She sent the runner to Cain's eastern camp on day two.
The message was short: *Neutral ground, three from each side, seven days from this message.* And the locationâa waystation two days south that Gabe had identified, away from both the Station and any Rider circuit.
She didn't ask Cal if this was the right decision. She'd made the decision.
But she told everyone she trusted what she was doing and why.
---
The preparations for the meeting ran parallel to everything else.
The Station didn't stop functioning because River had a meeting coming. The watch rotations ran. Efrain's supply allocation ran. Lia's treatment schedule ran. Kael's morning training sessions ranâshe'd considered stopping them while she was preparing for Cain, and then she'd decided that stopping would be wrong. Not for Kael's sake, though that mattered. For her own. An hour of physical work in the early morning kept the rest of the day from running together.
He was getting faster.
Not strongâthat would take months, and she wasn't trying to build strength in a month. But faster in the sense of processing, the gap between seeing a move and deciding what to do about it. That gap was closing.
"When do we work on the actual hitting," he said, on day three.
"When your body knows how to fall," she said.
"I know how to fall," he said.
"You know how to fall from the exercises," she said. "You don't know how to fall from something you didn't expect." She held his gaze. "The hitting is easy. The falling is what keeps you alive."
He thought about that.
"Marcus said something like that," he said.
"Where did you and Marcus have a conversation," she said.
"He comes out sometimes," Kael said. "When you're at the south wall. We talk."
She looked at him.
"What does he talk about," she said.
Kael thought for a moment. "He talks about routes," he said. "Like he's building a map. He asks about the eastern valley and what the landmarks are and whether certain structures were still standing." He paused. "He says he's updating his mental map of the territory."
She breathed.
"And what do you talk about," she said.
"I tell him what I remember," Kael said. "He's good at listening."
She thought about Marcus at twelve years old. Whoever that had been. Whatever the world had been doing to people who were twelve in the years just after the Collapse, when the full weight of it was still landing.
"Okay," she said. "From the top."
---
On day four, the treatment had its first complication.
She learned about it the way she learned about most things that happened in the Station: secondhand, from someone who'd been present. In this case, Dara, who'd been in the common hall when it happened.
"He was fine," Dara said. "He was sitting with the morning intakeâeating, doing what Lia told him to doâand then he stood up too fast and lost it."
"Lost it," River said.
"Went down," Dara said. "Not unconsciousâhe caught the table. But he went white and his legs weren't working right and he sat on the floor for about two minutes before he let anyone help him up."
She went directly to find Lia.
Lia was already in Marcus's room, already running her assessment.
"Orthostatic hypotension," she said, when River came in. "Blood pressure drop when he stood. The treatment is affecting his circulatory regulation." She held River's gaze. "This is a documented side effect of the trial protocolâit's in the data. I should have flagged it as a risk."
"You didn't flag it," River said.
"I read the side effect list and I weighted the probability," Lia said. "I assessed the risk as low given his baseline health." She paused. "I may have misjudged that."
River looked at Marcus.
He was sitting up, back against the wall. He looked annoyed rather than scared, which told her something.
"I'm fine," he said. "It's a blood pressure issue."
"You went down," River said.
"I went down for two minutes," he said. "I have a blood pressure issue. It's manageable."
She looked at Lia.
"Is it manageable," she said.
"With modifications," Lia said. "He stands slowly. He doesn't do the assessment circuit alone for the next week. He eats and hydrates on schedule." She paused. "The underlying cause should stabilize as the treatment progresses. This is an early-stage adaptation effect."
"Should," River said.
"Should," Lia said.
She looked at Marcus.
He held her gaze.
"I'm not stopping the treatment," he said.
"I'm not asking you to," she said. "I'm asking you to do what Lia says."
He held her gaze.
"All of it," she said. "Stand slowly. Don't go solo. Eat on schedule."
He breathed.
"All right," he said.
She turned to Lia. "The meeting with CainâI'm leaving in three days. Can you manage the treatment complications without me here."
"Yes," Lia said. "The modifications are straightforward. And Dara can be an additional check."
"I'll tell Dara," River said. "Specifically."
She turned back to Marcus.
He was looking at her with the expression he got when he was about to say something he'd been avoiding.
"What," she said.
"The meeting with Cain," he said. "What you're going to hearâabout your parents." He held her gaze. "You're going to hear things that change what you think you know."
"I know," she said.
"It may be worse than you're expecting," he said.
She held his gaze.
"Or better," she said.
He was quiet.
"Or neither," she said. "Or both at once." She held his gaze. "I'm not walking in there expecting one thing. I'm walking in to get information." She paused. "That's all."
He looked at her.
"That's never all," he said. "Not when it's your parents."
She breathed.
"No," she said. "Not all. But it's the first thing." She held his gaze. "I can manage the rest."
"I know you can," he said. "I'm not doubting that."
"Then what are you saying," she said.
He held her gaze for a long moment.
"I'm saying I should have been the one to tell you the first part," he said. "Before Cain. I should have told you years ago." He paused. "I can't undo that. But I want you to knowâwhatever Cain tells youâthat I'm on your side. Whatever that means. However complicated it is."
She looked at him.
"I know," she said. "I knew that before you said it."
He held her gaze.
She looked at the roomâthe pallet, the east-facing window, the cold morning light coming through it.
"Three days," she said. "I'll be back in five."
"I know," he said.
---
The night before she left, Cal brought a lamp to the south wall and they sat with it.
Not talking much. She'd said the things that needed sayingâthe handoffs, the protocols, the contingencies. Ramos knew the watch schedule. Lia knew the treatment plan. Efrain knew the supplies. The Station would run.
She was thinking about Cain.
She'd met him once. The south wall, the autumn, his hand. He'd been what she'd expected and not what she'd expectedâthe size of the man, the authority of twenty years of being the most dangerous person in whatever room he was in. But also something else. The calculation behind his eyes that was faster and more complicated than she'd been ready for.
He wanted to tell her something about her parents.
She thought about her mother's name. Nakamura. A documentation network in the eastern cluster.
The same documentation she'd been distributing.
She'd been doing her mother's work.
She held that.
"You're already there," Cal said.
She looked at him.
"In the meeting," he said. "You've been running the scenarios."
"Yes," she said.
He looked at the lamp.
"What's the worst scenario," he said.
"Cain tells me something that makes me second-guess everything I'm building," she said. "Something about the network, about the documentation, that changes what it is." She paused. "That makes me not sure if I'm doing the right thing."
He looked at her.
"And if you find out the right thing is different than what you thought," he said.
"Then I figure out the right thing," she said.
He held her gaze.
"That's not the worst scenario," he said. "That's just new information."
She looked at the lamp.
He was right.
The worst scenario was something she wasn't going to say out loud.
He seemed to know that. He didn't press.
"I'll be there," he said. "The whole time."
"I know," she said.
She leaned against him.
The spring night. The mountains.
One more day.
