol finished her last patient and washed her hands at the portable station. Tessa showed her the expedition notice.
“I may be away tomorrow,” Tessa said. “I haven’t agreed yet. Can we cover the hours if I am?”
Marisol read the paper and looked up. “Who is taking medical responsibility inside?”
“That’s one of the questions. I won’t go without a clear kit and a way to evacuate.”
“Good. Who covers here depends on what we mean by cover.” Marisol pulled the appointment sheet closer. “I can stay through the morning. I have another shift in the afternoon. I can ask Nisha if she can come for two hours, but she hasn’t agreed.”
Leah added, “I can keep the phone and desk open. I can’t assess wounds.”
“We won’t ask you to,” Tessa said.
Mrs. Ortega came from the back of the shop with a carton of thread balanced against her hip. She set it down. “The room is yours for the day whether you’re here or not. I can help people fill out forms.”
“Can you take a message if someone calls about a complicated injury?” Marisol asked.
“I can write it down.”
“The message needs to tell them where to go now, not just wait for Tessa.”
They drafted a short script for Leah and Mrs. Ortega: if someone described a possible emergency, call emergency services or go to the hospital; do not offer a diagnosis over the phone. For scheduled wound checks, record the name and time, and explain which clinician would be present. If no clinician was available, offer a referral rather than a promise of treatment.
Marisol called Nisha from the back room. The conversation was brief. She returned shaking her head.
“Nisha can’t come tomorrow. Her father needs transport to an appointment.”
Tessa studied the schedule. “We can move my two afternoon checks to the morning if the patients can come earlier. If they can’t, we’ll refer them.”
“One of them has a job,” Leah said. “She booked afternoon because her manager wouldn’t release her.”
“Call and ask before changing it. She can decide whether to use the hospital or wait until the next day if that remains medically appropriate.”
Leah made the call. The woman could not come in the morning and did not want to wait. She agreed to attend the hospital after work, provided someone could write down the treatment already given. Marisol prepared the note while Leah confirmed the address and the expected time.
The arrangement was imperfect. By the time they had moved the other appointment, Tessa had circled a gap of three afternoon hours. The shop could remain open for information and referrals; it could not offer the same care as it would with her present. That cost belonged on the list beside the possible fee.
Eli helped Mrs. Ortega carry the carton upstairs. The narrow staircase turned halfway up, and he had to angle the box to avoid the wall. Mrs. Ortega stayed close enough to catch it if he slipped.
“I’m capable of carrying some thread,” she said.
“I know. Leah asked me to move the heavier things.”
“Leah is becoming very authoritative.”
“She has a notebook.”
“That explains it.”
They set the carton in the upper room. From the window, Eli could see the street where the emergency vehicles had parked after the breach. The barriers were gone now, but a dark patch remained where water had mixed with dust and drained toward the gutter.
Mrs. Ortega followed his gaze. “Darius used to come in for buttons. He could never remember which coat he’d lost them from.”
Eli kept his hand on the carton. He had not known Darius well enough to add a story of his own. The memory that had arrived with Weak-Point Sight pressed against his thoughts, but Tessa had asked him not to repeat it. Mrs. Ortega did not need it in order to remember her neighbor.
“He helped people get out,” Eli said.
“Yes. That’s what Tessa told me.” Mrs. Ortega adjusted the corner of the carton lid. “She was helping people before he found her, too.”
“I know.”
“She’ll keep doing it. Sometimes the rest of us have to make sure the shop is open when she comes back.”
Downstairs, Tessa was on the telephone again. She had reached Dev and was asking whether the supplier would hold the quoted price until the following morning. The answer seemed to be no. She asked what deposit would secure the order, wrote down a smaller figure and thanked him.
After she hung up, Eli pointed to the number. “We could try to raise the deposit today.”
“We should.”
“Then if the contract is bad, we haven’t lost the whole day waiting.”
She gave him a brief look. “That’s a useful suggestion.”
They divided the calls. Mrs. Ortega contacted two neighboring shops about contributions to the utility bill. Leah called residents who had offered supplies, asking them to confirm what they could provide and when. Eli returned to the registry board to ask whether any employers paid a partial fee at signing. Tessa called the community health office again and left a detailed message about the service they were trying to run.
Eli found no advance. He did find an afternoon delivery job carrying sealed equipment between a warehouse and the gate perimeter. It would pay less than the expedition fee but enough to contribute toward the deposit. He checked that it didn’t require entry, that the wage was fixed, and that the warehouse supplied the cart. The supervisor needed someone immediately.
Eli took the job. He spent three hours pushing cases through a loading bay and checking serial numbers against a manifest. The cart had one wheel that pulled left, and he learned to correct for it before reaching the slope to the street. A crate marked FRAGILE contained metal instruments in padded sleeves; another held nothing but replacement straps. The supervisor paid him in cash and signed a receipt when he asked.
By the time he returned to the clinic, his shoulders ached. Leah counted the payment with him and entered it as a donation. Mrs. Ortega’s neighboring shops had contributed smaller amounts. Together they were still short of the deposit, but closer than they had been at noon.
“Dev says he’ll call again in the morning,” Tessa told him. “The supplier may have a smaller quantity available. We’d have to make another order later.”
“Would that cover the patients we already know about?”
“Some of them. I’m checking alternatives for the rest.” She closed the notebook. “The contract meeting is in an hour.”
Eli took out the list of questions. He had added the fixed wage from his delivery job as a comparison. Tessa read through the list and wrote a few more items in the margin: treatment supplies, permission to leave with an injured patient, and what happened to a worker’s pay if evacuation ended the expedition.
“I don’t want the clinic’s stock counted as the team’s contribution,” she said. “They can provide their own kit. If they can’t, that tells me something.”
“What if Corvin agrees in the room and changes his mind inside?”
“Then the written agreement gives us something to point to. It won’t make him a good leader.”
Eli folded the paper. “I still don’t like you going.”
“I heard you the first time.”
“I’ll tell you the risks I can substantiate. If I see something at the meeting that concerns me, I’ll say what it is.”
“And I’ll decide what to do with it.”
He nodded. The fear remained, sharper for having no honest way to measure it. He could not make the gate safe by keeping her away from the meeting, and he could not call his memory a prediction when the world had already changed around it.
Tessa took a moment in the examination room before leaving. She checked that the remaining supplies were locked away, set tomorrow’s schedule beside the phone and gave Leah the note for the patient who would go to the hospital. Then she took her coat from a hook near the door.
Mrs. Ortega handed her the shop key. “Bring this back whenever you return. Leah has the spare.”
“I might not take the job.”
“I know. Bring it back either way.”
Outside, the evening light had begun to fade between the buildings. Eli and Tessa walked toward the transit station together. At the corner, he offered her the folded list. She took it and read as they walked, stopping to add a question about whether the medic could leave the gate with a patient without forfeiting the whole team’s pay.
The rented meeting room was above a repair shop. Voices carried down the stairs, accompanied by the scrape of chairs. A notice taped to the entrance repeated the expedition leader’s name and asked applicants to have their registry cards ready.
Tessa touched the badge inside her pocket, then let her hand fall. “We’ll read everything before we sign.”
“Yes,” Eli said.
They climbed the stairs, carrying their questions into a room where neither of them yet knew whether the answers would be enough.