Litany of Winter

In the third week of training, Neumann led the Nine two flights below the active cisterns and into a service corridor Severin had never used.

The air grew colder as they went, with water rushing behind the walls. The old pumping station had been shut for years. The worst of the grit had been swept from the floor, and unsafe sections of ironwork were marked with white paint. Two broad pumps filled the center of the main chamber, their flywheels taller than Severin. Rust climbed the pipes. An iron catwalk crossed above them and disappeared behind a brick partition toward the valve room.

A second level sat below the pump floor. Through the gaps in the grating, Severin could make out a drainage gallery and black water running through a narrow channel. Two stairways descended on opposite sides of the room.

Neumann stopped just inside the entrance.

”Listen up, Initiates. There are two workers inside, both injured. An unusual object was reported near the valve room, so treat anything around it as evidence until you know what happened. You don’t know whether it caused either injury or whether anything else inside is hazardous.”

A man in work clothes waited near the wall. Severin recognized him as one of the Order’s custodians, but the man treated them like strangers.

Neumann pointed at him. ”Witness. He came out on his own.”

Rafael was already looking over the chamber.

”Who’s coordinating?” Neumann asked.

Rafael glanced at the others. Nobody objected.

”I’ll take it.”

”Then get started.”

Neumann handed him a single folded floor plan and stepped back without offering anything else.

Rafael started assigning jobs before anyone else had finished looking around. Andreas remained with the witness while Johann set the incident book on a crate near the entrance. Paul opened the case containing their test papers and sealed sample tubes. Anna checked the medical bag, and Thomas unfolded the stretcher with Martin.

He pointed across the room. ”Hale, Bennett, check the routes. Weber, go with them until the lower access is clear. Richter, LeBlanc, take the first casualty we can reach safely. Keller, carry messages. Peters, log times and changes.”

Martin looked at the stretcher in his hands. ”And this?”

”Put it where everyone can find it.”

”Right.”

Severin took the left side of the chamber with Thomas. Beside the western pump, the nearest stair dropped toward the lower level, with a thin stream crossing the stone at the top and running toward the central drain.

Paul crouched before it and touched one of his treated papers to the water.

”No change.”

Thomas leaned over the rail. ”Lower gallery’s clear as far as I can see.”

”Can’t see much from here,” Severin said.

Someone coughed above them, and they looked up.

A man lay on the catwalk beside the brick partition, one leg twisted beneath him. Dark red training paste covered his trouser leg from knee to boot.

Anna reached the upper stair first, with Madeleine behind her carrying bandages and the smaller medical roll. The injured man was conscious enough to answer questions.

Rafael called to Johann. ”First casualty located.”

Johann checked the clock on the wall near the entrance and wrote.

Severin continued around the western pump. The floor plan Rafael had been given was pinned to the crate beside Johann. From here, Severin could see where the building no longer matched it. Pipes had been rerouted, and one doorway had been bricked over. A newer iron line cut across what must once have been a walking path.

Thomas tapped the side of it. ”This wasn’t on the plan.”

Severin kept moving, and when they circled back to the western stair, Paul tested the standing water at the bottom, then another damp patch along the first stretch of gallery.

”Still clear.”

Once Paul cleared the stair, Rafael sent them down.

The lower level smelled of wet brick and old iron. Their boots splashed through shallow water as Severin counted doors, more from habit than instruction. They passed a storage alcove and a locked maintenance room. Beyond them, an open recess held lengths of dead pipe.

Thomas found the second casualty beyond the central drain, lying on her side near the base of a valve assembly. There was no training blood and no obvious broken limb.

Severin stopped outside arm’s reach. ”Don’t touch her.”

Paul tested the water around her boots. The paper stayed pale.

Severin looked back toward the stairs. ”Route’s clear to the casualty.”

Thomas raised his voice. ”Second casualty found.”

The words carried badly through the brick and iron. Martin appeared at the top of the stair a few seconds later.

”Condition?”

”Unconscious,” Severin said. ”No blood that I can see. Tell Richter.”

Martin nodded and went.

Anna came down with him less than a minute later. She knelt beside the woman, checked her breathing and pulse, then examined her pupils and felt carefully along her neck and ribs.

”Breathing’s shallow. Pulse fast.”

”Move her?” Thomas asked.

”Not yet.”

Anna looked toward Paul. ”Anything here?”

”Nothing from the water.”

”Doesn’t mean the area’s clear.”

Paul nodded and tested again closer to the valve assembly.

Above them, Rafael called for an update. Martin answered from halfway up the stair.

Madeleine stayed with the man on the catwalk while Anna worked below. White tabs marked Paul’s cleared route, and Thomas opened the stretcher beside the stair. At the entrance, Johann kept the incident log while Andreas continued questioning the witness. The valve-room object was still unchecked.

