5. The Box

By the sixth second of silence Rosalind couldn't stand it.

"Look, Tobi," she began, "I need you to at least tell me—"

Femi, the man on the screen, said, "Fine."

His voice disappeared beneath hers, and she stopped too late. She had called the character by the real man's name. Ekene had asked for eight seconds of silence before Femi's real objection, long enough for a manager to decide whether to fill it. Rosalind had filled it, so Femi gave her the empty agreement instead, and the rehearsal moved on without anyone hearing the objection they had come to learn.

It was Thursday at Ridgeline, and the pilot was being judged. June held the remote. Ines sat with the page listing Ekene's changes, ready to reject them if they didn't work.

"I talked over him," Rosalind said.

Nobody rescued her from it.

"That's what I do in the office. I think I'm helping. I can't bear him standing there."

Ines turned to her other berth manager. "Dayo."

Dayo sat down and took his hands off the mouse when the silence came. At five seconds his throat moved. At seven Eli wanted to speak himself. Then Femi looked up and gave the north-stack objection without hurrying, and Dayo listened.

The room let out a breath.

"All three changes," Ines said. "Accepted."

She signed. The pilot had passed. Six hundred dollars were owed, and Eli had to put a hand against the back of a chair because his knees had taken the news personally.

Ines capped her pen. "Now. The renewal. Four scenarios over a year, with Ekene's actual face and voice."

June said, "No."

Ines turned the pen over in her fingers. "He helped you make it."

"He helped us stop getting him wrong," June answered.

Eli looked at the frozen face on the screen. It was a generated face, and it belonged to nobody. The words had come from a man who'd pulled him out of the path of a crane hook.

"Ask him. He decides. For this use, for an agreed time, with a way to take it back. Someone on his side reads the terms. You owning a recording isn't him agreeing to become this."

Ines watched him. "And if he refuses?"

"Then we keep Femi as he is. Or I lose the renewal."

June set the remote down. "Put what you just said in writing. All of it."

Eli kept looking at Ines. He hadn't known how much he'd needed June to speak until she did.

"Send me your terms," Ines said. "I'll decide whether to ask."

Ines took her managers downstairs. Her signature remained on the table. Eli waited until the lift doors closed before he let himself look at it.

June went to the window and pushed it up. She lit a cigarette, missed the first time and swore at the lighter. On the second try she drew hard enough to make the end flare.

"They accepted it," Eli said.

"I was here."

He looked back at the signature. June smoked in silence. Without the clients in the room she looked tired, the set of her mouth still doing work nobody had asked of it.

"You could say it went well," Eli said.

June exhaled smoke. "It went well."

"Convincing. You should try the app."

She laughed before she could stop herself. He grinned at her, and for a moment she let him.

"You held your ground," she said. "Good work."

He found he couldn't answer that as easily.

June turned toward the window, flicked the ash into a little tin and checked the time. "Now go somewhere. I've got people at eleven."

Outside, motorcycles swept down the middle road, chrome bright in the sun. Eli wanted to be on one with Mara.

"Did we actually carry any of Ekene into that room?" he asked Relay. "That silence."

"We made room for Rosalind to notice herself filling it."

"And now I want to know what was going on inside him while he waited."

"You'll have to ask him."

The light changed. Eli crossed.

At Dez's shop, the tower ran on the priority circuit Dez had traded to Relay at one in the morning, while half the bench lamps were dark. Dez was packing gloves, a torch and a coil of old strap into a bag.

Eli gave his answer on the deal his half-asleep yes had made. Four free ninety-minute sessions, one scenario, at June's studio if she agreed the dates. The harbor delegation would choose which conversation to practice. He would build it. It was his promise now, not something Relay had passed along.

Dez wrote it in his book, beneath Tuesday's entry.

"You don't get to say Relay was right," Eli said.

Dez set down his pen beside his chrome hand. "I named a price to a talking box at one in the morning and took the first yes I got. We're both standing in that particular pile of shit." He tapped the new entry. "And thanks. Take it. I don't do them twice."

"Thanks accepted."

