The Assay terminal rejected NORA BECK before Nell could finish typing the filing number.
IDENTITY DOES NOT MATCH NOTICE.
She erased the name. The annex on the ground floor had no clerk, only a glass door that let in the noise of the courtyard and a terminal with a pen tied to it by a cord. She entered NELL ACHTERBERG. This time the notice number took. The clock above the screen read Friday 00:16.
She requested the original Lathe petition, its attachments, and the intake server metadata. A box asked whether she wanted other parties' identifying information. Nell selected no. She wanted the time of submission and the source of the filing; she could challenge redactions when there was something to read.
A thermal printer pushed out a receipt at 00:18. REQUEST PENDING. NO DOCUMENTS RELEASED. She photographed the receipt beside the notice, then put both in her coat pocket. A response could take up to two business days, the screen said. The $640 equipment charge would come due before either of those days was over.
Her watch was vibrating. She had silenced its coherence alert in the elevator, but a new screen showed her pulse at 106. Up on thirty-one, with Hugo in the corridor, it had been 74. She counted the beats she could hear in the empty annex. One came from behind the glass, another from the security desk. Neither was his.
She opened the building map on her phone. The annex stood 165 meters from the Halvard tower's entrance. Hugo was thirty-one floors above it. Her phone could measure the route along the pavement, at least; it couldn't locate him to the meter. She pinned the tower on the map and started walking.
At the far edge of the courtyard, a delivery cart rattled over the paving stones. Three separate heartbeats came at her through the noise. Nell stopped and leaned against a cold metal post until she could tell the cart's motor from the person pushing it. Her watch displayed 119.
She called Hugo. He answered before the first ring finished.
"Has anyone asked for the freezer?"
"No. Where are you?"
"The annex gave me a receipt. I'm checking a distance."
"Nell, I'm at 112. Odile has a sensor on me."
"You're allowed to say no."
"I'm telling you where I am."
She looked at the map. Her route from the tower entrance was 286 meters. Hugo's location above her made the straight-line distance longer. Neither number explained the sharp pull under her ribs when a cyclist passed and his pulse cut across the call. She held the phone farther from her ear, though that changed nothing.
"What was it at the freezer?" she asked.
"Sixty-four after you left. Eighty-seven five minutes later." A muffled voice spoke near him. "Odile says she can release me from the custody station. I'm coming down."
"Don't. Keep the sensor there for one more reading."
"I'm getting a headache."
"Put that in the record too."
His answer came after a breath. "She already has."
Nell walked until the map gave her 414 meters by pavement from the tower entrance. The post she stopped at belonged to a closed bike-rental rack. From there she could still see the lit top floors. Her watch read 132. Her fingertips had gone cold; she had trouble making the phone accept her thumbprint. Odile's voice came over the line, level and close to Hugo's phone.
"Mr. Halvard is at 126. I have his permission to give you that figure. May I log your readings with it?"
"One thirty-two. And the route here is 414 meters from the entrance. Your thirty-first floor makes the straight line different. Don't call it an exact separation distance."
"Noted. Can you walk back to the annex?"
Nell tried to answer. A wave of pain knocked the breath out of the first word. She caught the rack with one hand and waited for a bus to pass, its passengers' pulses crowding at the edge of her hearing. No thoughts came with them. The watch gave her numbers and her own body supplied the rest.
"Yes," she said when the bus was gone. "I can walk."
Hugo spoke again. "I'm coming to you."
"Go to the annex. Meet me there." If he came all the way out, she wouldn't learn whether she could cover the distance on her own. She took the shorter route back, following the edge of the courtyard instead of the road. Every crossing meant another cluster of heartbeats. By the time the annex door came into view, she had stopped twice.
Hugo stood outside it with Odile. He took one step toward her and then stayed where he was. Nell covered the last stretch herself. At roughly ten meters her watch fell from 125 to 110. She waited beside the door until it reached 94; Hugo checked the reading on Odile's sensor and let his shoulders drop.
"Was that sufficiently documented?" he asked.
"Ask me after my hand works." Nell flexed her fingers around the receipt. The thermal paper had curled into a little tube. She kept hold of it.
Odile showed them her screen. She had recorded his time-stamped pulse, his headache report, Nell's readings as Nell had given them, and the measured route rather than an invented straight line. She offered Nell a copy of only her own statement and the readings Hugo had authorized her to share.
"I'll take it," Nell said. "Did anyone touch F-6?"
