The Call That Chose Its Own Track

The black signal pulsed from the sorting chamber’s far wall, and the gauge gave Oliver no destination for it.

Mercy followed the narrow route between Sera’s white light and the red warning moving below the houses. The red line curved east toward the Stair of Or. It was holding steady now. Nadia had taken her hand from the cab panel after the house settled, leaving the crack in the brass beneath it. Her core glimmered faintly under her collar, and her right hand rested on her knee.

Oliver kept his eyes on the track. “The chamber’s close.”

“Then we’ll see what the signal wants,” Nadia said. She didn’t look at the cracked panel. “We won’t answer for it.”

The track dropped through a seam in the fragment. Its rails ran beside a black wall that swallowed the light from Mercy’s lamps. Ahead, the chamber opened like a station cut into the heart of the source. Rows of shelves stood beyond the entrance, loaded with things that drifted in careful order: lamps, coats, tools, nameplates, and objects Oliver couldn’t place. Each rested in a shallow slot marked with a small metal tag.

At the far end, a black lamp flashed above a narrow platform. No track led to it. A person sat beneath the lamp with both hands folded on a wooden signal lever.

The source’s threads crossed the platform and looped around the lever. They ran from there into the shelves, where the objects began to tremble in their slots.

“DISPOSITION REQUIRED,” said the source. “CARGO MAY BE RETURNED, ASSIGNED, OR RELEASED.”

Oliver stopped Mercy at the chamber entrance. The engine’s wheels settled against the rails. On his gauge, the black signal remained a dead circle.

The person beneath it stood. She was about Nadia’s age, with a grey work coat buttoned to the throat and a brass tag at her belt. The threads tightened around her wrists. She pulled once, then gripped the lever again.

“Don’t move the shelves,” she called. “They’ll come down if you cut those lines.”

“Are you holding them?” Oliver asked.

“I’m holding the signal.” Her voice carried the dry scrape of a long-used tool. “The shelves are holding themselves.”

Nadia stepped down from the cab. The platform shifted beneath her boots, and the shelves leaned toward the open chamber. She raised one hand. Gold points appeared along the platform edge and beneath separate shelves, each holding one piece of the room. She left the lever and the woman’s wrists untouched.

The source spoke again. “KEEPER IDENTIFIED. UNANSWERED PROPERTY ATTACHED.”

The woman looked at the threads on her arms. “I’m not their keeper.”