When the woman on the floor began coughing, Anna rolled her carefully and cleared her mouth.

”Her breathing’s worse.”

Thomas reached for the stretcher.

”Wait,” Anna said.

Paul stared at the paper in his hand. A dark blue stain spread from one edge.

”Rafael!” Paul shouted.

Paul tested the water again. The second strip changed faster.

”Lower route’s contaminated. It’s the training agent.”

Rafael appeared at the rail above them. ”From where?”

”Don’t know yet.”

”Can they come back the way they entered?”

Paul looked at the wet floor between them and the stair.

”No.”

Rafael ordered the western stair closed. Thomas dragged the stretcher away from the wet section while Anna stayed beside the casualty. Paul began checking back toward the valve assembly, trying to find where the training agent had entered the water.

Severin looked past him toward the old pipes along the rear wall. He had noticed the seams behind them earlier and dismissed them as another blocked recess, but from this angle he could see a narrow iron handle between two vertical pipes.

He squeezed between the pipes and pulled the low door inward. A brick maintenance channel lay beyond it, barely wide enough for two men shoulder to shoulder. The floor sloped upward toward the main chamber.

Thomas looked over. ”That on the plan?”

”No.”

Anna looked over. ”Can we use it?”

Severin stepped inside far enough to see the first bend. The bricks were damp, but there was almost no standing water.

He came back.

”It climbs. Probably comes out behind the pumps.”

”Probably?” Anna asked.

”I’m going to check.”

The woman coughed again, weaker this time. Anna looked down at her.

”Make it quick.”

Severin moved through the passage. Ten paces in, he found old boot scrapes in the limewash. Twenty more brought him to a rusted grille. Beyond it he could see the lower edge of the eastern pump and Thomas’s boots through the machinery.

Another access panel was set into the far wall. The passage bypassed the contaminated gallery.

He turned and went back. ”We can take her through.”

Thomas was already lifting the stretcher.

”Tell Rafael,” Anna said.

Severin looked toward the stair. Rafael was gone from the rail, and the contaminated stretch cut them off from Martin.

”I’ll tell him when we get through. She’s getting worse.”

Anna hesitated only a moment, then helped Thomas position the casualty.

Severin took the front end as someone shouted above them, but the brick swallowed the words.

They carried the stretcher into the maintenance channel.

The stretcher barely fit around the first bend. Severin had to turn sideways and guide his end past a pipe bracket while Thomas took most of the weight.

Something struck metal beyond the wall, and water hit Severin’s boots hard enough to make him stop. A second surge rushed through the maintenance channel, cold and fast enough to cover his ankles.

Thomas swore behind him. ”What the fuck is this?”

Severin looked toward the grille ahead, where water was pouring through another opening. ”Back.”

Anna was breathing hard behind Thomas. ”Can you turn around?”

”Not with the stretcher.”

The water reached Severin’s shins.

”Then back it out.”

They began backing out.

By the time Severin backed out of the maintenance channel, the water was nearly at his knees. Thomas dragged the stretcher clear while Anna bent over the woman again.

Martin appeared at the far side of the gallery and stopped at the edge of the marked contaminated water.

”Richter! First casualty’s getting worse.”

Anna looked up.

”How long?”

”I don’t know. I went to the west stair, then the east. Nobody told me you’d gone behind the fucking wall.”

Rafael appeared at the rail above them.

”Hale. You took her into the service passage?”

”Yes. We tried to move her through it.”

Andreas came up beside Rafael. ”The witness changed his story. One of the workers went behind the pumps before the incident. I told Montoro there might be another passage.”

Rafael looked down at Severin. ”Nobody reported using it.”

”I was going to when we got through.”

Paul had stopped beside the old control wheel. ”I opened the diversion because we had the gallery marked empty.”

Severin looked at the water still pouring through the passage.

”I told him it was empty,” Rafael said.

Anna was already standing.

”Keep her on her side,” she told Thomas. ”If her breathing changes again, shout.”

She went for the eastern side, taking the only route Paul had not closed.

Severin stayed with Thomas and the second casualty.

When Anna finally reached the catwalk, the man lying beside Madeleine was still. She checked his neck, then his breathing.

Neumann stood several paces away. He had said almost nothing since the exercise began.

Anna sat back on her heels. ”He’s dead.”

The pump hall went quiet except for water rushing through the old pipes.

Neumann looked at Rafael. ”You lost this casualty.”

”Understood,” Rafael said.

”Do we reset?” Paul asked from below.

Neumann looked down at him.

”No.”

He pointed toward the lower level. ”You still have one.”