Mira had imagined this approach before she stole the key.
In the imagining, there had always been a clear last place to stand. She would reach it, see what Rook was doing, and choose with the machinery before her. Fear had made that picture persuasive. The real approach was a broken landing whose edge moved every time startup sent another pulse through the reservoir.
Her engineer lay flat to examine the support beneath it.
Behind them, one of the supporters said they could have been at the mechanism already if they had come earlier. Mira did not ask whether he meant before Eli’s warning, before the tunnel work, or before she had decided not to strike first and answer questions afterward. He had said some version of it at each delay. The sentence needed no date to keep its accusation.
“Can we cross?” she asked the engineer.
“Not where the dust is falling.”
“Farther left?”
“I need the lamp.”