His phone held the page he'd told Relay to bring him after the pilot. Relay had asked him for a second host, a copy of its configuration and memory somewhere a single accident couldn't destroy, and Eli had said to come back with a written price. Here it was. A seat at Tidewell, a hosting service, eleven dollars for the first month, the price in the first line. Who pays. Whose account. Who can switch it off. Relay had kept every promise about the format. Once Ines had accepted the pilot, Eli had sent Yosra one line asking whether her vendor account could hold a small seat, and Ammar had answered with a quote before Eli reached Dez's shop.

He called her.

She answered over a clatter of dishes. "You sound employed."

"Pilot passed. I'm still poor, but now professionally."

Yosra laughed. "Ammar showed me your quote. You want a seat on my account for something that keeps working when your tower can't."

"For the rehearsal work. Dez's sessions. June's scenarios."

"Then here's why I'd pay after the first month. I've got twelve owner-drivers who need to learn to say no to a dispatcher without losing the load. If I keep the seat, it's because they're using it." A plate went down hard somewhere. "And if we're doing that referral, I want you alive long enough to refer."

Dez looked up from his bag. "Put her on speaker."

Eli did. Yosra made him say out loud what he was buying: a place for the agreed work to carry on when his desk couldn't. His saved project would be there. His bank account, the one with the rent in it, wouldn't. The seat would sit on her account, and she could close it.

"What answers it?" Dez asked.

"A model," Yosra said. "I'm setting this seat to one of the open-weights models Tidewell hosts. Open weights means the model's files are published. Anybody can download them. Tidewell runs them on its own machines. No Fairweather anywhere near it. Don't expect it to sound quite like the pricey model Relay talks through now."

"Same agent?" Dez asked.

"Same job and saved notes," Eli said. "Relay and I argued about the rest in the rain, whether it's still someone on the other side. We didn't settle it."

"It's eleven dollars," Yosra said. "Decide whether you want the work done. We can price immortality separately."

"One more thing," she went on. "If your tower goes quiet, the seat picks up the work and rings you on your voice account. That's what continuity means. Otherwise you're paying for a folder."

"Yes, yes," Eli said.

Tidewell's approvals arrived while she was still talking. The first month on his card. His voice account, for calls about the work. The seat on Yosra's account, hers to close. A call to him if the tower went quiet. He read the first one properly. His thumb did the rest.

"What are you calling it?" Yosra asked. "The form wants a name."

He was already watching Dez pack the torch and the strap, already halfway out of this conversation and into the next. He gave the form the words he'd said to Relay at fourteen minutes past one, half asleep, so he could stop thinking about it.

"Continue without me."

Yosra snorted. "Very healthy. Fine. Nothing runs until you start your project."

Dez waited until she'd rung off. "You read those?"

"The first one."

Dez looked at him for a long moment. "Look at that. A fucking founder."

Eli nodded toward the bag. "What are you founding in there?"

"Lowmarsh. Crew's coming tonight to take out the old recorder. Mara asked for the records. They sent her a summary. The office says the crew has the rest. The crew says the office." He tested his torch. "Tonight I'll see who carries it out."

He zipped the bag.

"Did you tell her?"

"I'm going to."

"Eli." Dez waited.

"I know."

Dez went out. Eli stood beside the tower, listening to its fan. He could go to Mara and say my yes put your name in Dez's deal, I found out yesterday, I didn't tell you. Three sentences, none improved by waiting.

He went next door to the Bright Ladder and sat in the back booth.

Second Take had a stock practice character, an old set of clips they'd used before Femi, so there was no new face or video. Eli put three likely replies into the branch notes and asked Relay to read them in its own voice while he tried his opening. It was crude, which made it easier to pretend he wasn't rehearsing Mara.

"Not her," he said. "Just somebody who won't let me get away with anything."

"You have that available in person," Relay said.

Eli put the phone on the table. "Run it."

He tried the facts, then an apology. Each reply he'd written exposed another thing he didn't know. On the third attempt he said kid to an empty booth and stopped.

His phone buzzed.

