The first opening showed a boot, a fallen chair, and the underside of a metal rack.
Juno stopped the motor there.
Tessa lowered herself until she could see through the gap without putting her face in the door’s travel. “I can see your foot. Keep it where it is.”
“It’s not mine,” the worker said.
Eli crouched behind her. The boot lay sideways beneath the rack, its laces undone. Farther back, a hand rested on the floor with its fingers spread. There were two people, as the worker had said, but the second had been reduced in Eli’s mind to a possibility. Now the possibility wore a boot and had a hand that ought to move.
Kellan checked the brace feet. The first small travel had settled one onto a thin layer of dust; he eased the load back while Bram cleared the dust and reset the foot on solid concrete. Juno kept the door at its original stop until he finished. The delay felt huge beside the hand on the floor.
“Now,” Kellan said.
Juno advanced the mechanical anchor another measured interval. The unit hummed, taking tension while Kellan watched the bracing and Mira read the working gauge. The gap widened into something a shoulder could fit through if the shoulder belonged to someone able to turn it correctly.
