Day twenty-eight and Del has a routine.
Wake before dawn. Check water containers—still hidden, still safe. Eat small amount of bread from yesterday's ration, save the rest. Report to crew meeting point. Work priority sites with Hadric's crew. Get double rations. Hide half for later. Experiment with water. Sleep. Repeat.
Four weeks in the Dregs. Most new workers dead by now. Del is still functional. Still climbing. Still hating himself for being grateful about it.
The Silt Quarters is quieter now. Maybe thirty people left from the seventy before the outbreak. New workers drift in occasionally—sent down from wherever "up" is, or wandering in from other collapsed sections. Most die within days. A few survive. The cycle continues.
Del is sitting near the warehouse, eating his morning portion. Hadric's crew doesn't meet for another hour. The bread is harder than yesterday—drying out despite being wrapped. Has to work each bite with his back teeth before swallowing. A piece breaks off. Falls into the mud. He leaves it there.
Someone is watching him.
Del doesn't look up. Just keeps chewing. The bread tastes like dust even before it's dry.
Movement in his peripheral vision. Small. Maybe twenty feet away. Partially hidden behind a pile of rubble.
Del finishes the bread. Wipes his hands on his pants. Stands. His knees crack—new thing, didn't used to do that. The sound echoes in the quiet.
He walks toward the meeting point. Doesn't look back.
Behind him—nothing. No footsteps. No movement.
Just: the feeling of being watched.
---
Evening. Del returns to his corner. Takes out one container. Opens it.
Pours small amount into a cup. Then adds contaminated water from the puddle he's been monitoring. Half and half.
Drinks it.
Tastes wrong. Obviously diluted. And his stomach cramps within an hour.
Too much contamination.
Next night: 70% pure, 30% contaminated.
Better. Still tastes slightly off. Stomach handles it.
Next night: 60/40.
Acceptable. Barely noticeable if you're desperate. No cramping.
He marks the ratio mentally. If supply runs out again, he can make ten containers last... sixty percent longer? More than that with the extracted water.
---
Next morning it's raining. Cold drizzle that gets into everything. Del finds a spot under a piece of corrugated metal propped against rubble. Eats his ration there. The metal amplifies the sound of rain. Constant drumming.
The figure is back.
Closer this time. Maybe fifteen feet. Standing in the open. No cover. Rain running down their face.
A child. Young—nine, eleven, hard to tell with malnutrition. Huge eyes in a gaunt face. Clothes soaked through. They're not shivering. Should be shivering. It's cold enough Del's hands are numb.
The child just stands there. Staring.
Del tears off a piece of bread. Chews it slowly. The child's eyes track the movement. From his hand to his mouth. Back to his hand.
They're not asking. Not begging. Just watching.
Del swallows. Takes another bite. The child doesn't move. Rain runs into their eyes. They don't blink it away.
Del finishes eating. Stands. Water drips off the metal roof. Splashes on his shoulders.
He walks toward the meeting point.
Behind him—after a moment—small footsteps. Light. Splashing through puddles.
Del keeps walking. Counts in his head without meaning to.
One. Two. Three.
The footsteps start. Same rhythm as his. Same pace.
He stops.
The footsteps stop. Exactly three seconds after he did.
Del turns around.
The child is standing there. Maybe fifteen feet back. Staring. Water running down their face. Their chest rises and falls. Quick. Shallow.
"You shouldn't follow me," Del says.
The child doesn't respond. Doesn't even blink.
Del waits. The rain fills the silence between them.
Nothing.
He turns back around. Keeps walking.
One. Two. Three.
Behind him: the footsteps resume.
---
Hadric's crew gathers at the usual spot. Eight of them today. Everyone's soaked. No one complains about it. Complaints don't stop rain.
"Section B and C," Hadric says. Water drips off his nose when he talks. "Tovin, you're lead on B. Del, you check. Mara, you're on haul."
Tovin nods. Adjusts the bag on his shoulder. "How's B looking?"
"Stable last I heard. Should be clean work."
Should be. Never is.
They head toward the passages. Del walks with Tovin. His feet are wet. The cut on his right foot stings with each step. Salt from the mud probably. Or just dirt. Either way it's infected by now.
"You sleep last night?" Tovin asks.
"Some."
"Yeah. Me neither. Too fucking cold." Tovin pulls his collar up. Doesn't help. The rain just runs down his neck instead of his chest. "And this isn't stopping anytime soon."
Del doesn't respond. He's counting again without meaning to.
One. Two. Three.
Behind them: light footsteps. Splashing.