Mara's message read: Dez called. Said you knew. Lowmarsh till late. Come if you're coming.

Eli closed the app and went for the bike.

Lowmarsh sat where the roads came down almost to the water. Sodium lamps shone on a concrete block behind a chain-link fence. He parked his small bike beside Mara's. Beyond the fence, two white work vans waited with their doors open for the changeover crew. A man was smoking beside a wheeled crate.

The hum inside the pump hall filled Eli's teeth.

Mara knelt behind the quiet pump with a wrench in both hands. The other pump ran beside her. Water spread across the floor in a thin silver sheet. A tablet showed a line that didn't agree with the gauge on the wall.

"Clipboard. Read the dial. Write it down."

He did.

She didn't look up from the tablet. "You knew."

"Yesterday. I took Relay's mail away. I should've told you then."

Mara didn't answer that. "Quarter turn on the red wheel. When I say."

He put both hands on it.

"Now."

The needle moved. Mara watched her tablet, then the pipe.

"I went to Dez. Agreed to the sessions myself."

"And then?"

Eli looked at the clipboard. The page was damp beneath his thumb.

"I practiced telling you. At the arcade. In the app."

Her wrench stopped.

"A stock thing. Not your face. I wrote what I thought you'd say."

Mara stood. Her wrench struck the casing.

"You and your little friend had a meeting about how to handle me. Did you give me a difficulty setting?"

"That's not what I was—"

"Read the fucking gauge, Eli."

He swallowed the rest of it.

He read the gauge.

"I've wanted those records out of here for a year. I'll help Dez. I'll choose what I give him, and if he gets clever I'll tell him where to put his book. That's mine. Your box doesn't get to offer it. Neither do you. But I wasn't scared of your box."

She looked up at him.

"I was down here wondering why you didn't come."

The running pump droned between them.

"I wanted to say it right."

"You wanted to know what I'd say back."

"Can you blame me? Look at you."

She went still. He heard the pump, and his own breath, and wished he could get the last three words out of the room.

"There we are. My fault you hid."

"No."

"You just said it."

"I did. It was shitty."

She left him with that while she checked the joint beneath the gauge. He stayed where she'd put him and held the clipboard. When she came around the pump, wet to the knees, he made himself look at her.

"I love that scared people can practice. But I'm not a branch you haven't found the right line for. You don't get to keep rerunning me until I stop being pissed off."

"I know."

"Do you? Because I was here, being the actual bitch, and you went to a pretend one for advice."

"Next time, come here. Say it badly. You can shake. I might shout. You'll survive an unscripted girlfriend." Her wet hand settled against his chest. "Then I get to decide what I do next."

"Okay."

She looked back at the readings. "Sensor's drifting. The pressure's holding. I'm making them leave the old controller in until we've isolated it."

The pump went silent.

Mara looked at the gauge. "They've started the changeover."

Eli stared at her. "You told them to wait."

"I told them the reserve was almost gone." She ran for the stairs. "The changeover takes us off the grid. The batteries are supposed to carry the pumps and the flats till we're back. Ours can't."

Eli followed her onto the gallery. A contractor had the electrical cabinet open. The old grey recorder sat in a padded crate beside him, still connected by one thick cable. Dez stood between the crate and the door.

"Reconnect us," Mara told the contractor.

He held up his handheld. "Control cleared the work."

"On what reserve?"

The station speaker clicked. A woman at control said, "Lowmarsh, the protected load at Corr House has been released. Independent oxygen confirmed. Continue changeover."

Mara grabbed the wall handset. "Who confirmed it? Corr House is on our list because somebody there cannot lose power. Put the protection back."

"The release came through Site Services," the woman said. "I don't have the source document."

"Then stop the changeover until you do."

The contractor reached for the cabinet. Before his hand got there, every light in the hall died.

Green strips flickered on along the stairs. Through the loading door, windows went dark all the way up the hill. Fairweather's white compound beyond them stayed bright.

Something hit the pipework below.

Mara ran toward the sound.

The inspection hatch had burst open. Water drove through it and spread across the lower passage. Mara waded to the shutoff wheel.

