Page 131 of Pocket Wife

That concerns me more than an argument would have.

Jessa stands near the meeting hall board, taking notes so quickly her fingers blur. Samuel sits with an old water map spread across his knees, one hand pressed to his bad shoulder as if holding it down by force. Nara is at the clinic table, counting liters and need. Celia organizes elder reserves with the severity of a woman assigning moral value to storage jars.

Everyone has a duty.

I have a restriction.

Salo looks to me. “Specialist Veyr, remain available for historical safety clarification only.”

“Understood.”

The word tastes inadequate.

On the field feed, Lucy reaches the gate wheel and crouches before it. She does not touch it yet. Good. She studies the base, the rust, the old channel marks.

The schoolteacher beside her asks, “Do we record the wheel?”

“Everything,” Lucy says.

One of the field workers clears vines from the lower stone with gloved hands. The second examines the channel behind the gate. “No visible break.”

Torren’s voice crackles from the cistern station. “Do not trust visible. Visible is what things use to lie.”

Lucy says, “Torren.”

“What?”

“Useful words.”

“Fine. Check the pressure notch at the left hinge.”

Lucy shifts the slate closer. The old hinge shows three carved marks and a fourth scar where metal was struck long ago. I lean toward my display.

There.

Not damage.

A warning.

I open the older map archive without speaking. My fingers find the east channel diagram from a century before, then one from thirty-two years before, then the current Helix shelter boundary overlay.

The overlay has not been placed randomly.

It follows the old emergency spillway.

Reviewer Noll notices my movement. “Specialist Veyr?”

I keep my voice formal. “I request leave to submit a historical map comparison relevant to physical safety.”

Sen objects. “This is becoming a habit.”

Salo looks to Noll.

Noll says, “If the comparison concerns gate operation, allowed.”

I send the three maps to the shared display. “The east gate is not a simple open-close valve. It is a staged diversion gate tied to a buried spillway. The carved hinge marks indicate pressure stages. The fourth scar indicates a lockout point.”

Lucy checks the hinge on her feed, then turns back to the wheel.