The engineer came through the service passage on Kellan’s shoulder.
She could walk, but her left knee would not take the turn without folding. Kellan had found her in a recessed instrument bay beyond the refuge, sitting behind a fallen cabinet door she had dragged into a barrier. She had heard their tools and stayed where she was. The last armed party passing her bay had not stopped for her.
Tessa brought a stool to the entrance so Kellan did not have to carry her farther than necessary. The engineer sat down, caught her breath, and looked at the people in the refuge as though a whole occupied room was harder to believe than one rescuer.
“Medical first,” Tessa said when she reached into her coat.
“It’s a plan.”
“We can hold it while I check your leg.”
The engineer let Juno take the oilcloth packet. She kept one hand on its edge until Juno said she would not open it in front of the room without asking. Only then did she release it.
Her name was Lysa Den. Tessa recorded it in writing because the altered chamber remained close enough that no one wanted to test the range of its response. Lysa was alive, but the practice of keeping identities quiet had become a useful restraint on careless conversation. She gave her work role and described falling when the bay’s outer rail shifted. Tessa checked the knee, the cold scrape beneath the trouser tear, and the hand with which…
