Page 8 of Warrior’s Mate

"Maybe."

He waited. She disliked that he was learning not to interrupt her.

"But if it isn't," she continued, "the effect isn't just lost messages. It scrambles allocation. A shipment misses a confirmation window, so the system reassigns it. A transport arrives and doesn't have docking priority. Clinics don't get root extract. Feed doesn't go where the animals are. Nothing catastrophic happens immediately. Everything just gets less efficient."

"How much less?"

"Depends how long it lasts."

"Hours?"

"Annoying."

"A day?"

"Expensive."

"Longer?"

Maelis looked toward the exchange floor.

Workers were loading produce under floating route markers. Buyers argued over contract weights. Children clustered near a drink vendor while their parents waited for a transport assignment.

"Then people start improvising," she said. "And once enough people improvise, nobody knows what the system is actually doing."

Kaiven straightened.

"Come with me."

"Where?"

"Signal station."

"You have signal technicians."

"I do."

"Then why do you need me?"

"Because they see transmissions. You see consequences."

The answer disarmed her. Maelis covered it by taking a sweet roll from the bag.

"This doesn't mean I like you."

"I would never endanger your reputation."

They left the exchange through the west doors.

The district signal station occupied the top floor of an old grain administration tower. The building had been repurposed so many times that half the internal signs contradicted one another. Kaiven took one wrong corridor. Maelis let him go ten paces before calling him back.

"You knew."

"I suspected."

"You watched me walk the wrong way."

"Only briefly."