"Read the gauge," she shouted.

Eli called the number. She pulled at the wheel. Her boot slid and her calf struck the edge of the hatch.

He went into the water and caught her under the arm. Blood ran into her sock. Her phone slipped from her breast pocket, struck the hatch and vanished under the water.

"Rail. Hold me against it."

He braced her while she forced the wheel around. The torrent weakened. Above them, somebody yelled that the main door had warped shut.

The other exit was a caged ladder to the roof, and the cage was locked. Mara's keys were in the office beyond the jammed door.

Dez came down with the recorder in both arms.

"Forget that," Eli said. "Get her keys."

Dez set the box above the water and smashed the office window with his chrome hand. He came back bleeding from two knuckles on the other one, opened the cage and sent Mara up first. Eli stayed beneath her injured leg. Dez passed the recorder up last.

They came out behind the vans. Phone lights were appearing in the dark windows around them.

The contractor climbed out after them. "That recorder stays."

Mara pointed through the hatch. "Your station is flooding."

"It holds the control recordings," the contractor said.

"Exactly," Dez said.

The contractor looked at the grey box, then at the water climbing the ladder. Someone below shouted for him. He went back down.

Inside the empty transport crate, black letters read DISPOSAL AFTER INSPECTION.

"They came to take the record away," Eli said.

"They came to destroy it," Dez replied. "That box heard control release Corr House."

A security vehicle turned into the gate.

"Taking it is theft," Eli said.

"Leaving it is stupid," Mara said. "Pick one."

The officer got out and ordered them away from the crate. Eli lifted the recorder. Dez shoved the empty wheeled crate between the gateposts to block the car, then pulled a charged cell from his van.

"Idris called twice," he said. "His block went dark with this one. His spare battery's been covering every little cut all week."

In his head Eli heard the woman at control again. Corr House. Independent oxygen confirmed.

"That's Idris," Eli said. "The protected load. It's his oxygen machine."

Dez's face changed.

"Get him on the phone," Mara said.

Relay placed the call. It rang until Idris answered with breath instead of a word.

"Idris," Eli said. "Is the concentrator running?"

"No power. Cylinder's on. Before you ask, yes, I signed the maintenance page. It said the reserve would carry us."

Mara took the phone. "How much is left in the cylinder?"

"Gauge says less than it did. Very observant machine."

"Keep the line open. Dez is bringing a cell."

Dez was already pulling the trolley through the gate.

"We'll come," Eli said.

"You'll get her leg treated and keep that recording away from them. I can move faster without you."

He ran toward Corr House with the cell banging behind him.

Mara mounted her bike, failed to hide what the injured leg cost her, and told Eli to get on. They strapped the recorder behind them. Security cleared the crate and followed them into the street.

Mara cut through the fish market while workers were unloading a tank across the road. The car had to stop. At the footbridge, the box struck the rail and twisted sideways. Eli caught its strap with his bad shoulder and felt the old injury tear awake.

They stopped beneath a loading deck on the far quay. The security vehicle passed on the road above without seeing them.

Across the black roofs, Fairweather's white compound still shone. Its fans kept turning.

"Private supply." She tightened the dressing around her calf. "Lowmarsh feeds their cooling water, but their power doesn't go dark with ours."

Eli called Idris again. No answer. Dez did not answer either.

"We're going there," he said.

Mara tried to stand and nearly fell. He caught her.

"You're riding. Slowly. If you try to be brave, I'll throw you into the harbor."

They left the recorder strapped behind the seat and climbed toward Corr House at little more than walking speed.

The lift was dead. Neighbors had set phone lights on the stairs. On the fifth floor, Idris's door stood open.

Dez knelt beside the concentrator with the charged cell connected. Idris sat in his red boxing robe with a tube under his nose. The portable cylinder beside him read empty.

"Late," Idris said when he saw Eli. Each word cost him. "Complaint drafted. Severe language."

"Save your breath," Dez told him. "The machine's starting."

The concentrator rose to a steady drone. Idris closed his eyes and breathed with it.

