Mira Counts the Batteries

Chapter 024: Mira Counts the Batteries The five amber points did not blink together. They returned one after another on the dead roster wall, each pulse waking a different strip of emergency red along the floor, as if the building had to remember which child to breathe for before it dared light the next. Elise's mask bucked under Dr. Keth's hand. The damp receipt shone in Mara's camera light against Mira's fingers: Elise Sol. Auxiliary breath, active account. "Count them out loud," Mira said. Ari Hall's face tightened behind the cooling-room slit. She was small enough for fear to make her look younger and old enough to know numbers could hurt. "One," she whispered when the first point flared. The second lit. "Two." Nima answered from the shutter with a flattened palm against the painted crescent. "Three," Ari said, and her voice cracked. "Four." The fifth point blinked late, amber and stubborn. "Five." "That is not testimony," Northstar's representative said. "That is a frightened minor reacting to equipment." "Then your equipment is frightening minors in sequence," Mira said. She kept the receipt in frame. "Mara, do not lose Ari's count or Nima's hand." "I have them," Mara said. Oren's injured hand braced her wrist from underneath. The picture shook once when an officer bumped his shoulder, but the receipt, Clay's restrained arm, the dark roster wall, and the lower grate stayed together. Judge Vale's speaker clicked. "Lower panel labels are restricted medical infrastructure. No one will read them into this record." Below the grate, Liora coughed so hard the sound scraped wet. "The record can come down here and choke with me if it wants." Metal tapped under her fingers. "I am not opening anything. I am looking through a little glass." "Liora," Clay said, teeth clenched while the officer held his arm twisted behind him. "Only visible words. No guesses. No systems explanation." "He has been suspended," the donor guardian snapped. "And his hands are empty," Mira said. "That is why you hate him right now." The officer shoved Clay half a step toward the wall. Clay did not fight it. He turned his palms toward Mara's lens and said, "Public emergency battery stacks are numbered by load, not by donor guardianship. I can say that. I cannot tell her what this private panel means." "Stop coaching the witness," Vale said. "He just coached her not to touch your evidence," Keth said. Her thumb found the hollow at Elise's throat while the mask fluttered. "Mira, the oxygen dip comes between the fourth and fifth amber point. There is a switchover delay." Northstar's representative stepped in front of the dead wall. "Doctor, remove the child from this contaminated area." "She is attached to the contamination," Keth said. Elise's hand twitched against the rail. Mira saw the tap forming and leaned closer. "One for yes if you hear Ari counting. Two if the air changes on five." Elise gave one weak tap. The fifth amber point lit again, and the mask hissed thin for half a second. Her fingers dragged out two taps, the second almost nothing. Ari began crying without sound. "Ari," Mira said, "look at me. You are not hurting her by counting. You are proving when they hurt her." The girl swallowed, nodded once, and gripped the slit with both hands. The donor guardian seized on it. "Multiple load points prove multiple wards. That is exactly why Northstar's emergency guardianship exists. These children require centralized custody." Nima slammed her hand against the shutter. Three fast knocks, then a pause, then one. Ari turned toward the sound before anyone else understood. "She says no." "You do not know that," the guardian said. "It is our sign," Ari said. Fear left her face for one breath and anger took its place. "Three fast, one stop means no taking." Mara shifted the camera just enough to catch Nima's hand and Ari's answer without losing Mira's receipt. "Recorded." "Liora," Mira said. "Read the lower panel exactly. Only what you see." Liora breathed through the fuel taste. "Top stencil still says Cedar Auxiliary. Below the little glass there are five little labels, not one. First one says E-SOL-12. It has a tiny blue mark beside it. Second says A-HAL-03." Ari made a sound like someone had put her name under water. "Do not complete that," Northstar said. "She already saw it," Mira said. "Mara?" "In frame," Mara said. "Third," Liora said, coughing between words, "N-HAL-09. Fourth is scratched. I can see C-star, maybe. No, not maybe. It is a little cracked star mark. Fifth is covered with tape." The fifth amber point blinked again. Elise's mask thinned with it. Keth swore under her breath and pressed the seal tighter. "That fifth draw is sharing her buffer. If the tape is hiding a child code, somebody put a live breath account under a blank label." Vale's voice sharpened. "Doctor, you will not speculate on billing." "I am not speculating on billing. I am listening to a child lose air when a covered load steals half a second." An officer reached for Mara's camera. Oren stepped into the reach, not blocking with his body so much as offering the bandaged hand that still shook from the last corridor fight. "You will have to take my blood into the frame." "Move." "That is what the camera sees," Oren said. Mira angled the receipt toward the lower grate. The paper's wet edge trembled, but the words held. "Same active payer relay. Same auxiliary room. Same blue ladder. Five battery loads. Two Hall children named in the stack. Elise named first. One cracked-star child. One tape-covered label. Judge Vale, ask Northstar why an emergency battery has family codes." Northstar's representative lifted both hands toward the wall panel as if surrendering, then pressed two fingers to a black square behind his sleeve. The amber points froze. The floor red steadied into a flat line. Below the grate, something clicked. Liora stopped coughing. "Aunt Liora?" Ari cried. No answer came. Keth bent over Elise. "Mask pressure is holding for now." "For now is not a custody plan," Mira said. The donor guardian smiled, small and quick. "You do not know whether your aunt is safe. Perhaps your record should stop before it costs another family member." Nima struck the shutter once. Ari did not translate it. She stared below the grate with a terror Mira knew too well: the terror of learning an adult might lie to keep a child breathing. Mira lowered her voice. "Liora, if you can hear me, tap metal once. Do not read anything that puts a child at immediate risk." A single tap came from below. Then another, softer, not a signal Mira had asked for. Clay went still. "She saw something else." "Liora," Mira said. Her aunt's voice rose from the dark, too calm and too thin. "The fifth label is only tape." The fifth amber point blinked beneath the dead roster wall, and Elise's mask shivered as if the building knew Liora had lied.