Hidden Nursery Under Rain

Chapter 31: Hidden Nursery Under Rain The green hatch did not open upward. It sank. Light spilled around Lena's boots, not bright enough to show the whole room below, only enough to turn the floodwater around her shins the color of hospital glass. The new knocks stopped as soon as the hatch seal broke, as if the people under the floor had learned that rescue and capture made the same first sound. "Back from the edge," Mara said. She had Tomas on one hip, the evidence sleeve pinned under her arm, and one hand pressed flat over the clay stopper beneath her shirt. The stopper clicked again, smaller this time, more like a tooth cracking than a lock turning. The Civic Rain drone above the right stair repeated, "Unauthorized survivor transfer recorded. Lower access creates biohazard exposure. Return unregistered persons to hold position." The mother who had just crossed the gate said, "They are not persons to you until they drown." Lena kept the nursery tag and the scratched rescue band in the same frame. "Observation: Civic Rain has counted the rescue as unauthorized before assessing the lower hatch. VennDyne tag recovered from a child reads oxygen moss harvest, lower nursery. We are opening for life safety and evidence preservation." "Do not say evidence first," the girl with the scratched band whispered. Lena looked at her. The girl was shaking so hard her wet hair tapped her cheeks. "What is your name?" "Rafi." "Rafi, I am opening for people first. I am recording so they cannot make the people disappear afterward." Rafi swallowed and nodded once. Arlo lay flat beside the hatch, shoulder pressed to the frame, not touching the lever. "There is a service ladder. Six rungs, maybe seven. Water is coming up from the far side." "Can it flood the official stair again?" "If I touch the wrong valve, yes." "Then don't." Lena unclipped the camera from her collar and strapped it to the gate post, angled down through the hatch. "Mara, evidence stays high. Guard, no faces from the market route." The market guard had already turned his hood. "I have no face." Lena went down first. The ladder was slick with moss. By the third rung, warm air breathed over her hands. By the fifth, she heard babies coughing. The lower nursery crouched beneath the rain pipe like a cellar pretending to be a greenhouse. Pipes ran across the ceiling, sweating neon droplets into long troughs of pale green moss. The moss grew in stacked trays, soft and bright, each tray wired to a breath bag that rose and fell beside a sleeping infant, an old woman, or a child wrapped in foil blankets. No beds. No names on the wall. Only wrist slates hanging from hooks, all printed with trial numbers and the same VennDyne vine. A caretaker stood between Lena and the nearest row with a pruning knife in one hand and a baby against her chest. She was young enough to be frightened and old enough to have stopped showing it. "Close the hatch." "We came because children were knocking," Lena said. "Children knock when water touches the trays. They also knock when outsiders bring drones." Above them, Civic Rain's speaker distorted through the hatch. "Lower garden subjects must remain in controlled environment pending triage." The caretaker lifted the knife higher. "Hear that? Garden subjects. They call us worse when they think no one else can hear." Lena kept her palms visible. "My camera is on the post, pointed down. It is not showing the route. It is showing the room." "Room is enough to sell us." Rafi climbed down behind Lena before anyone could stop her. "Aunt Sera, she asked my name." The caretaker's knife wavered. "Rafi, where is your mother?" "Through the gate." The baby on Sera's chest made a thin rasp. Sera looked at the ceiling pipe, then at Mara as she came down with Tomas and the evidence. "Your boy needs a bag," Sera said. "His name is Tomas," Mara answered. Sera flinched as if the name cost money. Then she pulled one breath bag from a tray of moss and held it to Tomas's mouth. "Two breaths. No more. VennDyne counts yield." Tomas took the first breath like he had been pulled back into his body by a hook. His eyelids fluttered. Mara's face changed, but she did not thank Sera loudly enough for the drone to steal it. "Thank you." Lena moved closer to the tray, stopping outside arm's reach. "Does the moss need public rain?" Sera gave a short laugh. "It needs what they tell it to need." "That is not an answer." "It is the only answer that keeps babies breathing." Water dripped through a seam in the far wall and spread across the floor toward the lowest rack. Two children were already there with tin cups, bailing into a bucket that had `STERILE RUNOFF` printed on one side. The smaller child could not have been more than six. He scooped, dumped, scooped, and counted under his breath. "Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine." Lena heard the future chapter before she understood the present danger. A child who counted drops. Arlo's boots hit the lower floor. He stayed by the ladder and lifted both hands. "Tell me where not to step." Sera's eyes narrowed. "Marshal." "Former." "That means you remember the door codes." "It means I remember why people should not be trapped behind them." The moss nearest him shivered. Tiny roots lifted toward his voice. The wrist slates on the wall flickered from trial numbers into names, then back so quickly Lena almost missed them: Calder. Imani. Delaney. Park. The last slate glowed empty where a first name should have been. "Record that," Lena said. Mara raised the evidence sleeve toward the camera angle. "It is recording." The clay stopper clicked twice under her shirt. This time the moss answered. Every tray leaned toward Mara, a slow green bow. Babies coughed in sequence down the row. Sera's knife dropped to her side. "What did you bring?" "A stopper from the flood market," Mara said. "For a wounded orchid." "No." Sera stepped back with the baby. "If it is true stopper, you cannot hold it under the pipe. The pipe will drink it." The ceiling valve above Mara opened a finger's width. Neon rain fell in a straight line toward her chest. Lena grabbed the nearest bucket and shoved it under the stream. The rain struck metal with a hiss and the bucket's printed `STERILE RUNOFF` turned black. Arlo moved half a step, then stopped when Lena snapped, "Stay." He stayed. The Civic Rain drone lowered its beam through the hatch. "Unlicensed medicine component detected. Surrender illegal reagent for dependency stabilization." Sera laughed again, but this time it broke. "Dependency stabilization means they take the stopper, cut the babies' bags in half, and bill the missing half as treatment." Lena held the bucket handle with both hands. The metal warmed so fast it stung. "Sera, tell me what I can record without giving VennDyne a way to seize the children." Sera looked at Rafi. Rafi looked at the counting boy at the leak. He had reached forty-two. "Record hands," Sera said. "Not faces. Record trays. Record the trial slates when they forget to hide names. Record that every child here has worked the moss before they were old enough to sign anything. Record that the breath bags go only to people VennDyne calls useful." Lena angled the bucket so Mara could film its blackened label, then swept the lens across wrists, trays, pruning scars on small fingers, and the wall of flickering slates. She kept faces out. She kept the ladder out. She kept the market guard out of the frame above. "Observation," she said, voice steady because rage would blur the record. "Lower nursery contains oxygen moss trays connected to breath bags for babies, elderly survivors, and unscored children. Caretaker states children labor on the moss and treatment is tied to VennDyne usefulness classifications. Trial slates are attempting to hide family names." The counting boy stopped bailing. "Jun's case had no green." Everyone turned. Sera whispered, "Micah." The boy hugged the tin cup to his chest. "It was clear. I counted before the pretty rain came. Jun said count quiet because rain lies after it gets colored." Above the hatch, the Civic Rain drone cut its green beam to red. "Child subject contamination statement detected." Lena lowered herself to one knee in the warming water, keeping the camera on her hands and Micah's cup, not his face. "Micah, can you count it again for me?" He stared at the blackening bucket, then at the Park slate flickering empty on the wall. "I can count where they buried his case," he said. "But if I say it, the moss stops my sister's bag."