Page 127 of Pocket Wife

“North reserve is under hold,” Noll says.

“East channel is separate,” Samuel answers. “Different intake. Different flow.”

Torren’s voice comes over the cistern slate. “Confirmed. East channel feeds old lower line before it meets basin distribution. If we keep it isolated and run through field filters, clinic gets water without touching the north reserve.”

Noll looks interested for once. “How quickly?”

Torren hesitates.

I let my eyes fall shut a moment.

There it is.

Every answer has teeth.

“The automated regulator was sabotaged,” Torren says.

I open my eyes.

The lower irrigation tower comes back to me in dust and torn metal. Missing regulator cores. Rethan’s hand on the gate wheel. My own body slipping from the ladder before he caught me.

Helix broke the reroute before anyone knew they would need it.

Samuel says, “Manual operation?”

“Possible,” Torren says. “Dangerous if pressure spikes. Someone has to open the east gate in stages and someone else has to monitor the lower tower.”

“I can do tower,” Samuel says.

“No,” I say. “Your shoulder is bad.”

“It is not.”

“You use your whole body to lie, Dad.”

Eleanor’s weak voice comes from her chair. “He does.”

Samuel looks betrayed.

No one laughs for long.

I gesture to the board. “Torren, can you guide manual operation from down at the cistern?”

“I can guide. I cannot be in two places.”

“Who knows the tower?”

Samuel raises his hand.

So do I.

So do two field workers.

Rethan does not move.

The restriction holds him where he stands.

I feel the cruelty of it. He could lift a gate wheel half the valley cannot move, but Helix has made his help procedurally poisonous.