"The drawer remains sealed. I logged my departure at 00:24 after transferring watch of the outer door to security. No request to open it." Odile glanced at Nell's watch. "Our on-call clinician is awake. I can connect you both, separately if you prefer."
"Separately," Nell said.
Hugo moved away toward the courtyard bench with his phone. Odile stayed by the annex door while Nell took the call on her own screen. The clinician appeared in a small square above a chart. She asked Nell to sit, drink water, and report any persistent symptoms. Nell sat on the low wall outside; the stone was damp through her coat.
"The first verified reading above ninety-five percent was at 23:52," the clinician said. "That starts the thirty-day settling period. The withdrawal you just felt can happen sooner than six hours. Over four hundred meters apart for more than six hours, the risk changes: escalating fever, nosebleeds and irregular heartbeat. If the pain doesn't ease or your pulse stays high, you need an in-person assessment. So does he."
"Are you telling me I can't leave?"
"You can leave. I would advise against making a six-hour trip away from him during settling. An agreement between you can't change that physiology. I can't make your decisions for you."
Nell pressed a fingertip against the wet stone. "He said my pulse went up before I told him. Does this give him any idea what I'm thinking?"
"A pulse can rise for many reasons. There's no transmission of thoughts. No medical basis for calling either person's feelings compulsory, either."
"Put that in my visit note. In plain words."
"I will."
The clinician asked again whether Nell wanted someone to examine her in person. Her watch had reached 82. She agreed to seek care if the pain returned at this distance or if she developed any of the symptoms the clinician had listed. Then she requested that her visit note not go to Halvard's board. The clinician confirmed it would remain in her medical file under Assay's care service, subject to the usual access rules. Nell asked for a copy sent to her, not to Nora Beck.
Across the courtyard, Hugo was looking at his own screen. Odile's sensor remained clipped to his sleeve. He ended his call and walked back, stopping when Nell lifted her hand.
"Did you get the same numbers?" she asked.
"Yes. The clinician wants an in-person check if my headache returns."
"And?"
"And she didn't offer to certify that you belong within ten meters of me."
Nell stood. The dull ache under her ribs had faded. His answer was careful; it left a great deal of paper untouched.
His phone lit with GEORGINA LATHE. He glanced at the screen before answering. "I'm with Odile."
Nell could hear Georgina's voice from where she stood. "Stay on the line. The directors are assembled. Your health assessment is being put to a vote."
"At half past midnight?" Nell asked.
Hugo covered the microphone. "The emergency committee can call the full board. My trust votes have nothing to do with this." Then he uncovered it. "I'm not voting, Georgina. Send me the resolution when it's adopted."
"I am sending the live text," Georgina said. "Your assessment must be completed within seventy-two hours. The company has a duty to determine whether you can perform the CEO role."
A message appeared on Hugo's phone. He tilted it so Nell could read without taking it. EXAMINATION WITH COMPANY CLINICAL INVESTIGATOR; DEADLINE MONDAY 00:30. A second line proposed assessing him under normal stabilizing conditions, with a compatible person present if available.
Nell touched that line with one finger. "'If available.' Nice little phrase."
Georgina heard her. "Ms. Achterberg, you aren't required to attend by this resolution. It would make the findings more representative."
"Representative of which job? His?"
"Of his ordinary medical condition."
Nell gave the phone back. Hugo could manage his own answer.
He said, "Record that Nell hasn't agreed to take part. Don't list her as available."
"I'll record it," Georgina said. The connection stayed open while someone read out the votes. Six in favor, one against. Nell couldn't see the directors and didn't ask for their names. On Hugo's screen the motion acquired a time stamp: Friday 00:34. It concerned a company medical assessment, not the Assay trust holding his shares. Nothing on the phone suggested Ines had voted or that Hugo had recovered his 38 percent.
Odile detached the sensor from Hugo's sleeve. "I can forward the pulse record to your clinician, Mr. Halvard. Only with your authorization."
"Send mine," he said. "Not hers."
Nell folded her receipt flat against the back of the Lathe notice. "I'll get my own copy."
Hugo looked from the thermal paper to the board resolution. "I don't want them using your reading to make mine look better."
"You have seventy-two hours to tell them that."
"I just did."
"Then keep saying it when the doctor has a clipboard."
He didn't ask her to stay by his side. That left Nell with a problem the board had not voted on: how far she could get tomorrow when the $640 bill arrived and she still had no petition to show for tonight. She went back into the annex and laid the curling receipt under the terminal's weighted pen. On her phone she opened the copy request again. Beside DELIVERY ADDRESS, she entered her own email, watched the cursor settle, and pressed SEND.