The tapping came from a locked door, not a second recorder.
On the morning of day 1123, after the night watch had held the main exits, Iven lowered himself into the maintenance shaft on a secured rope. Kesh remained at the rim with a signal line around her wrist. Neri waited beside the shaft frame, watching the bolt that had caught the strip of gray cloth. Cenn’s road-watch members held the two main exits of the old relay works.
Below Iven, a narrow platform crossed the shaft. A woman crouched on it with a short tool pressed against a door latch. The flat case she had thrown from the roof was gone, but her gray sleeve had torn at the elbow.
“That’s a poor lock to be in a hurry with,” Iven said.
She looked up. Her hand moved toward her belt.
“Don’t,” he added. “There’s a long drop under both of us.”
She drew a knife anyway and cut the rope attached to the platform railing.
The platform dropped on one side. Iven caught the frame with hook cast and braced his boots against the shaft wall. The woman slid toward the gap, grabbed the door handle, and swung her weight through the opening she had managed to make. The door slammed behind her.
