The woman brought the note from inside her shoe.
She did it angrily, sitting on an overturned crate while an official waited for her to open the contract again. One lace had swollen with water from the rescue yard. She pulled until it snapped, pushed her thumb beneath the tongue, and drew out a folded scrap softened by heat and sweat.
“I put it there because our coats go in the outer room.”
The official looked at the damp paper without reaching for it. A line of loading times crossed a rough sketch of two doors. Beneath the sketch she had written the instruction she said she had received: remain at lower access until the second signal. The time beside it preceded the activation.
“My history says I was counting dressings across the road. Why is that better than this?”
“It has a verified assignment reference,” he said.
“This has my handwriting.”
Eli stood beyond the statement table with a cup he had forgotten to drink. The small confrontation had stopped the queue more effectively than shouting would have. Behind the woman, another survivor shifted a bandaged arm and watched the note as if it were a piece of the destroyed instrument returned to them.