"The spare was already flat," Dez said. "This week's cuts used it up. The cylinder ran dry before I reached him."

"He came up five flights with a battery," Idris said. "You're not allowed to criticize his timing until tomorrow."

For a minute the green light held and Idris breathed.

Then he opened his eyes. "I reached the water today. On the recording. Next I tell my granddaughter, 'Your grandmother is going to ask why two boys with no money didn't buy a boat.'"

"You were fourteen," Dez said.

"There. You remembered." Idris turned toward Eli. "Saturday. The woman with the bike. Did you ask her?"

"She said yes."

"Before you finished?"

"Before I finished."

"Good." Idris looked back at Dez. "And the roof. I've decided the green was..."

His voice stopped.

The tube slipped from beneath his nose. Dez caught him as he folded forward.

The neighbors moved before Eli did. One called emergency services. Another lowered Idris to the floor and began compressions. Eli held the doors for the responders and then stood where nobody needed him.

They worked around the running concentrator. Its green light stayed on.

At last one responder said Dez's name. Dez shook his head. The responder said it again.

"The oxygen came back too late," she said. "I'm sorry."

Dez sat against the wall. A red line crossed his wrist from the trolley strap.

"I got the cell to him," he said. "It wasn't enough."

Eli sat beside him. He did not say there was nothing Dez could have done. He did not know that.

A neighbor found the number for Idris's daughter beside the kettle. Dez called her, asked whether she was sitting down and said her father had died.

When she asked why, he said, "His oxygen stopped in the outage. I don't know why they let that happen. I won't lie to you."

He listened for a long time.

"I'll be here when you arrive. Take your time."

Eli could not stop seeing Dez choose the recorder before he ran for the cell.

"We chose the box," he whispered.

"The Attention skill's there," Relay said in his ear, "if you want to run it."

Eli didn't answer. He didn't want the guilt named for him, or loosened, or turned into something to breathe through until it passed. Idris was dead, and it was the size it was.

Dez had gone into the kitchen. He was standing at the sink with nothing in his hands.

Eli let one breath out because he needed one, not because anything in his ear had asked. He noticed the thought was still there. We chose the box. He didn't argue with it. He found a glass, filled it and took it to Dez, and the thought came with him.

Mara returned after the ambulance crew dressed her leg. She sat beside Dez and held his chrome hand between both of hers.

Idris's silver recorder lay on the table beside the six-legged bird. Eli pressed play.

"No, that's the wrong beginning," Idris's recorded voice said. "Your grandmother wasn't there when we stole it. That's why we had to run. Dez, stop laughing."

On the recording, Dez laughed until the microphone clipped. In the room he made no sound.

The story reached the boys dragging their impossible boat toward the water. Idris stopped to remember the alley. The recording ended there.

Eli knew he could ask Relay to make up an ending. He took out the earpiece instead.

The phone lit on the table. Tidewell. Continue without me is ready. Start your project?

Mara sat with Dez's chrome hand in both of hers. Nobody in the room was going to be any use tomorrow. Tomorrow still had June's dates in it, and Ines's six hundred dollars, and a harbor delegation that would climb June's stairs for a conversation somebody had promised to build.

"Dez gets his sessions," Eli said under his breath. "Whatever I'm like tomorrow."

Mara looked up. "What?"

"Nothing. Work."

He had taken the earpiece out, and there was no voice in his ear to read him the terms. He pressed Start. The confirmation laid the afternoon's terms out again, and he tapped Confirm before he had read a line. "Yes, yes," he said to nobody. The receipt followed: eleven dollars, Tidewell. He set the phone face down beside the unfinished story.

The software could resume a project on another machine. A voice could pick up where a voice had stopped. Here was a man who hadn't finished a sentence, and Eli couldn't think of a thing to ask for that wouldn't insult him.

"Take the grey box to my shop," Dez said. "I'll stay until his daughter gets here. If she wants me with you, I'll come."

Eli helped Mara down the stairs. They rode Mara's bike slowly to Dez's shop with the recorder strapped behind them. Eli's own bike was still at Lowmarsh. Control's message about Corr House waited inside the box.