Darel put one arm across the Marel doorway before Leran could reach it.
“Nobody crosses yet.”
Leran looked past him at the blue-ringed sign.
“You can see the floor.”
“I can see some floor.”
Neris crouched at the threshold and pressed two fingers against the tile.
Factory concrete ended under her left hand.
Station tile began under her right.
Between them ran a line so narrow Elvar could have covered it with one boot.
The movement still stopped before the relation fully resolved.
“Show me the step.”
He looked at Marel.
“Now?”
“Unless you plan to learn it when that floor disappears.”
Darel did not object.
That counted as permission.
Mera scratched two marks into the dust with the butt of her spear.
“Start there.
Finish there.”
The marks were barely a metre apart.
Elvar stood on the first.
The second mark already felt easier than the empty floor beside it.
He let that easier continuation take his weight.
One step.
Clean.
Mera pointed back.
“Again.”
The second attempt came faster.
He did not have to search as long for the exact place where the movement wanted to begin.
“Again.”
Third time, his heel landed inside the same scratch.
Elvar smiled.
Mera moved the landing mark half a metre left.
“Again.”
He looked at the new mark.
Chose it.
Stepped.
His body went right.
Not enough to miss completely.
Enough for his heel to clip the old landing and fold under him.
Mera caught the front of his harness before his shoulder hit the floor.
Elvar stared at his own boot.
“I picked the new one.”
“Your mouth did.”
“I felt it.”
“You felt both.”
Mera tapped the old scratch with her spear.
“That one has three clean repetitions behind it.” This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
Elvar looked between the marks.
The old one did feel stronger.
Not better.
More ready.
“So practicing it makes the wrong answer stronger.”
“Practicing it makes one answer easier.”
“That sounds useful.”
“Until the question changes.”
Elvar stepped back onto the start mark.
He tried the new landing again.
The old one pulled at him.
He forced left.
This time he landed where he meant to, but the movement was ugly.
Mera shook her head.
“You changed the finish by fighting the old finish.”
“What else am I supposed to do?”
“Stop entering the same way.”
She moved his starting mark.
Elvar frowned.
“That is cheating.”
“That is variation.”
He started from the new angle.
The old landing no longer pulled as hard.
The new one became obvious halfway through the step.
He landed cleanly.
Mera nodded once.
That was more satisfying than the smile had been.
Neris made a quiet sound behind them.
Not approval.
Darel went to her.
One of the blue survey pins beside the Marel frame was missing.
Its painted head remained in the socket.
The steel shaft did not.
Neris held up the half she had found on the floor.
The cut was straight.
Bright metal inside.
Darel took an evidence sleeve from his belt.
“Same as the first one?”
Neris laid both cut pins beside each other.
Same width.
Same angle.
Same clean bite through hardened steel.
Elvar forgot his foot.
“The Route could do that?”
“No,” Neris said.
Darel checked the frame around the pin.
No tearing.
No crushed tile.
No sign that the doorway had sheared sideways.
Mera stopped smiling.
Leran looked into Marel.
“So someone came through here.”
“Someone reached the threshold,” Darel said.
“Difference?” Elvar asked.
“Big one.”
Darel bagged the pin.
“If they came through, they knew how to survive this Route.
If they only reached the threshold, they may have been working from our side.”
Elvar looked back down the corridor they had already cleared.
Nobody there.
Neris examined the socket.
“There is residue.”
“From what?”
“Closure compound.”
Darel looked at her.
Elvar knew that expression now.
A new fact had just made the situation worse.
Neris scraped a grey line from inside the socket onto a sample strip.
“These pins tell us when the doorway shifts.
Somebody cut the shaft, then packed the socket so the head would still look seated from a distance.”
Mera turned toward Marel.
“So if this doorway moved?”
“Our instruments could have read it late.”
Leran’s attention stayed on the station sign.
“Why?”
Nobody answered.
Elvar looked at the old landing mark Mera had made.
Three repetitions had been enough to make his body prefer it after the target moved.
Someone had just done something similar to the people watching this doorway.
Leave the marker where everyone expected it.
Make the wrong reading easier.
He did not know if that connection meant anything.
He kept it to himself.
Neris finished the threshold check.
“The first six metres are holding.”
Darel lowered his arm.
“Stay together.
Nobody follows a path just because it feels familiar.”
His eyes landed on Elvar.
“That includes you.”
Elvar stepped across the threshold.
The old landing tried to take his foot one more time.
He changed his start and used a different step.
Behind him, Mera said, “Better.”
Ahead, the sign still read MAREL.