Mira crossed the connecting walk before Eli reached the ladder.
She knew which rung caught a boot and where the upper rail ended short of the landing. He learned both by watching her avoid them. Below, the removed handle still lay on the control-platform floor. The key she carried could change something he did not understand, and the ordinary way of undoing that change was in pieces behind him.
He climbed only to the first landing, where Juno could still see him from the inspection post.
“Mira,” he called. “You have the revised count now.”
“I have a count that keeps changing.”
“Because people are moving. That’s a reason to update it, not discard it.”
She turned at the ladder junction. The key disappeared inside her fist. Eli could reach her by the narrow outside walk or circle the fixed ladder and try from the wider inner section. The outside line was shorter. The rail there had pulled away from its lowest mounting.
Juno called him back from that edge.
