Mira arrived with the latest departure count folded into a square too small to read.
“The corridor is working,” she said.
Eli heard the qualification before she spoke it. Behind her, the pressure indicator rose through a range she had marked by hand. Its movement was not smooth. The needle hesitated, leaped, then trembled against its new position.
“It isn’t working fast enough.”
She unfolded the count against the side of the control housing. Tessa’s most recent figures had been carried from the turn by a runner, not sent from the safe end. They showed people who had entered the corridor and people still approaching it. They did not show everyone safely beyond the district.
“You agreed to the window,” Eli said.
“I agreed to a window measured against that.” She pointed to the indicator. “Not to keep calling it open after the pressure goes through it.”
“How far off?”