Tovin glances back. "That kid's been around a few days now."
"Yeah."
"They following you?"
"I guess."
Tovin looks at Del. Then back at the child. "You gonna do something about it?"
Del doesn't answer.
"Right." Tovin faces forward again. "They'll figure it out or they won't."
Near the warehouse, Del sees the woman with brown eyes. She's getting her ration. The man isn't with her—unusual. She's alone, holding her portion close to her chest to keep it from getting too wet.
She sees Del. Then the child behind him. Then back to Del.
She hesitates. Then moves toward him. Stops a few feet away.
"That one's been following you," she says. Not a question.
Del nods.
Her eyes flick to the child. Then back. "You going to help them?"
"I don't—" Del stops. What is he trying to say? "I can't."
"Can't or won't?"
Del doesn't answer.
She looks at the child again. Studies them for a moment. When she looks back at Del her face is hard to read. "You remember what you said to me. About the follower."
Del remembers. *You knew too and didn't warn him either.*
"Yeah."
"You were right." She adjusts her grip on the bread. Water runs between her fingers. "But it still eats at me. Just so you know."
She walks away before Del can respond. The man appears from somewhere and immediately falls into step beside her. His hand finds her arm. Grips it. She doesn't pull away.
Del watches them go. Then turns toward Section B.
The child is still there. Still standing in the rain. Still staring. With those forever-wide eyes.
Del walks past them. Doesn't say anything.
One. Two. Three.
Behind him: footsteps.
---
Section B is three chambers deep. The rain makes everything slick. Water dripping through cracks in the ceiling. Pooling in the low spots.
First chamber is mostly rubble. Del checks the walls for cracks while Tovin and the others spread out. Looks for structural instability. The kind of thing that kills people when they're not paying attention.
Hairline fractures near the ceiling. He watches them for a minute. Sees if they're growing. They're not. Old damage. Stable enough.
"Clear," he says.
They move to the second chamber.
Four artifacts here. Three are blue glow. Steady pulse. The wrongness is there but manageable. Del approaches each one carefully. Crouches next to them. Feels the pressure build in his skull. The copper taste. The nausea.
But it's low-level. Tolerable.
"These three are safe," he says. "Quick retrieval."
Mara moves in. She's efficient. Wraps them. Bags them. Under thirty seconds each.
The fourth artifact is different.
Red glow. The pulse skips. Catches. Skips again. Like a heartbeat with arrhythmia.
Del approaches it slowly. Crouches. Doesn't touch.
The wrongness hits faster than the others. His vision tunnels. The edges go gray. Pressure builds behind his eyes like something's trying to push through from the inside.
He backs away. Fast.
"Don't touch that one," he says. His voice sounds distant to his own ears. "Mark it and leave it."
No one argues. They've all seen what happens when someone touches an unstable artifact.
Tovin makes a mark on his crude map. A circle with an X through it. Universal symbol for "don't fucking touch."
Third chamber has two artifacts. One's embedded in the wall. Can't retrieve it without major excavation. They mark its location for later. Maybe a specialized crew will come back for it. Probably not.
The second one is green glow. Fast pulse but regular. Like a heartbeat running too fast but steady.
Del approaches. The wrongness hits harder than he expected. His hands start shaking immediately. The copper taste floods his mouth. His vision swims.
He backs away. Sits down hard. Waits for it to pass.
Takes a full minute before the shaking stops.
"Volatile," he says when he can speak again. "Can retrieve it but it needs to be fast. Under ten seconds or it'll—" He doesn't finish. They know what it'll do.
Mara nods. She's done fast retrievals before. Knows the drill.
She moves in. Grabs it. Bags it. Out in eight seconds flat.
When she steps back her hands are shaking. She sits down next to Del. Neither of them says anything. Just sit there breathing until the wrongness fades.
"You good?" Tovin asks.
"Yeah," Mara says. "Just need a minute."
They rest. Drink water. Del's portion is nearly frozen. He has to let the ice melt in his mouth before he can swallow.
When they emerge from Section B, the child is there.
Sitting outside the entrance. Cross-legged. Hands in lap. Rain pouring down on them.
They haven't moved. Haven't tried to find shelter. Just sitting there. Getting soaked.
Del stops. Stares at them.
"Kid's gonna freeze to death out here," Tovin mutters.
Probably.
Del walks past. The child doesn't move. Doesn't watch him go. Just sits there staring at nothing.
One. Two. Three.
Behind Del: the sound of the child standing. Water dripping off them.
Then: footsteps.