65: The Lv 28 Floor

The Friday morning shift was the Friday morning shift.

I was at the apron-drawer at 5:28 AM. The back-bank lights were on; the other bays in the small early dark. The pod-bank cooling fans at the low twenty-pod hum. The hot-water carafe full and steaming. Manager Fang was at the back office under the desk lamp with last night's Hangzhou Daily. He did not, when I came in, look up.

He said: "Pod 12. The intermediate handler. Week two of three."

"All right."

"She is in a small grey wool coat today. The brown wool was the Friday-one-of-three coat. The grey wool is the Friday-two-of-three coat. Beijing pipeline handlers wear the small careful coat-rotation by week of the small careful approach window. The small careful coat-rotation is a small careful tell. Sister Lin proper, when she comes Friday three of three, will wear the small careful pale-grey blazer she wore at the small careful end of August through October."

"All right."

"She has been at pod 12 since 5:02. She has, this morning, drunk the small hot tea once. She has not, this morning, run any clean-ledger queries. She is reading a small careful paperback. She is, by my read, only counting the small careful Cao-Lin propagation observers — week five of six. The propagation has, by the small careful natural-network-decay calculation, slowed to two observers this morning where last week it was three. The slowing is the small careful expected curve."

"All right."

"At 11:30 today she will leave a small folded piece of paper at the long counter when she pays. The paper will be in your handwriting. The paper will be a small careful copy of the small careful index card you wrote in the small careful dorm-desk-drawer in late August — the small careful seven-item waiting-at-the-foothills receipt. The Beijing pipeline has it. They have had it, by the small careful internal monitoring's reconstructed photographic capture, since the small careful HZUT pre-fall-term IT-services routine pod-imaging on the small careful September seventh. They are returning it to you to read as the small careful courtesy. The small careful courtesy is, by the small careful pipeline convention, a small careful pre-meeting overture before Sister Lin proper next Friday. They are saying: we know the things you keep in your small careful dorm-desk-drawer. We are not, by the saying, asking for anything in return. We are saying."

I held the long counter.

I said, after a moment: "All right."

He said: "Don't, when she leaves the paper at 11:30, react. Take the paper. Put the paper in your jacket. Continue the shift to noon. Walk back to the dorm. Read the paper at the dorm. Don't, on the way back, look at the paper."

"All right."

He folded the Hangzhou Daily.

He said: "Manager Fang's small careful side-ledger this morning. Three things. One: the small careful Cao Lin propagation has, by the small careful Suzhou-vendor side count from the Pingjiang Road auntie network's small careful Wednesday meeting, reached the small careful Suzhou-vendor cluster — twenty-three vendors named you to one another at the meeting Wednesday. Mrs. Su was not at the meeting. The naming was — by the small careful auntie-network convention — at the small careful third-row table. The small careful third row is reserved for the small careful subject-of-vetting. You are, this week, on the small careful third-row table. Two: the small careful third-floor commercial-litigation partner at Hengtai Cheng — Mao Lianxi, the small careful name from Tuesday — has, this morning at 8:14 IRL, placed a small careful telephone call to a small careful Hangzhou-municipal-administrative-services-bureau small careful third-line-of-record contact who is, by the small careful internal-administrative bureau's record, the small careful officer-of-record for the small careful HZUT undergraduate-foreign-fees-account. The call lasted three minutes. The topic, by the bureau-side reconstruction, was your small careful sister's tuition-fees billing. Three: your father called the shop telephone yesterday afternoon at 5:14 IRL to ask me to confirm to you that the small careful November fifth doctor's appointment with Doctor Yan went small careful well — Doctor Yan extended the small careful three-month projection to a small careful three months and three IRL weeks on the small careful basis of the small careful improved blood markers."

I closed my eyes for the small two seconds the closing took.

