Kellan chose the table facing the café door and put his notebook between them.
Eli arrived five minutes early. Kellan was already there, a cup of coffee untouched beside his elbow. Outside, the west gate glimmered beyond a temporary fence. A queue of workers waited at a permit desk, their coats pulled tight against the wind.
“Wage first,” Kellan said.
Eli sat, paid Kellan the small meeting fee stated in his invitation, and placed the written assessment offer on the table. Kellan signed a receipt and tucked the cash into his notebook. Eli pointed to the offer. “This is guaranteed if we inspect the site and report what we find. The larger payment depends on recovering the cache. I propose splitting both equally after agreed equipment costs.”
Kellan read the page. He turned it over, checking for more terms, then took out a pencil.
“When does the assessment payment arrive?”
“Two days after we submit the report.”
“My brother has an appointment Tuesday. Two days after the inspection may be too late.”
“I can pay a small advance from my own money. If the assessment payment comes through, we’d deduct it from your share.”
“How small?”
Eli wrote the amount. Kellan compared it with figures in his notebook: treatment, transport, and a second line marked next visit. He did not show Eli anything about Theo’s condition. Eli did not ask.
“The advance covers transport,” Kellan said. “Not the appointment.”
“Can the provider take a partial payment?”
“I’ve asked. They want an answer by Monday.”
Eli could not make Monday arrive later. He checked the contract again. “I can call the coordinator and ask whether she’ll pay the assessment fee on receipt of the report. I can’t promise she will.”
Kellan drew a line under the amount. “Ask before I take the day off.”
The café owner brought their drinks. Eli had ordered tea; Kellan finally lifted his coffee. He drank it black, then pointed at the equipment line.
“Rope and supports. How much?”
“I have an estimate, not a quote. The tunnel is flooded, and I haven’t seen the support we’re trying to reach.”
“Who decides what we need?”
“We inspect together. If either of us says the route is unsafe, we stop and reassess.”
Kellan nodded, but his pencil moved to another blank space. “Injury coverage?”
“I have basic coverage for registered recovery work. I haven’t confirmed how it applies to a temporary partner.”
“Then this isn’t a proposal yet.”
“I planned to ask an advocate to check the terms.”
“Before or after we went in?”
“Before. I should have done it before inviting you.”
Kellan closed the notebook halfway. Eli had seen recruiters keep talking when a candidate began to leave, piling promises on top of gaps. He resisted the urge. Kellan had asked for actual terms and had found one of the largest omissions within a minute.
“I can get the coverage information today,” Eli said. “If you don’t want to wait, I understand.”
“What are the supplies?”
“Medical stock left by a relief team. The owner wants it recovered and will sell some to the clinic at a reduced price.”
“The clinic with the painted wall?”
“Yes.”
Kellan watched him. “The one they say steals talents?”
“I can’t take an ability from a living person.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No. It’s the answer I can give you now.”
Kellan opened his notebook again. “If we’re going inside together, I need to know what you can do in there.”
“I can identify the dead. I can also spot structural strain, though it doesn’t tell me everything about a structure and using it repeatedly can tire me.”
Kellan’s eyebrows rose. Eli had chosen to tell a prospective partner more than he had told the meeting. The information was relevant to their safety. He did not describe Darius or the origin of the ability.
“Can you spot a damaged support through water?” Kellan asked.
“I don’t know. I haven’t tried.”
“Can you tell whether the ground beneath it is washed out?”
“Not from the support alone.”
“Good. Don’t make a promise about the floor based on the wall.”
Eli marked the limitation on the proposal. “What does your ability do?”
“A barrier. I can hold it between a load and a person for a short time. It isn’t a permanent support, and it doesn’t make a bad lift safe.”
“How long?”
“Depends on the force. A falling sign is different from a slab.”
He did not offer a number. Eli almost asked for one anyway, then saw Kellan’s pencil resting beside the treatment costs. The man had come to determine whether this job could pay before Tuesday, not to give a demonstration for free.
Outside, the gate gave a low, resonant hum. The windows in the café rattled. Someone at the permit desk shouted for the queue to move away from the fence.
Kellan stood before Eli did. A metal sign mounted above the café window swung on its brackets. One bracket tore loose, leaving the sign hanging at an angle over the pavement. A woman with a stroller stopped directly beneath it, trying to turn around the crowd.
“Move to the doorway,” Kellan shouted.
The woman pulled the stroller toward her, but a wheel caught in a crack. The sign’s second bracket bent. Kellan ran out, planted his feet, and raised one hand. A translucent plane flashed above the woman as the sign fell. It struck the barrier with a sound like metal hitting thick glass.
“Get her clear!” Kellan called.
Eli reached the stroller, lifted the trapped wheel, and helped the woman push it into the café doorway. Kellan held the barrier for another second while the sign slid off and struck the pavement. The plane vanished. He lowered his arm and flexed his fingers.
The gate’s hum faded. A guard directed people away from the fence while another checked the permit desk. There was no outbreak; the tremor had shifted loose fixtures along the street.
The café owner came out and stared at the sign. “That’s new hardware.”
Kellan pointed upward. “The right bracket pulled out of the wall. The left one bent. Don’t put the sign back with the same anchors.”
“Can you fix it?”
“Not with people standing under it. Close the pavement and get someone with a ladder and proper fixings.”
The owner dragged two chairs outside to mark the area. Eli helped him block the approach, keeping people clear of the sign’s sharp edge beside the entrance. Kellan examined the remaining bracket without touching it.
“The barrier stopped the sign,” Eli said.
“For a moment.” Kellan rubbed his wrist. “The bracket will fail again if he hangs it the same way. A shield doesn’t repair it.”
A responder arrived to check the street. The woman with the stroller said she and the child were unhurt. She thanked Kellan, who asked her to check the stroller wheel before using it. Eli saw that the wheel’s axle had bent; the café owner found a piece of cord to secure it temporarily while the woman called someone to collect them.
The café owner looked at Kellan’s hand. “You should sit down. I’ll get you ice.”
“I can hold a cup,” Kellan said, then stopped as he tried to lift the fallen sign’s far edge. His wrist bent and he let the metal down before it could slip. “Ice would help.”
Eli took the other end. Together with the owner, they leaned the sign against the wall. Kellan kept his injured hand clear while giving directions. He did not use the barrier a second time to make the job look easier.
Inside, the owner wrapped ice in a clean towel. Kellan held it against his wrist and called someone from his phone. His voice changed when the call connected.
“Theo, it’s me. I’m fine. There was a tremor near the gate, but I wasn’t inside.” He listened. “No, don’t come over. I’m meeting someone about work. I’ll call you when I know whether it pays before Tuesday.”
He ended the call and saw Eli looking away. “He hears the alarms on the news before I can get a message through,” he said. “If I wait, he assumes the worst.”
“My friend does the same when I go through a gate,” Eli said. He thought of Tessa asking him for a return time, and of how much easier it was to call the instruction concern when someone else gave it.
“Then give her a time you can actually make,” Kellan said. “Not the time that sounds reassuring.”
Back inside, the tea had gone cold. Kellan sat down and opened his notebook to the same page.
“I can hold a barrier,” he said. “You’ve seen what that means. If you hire me to stand under a load you haven’t secured, I’ll leave.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to.”
“Write it anyway.”
Eli added a clause: either worker could refuse a route or lift they judged unsafe, without forfeiting the assessment payment already earned. He did not know whether the cache owner would accept every part of it, but he could propose it before they entered.
Kellan read the sentence. “Who pays if we disagree about the equipment?”
“We agree on costs before buying. If we can’t agree, we don’t buy it.”
“And if we find the cache but can’t move it?”
“We report it and receive the assessment fee if the coordinator honors the written offer. We don’t force the recovery.”
Kellan tapped the injury line. “Still blank.”
“I’ll check it today.”
“Do that.” He closed the notebook. “I’m not joining a team. I’ll consider one job if the fee date, coverage, and split are written down.”
Eli gathered the papers. “Can I call you this evening?”
“After six. Theo’s appointment is the first thing tomorrow. I’ll use savings for part of it and your advance for travel; the provider will defer the rest if I confirm a payment date. I need to know whether to keep looking for other work.”
He stood, leaving the coffee half finished. At the door he paused to tell the café owner that the pavement should remain blocked until the bracket was inspected. Then he went back toward the yard.
Eli called Asha from the café. She agreed to pay the assessment fee on receipt of a written report if the site officer confirmed they had entered. She would not advance the recovery payment. Eli asked her to send the change; she did while he waited.
Nora could not review the injury clause until later, but she directed him to the registry’s published coverage terms and advised him to ask the insurer how they applied to both workers. Eli called, wrote down the answer and the reference number, then sent the relevant pages to Nora. The policy covered registered workers for specified injuries during the job, subject to reporting and exclusions. It would not replace a full day’s wages indefinitely.
He carried the papers back to the clinic. Tessa was helping Leah sort donated dressings. She listened while he described the tremor and the sign.
“Did Kellan hurt his wrist?” she asked.
“He flexed it afterward. I didn’t ask if he needed treatment.”
“Ask when you call. Not as a condition of the job. Because you saw him take a load.”
Eli wrote it down. He also told her what he had disclosed about Weak-Point Sight. She did not object to his giving a prospective partner information needed for the work; she asked whether he had mentioned the episode at the yard.
“I said repeated use can tire me. I didn’t describe the fragment.”
“Tell him what he needs to recognize if you stop responding.”
“I will.”
At six, he called Kellan. He gave him Asha’s revised payment date, the coverage reference, and Nora’s pending review. Then he asked about the wrist.
“It’s sore,” Kellan said. “I can move it. I’m having it checked tomorrow.”
“Good.”
“Don’t sound surprised.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were a little.”
Eli smiled despite himself. Kellan asked him to send the written terms. He would read them after Theo’s appointment and give an answer before the permit office closed. The agreement was still for one job, not a permanent team. Eli sent the pages and left the phone on the table, resisting the urge to call again when no reply came immediately.