In the old timeline Doctor Yan had given my father the three-month projection on the same November date. It had not, in the old timeline, been extended. The blood markers in the old timeline had leveled at month two and plateaued and Doctor Yan had said, in the careful language Doctor Yan used for plateaus, that the three-month horizon was the three-month horizon. My father had not, in the old timeline, told me until three weeks after the appointment. He had been protecting me from the interruption to the guild campaign.

In this timeline the blood markers had not plateaued. Three months and three weeks was not the same as three months. It was not the same as a cure. But it was three weeks of extra ordinary time, and three weeks in this specific November were a different kind of three weeks from any other.

I said: "Thank you, Manager Fang."

He said: "Don't thank me. Thank your father."

I said: "I will."

I opened the small Suzhou-cotton-paper notebook.

I wrote one line:

*November 6, 2014 — 5:14 PM IRL — Manager Fang (relay from Father) — three minutes — Doctor Yan, three months and three weeks.*

I closed the notebook.

That was the second entry.

The morning rush ran. The intermediate handler in the grey wool coat read her paperback at pod 12 through it. She was, by the texture of her stillness, the kind of handler who had been doing this long enough that boredom and patience had become the same thing. She turned one page every twelve minutes. She drank the small hot tea once, at 8:02, and did not refill. When the rush peaked at 6:35 and the small cafe filled with the noise and movement of the fourteen students buying pod-passes and chili-bean packets, she did not look up. She was the kind of not-looking-up that was its own form of attention.

At 11:30 she came up to the long counter to pay.

She paid in small bills.

She set on the counter, beside the small bills, a small folded piece of paper.

She did not look at me.

She walked to the door. She stopped at the door. She did not, this time, turn. She left.

I took the small folded piece of paper. I put it in the inside pocket of my jacket. I continued the shift to noon.

At noon Manager Fang gave me the small envelope of the week's pay.

I walked back to the dorm.

I did not, on the way back, look at the paper.

At the dorm I read the paper.

The walk from the cafe to the dorm on the small November Friday noon was the walk it was: the south road, the intersection at the HZUT east gate, the four flights of the A-block dormitory stairs with the flat midday light on the cement. I had done it every Friday for six weeks. I did it this time with the paper in my jacket pocket and my hands in my jacket pockets alongside it and I did not look at the paper.

It was — at the small careful pencil hand the small careful HZUT pre-fall-term IT-services photographic capture would have lifted from the small careful index card — the small careful seven-item waiting-at-the-foothills receipt. The hand was mine. The card was mine. The reproduction was the small careful seventh-grade carbon-paper grade of the IT-services photographic capture. There was, at the bottom of the paper, in a different hand — a small careful sloping cursive in the small careful pale-blue ink of a small careful older handler — one line:

*Sister Lin proper, Friday next at 4 PM IRL, the small specific eastern-lane tea-house. The receipt, at four PM, will be on the small specific table for you to take back. The receipt is yours. — L.*

I read the line twice.

I folded the paper.

I put the paper in the small drawer at the back of the desk where the small careful old-timeline pieces sat that I had not, in three weeks, written down.

I lay down on the lumpy pillow at one PM. The cracked-egg ceiling stain was above me at the standard angle. The November dorm-room cold came in through the window I had cracked four fingers open on the way to the pod. The small folded paper was in the desk drawer. The jacket was on the desk chair. The second voice in my chest — *three months and three weeks* — was the quietest it had been in any version of this November.

I slept until five.

In-game I logged in at 6:00. Wanqing was at her own grind — Lv 30 archer mastery cap calibration runs at the Cinnabar Marsh western node — and she had bonded-DM'd me at 6:14: *Don't come. I am calibrating. The calibration is mine. I will be off bonded comms until 9:30 PM IRL.* I had bonded-DM'd back: *All right.*

I went to the Black Iron Beasts Lv 28 floor.

The Black Iron Beasts at the Lv 28 floor were a different problem from the cleft-wolves and the cleft-bear at the Iron Hills. The cleft had been Wanqing's problem and I had been the door. The Lv 28 floor was mine and the door was the question of how long to hold it open. Holding it open meant fighting at exactly the pace required to not cross the XP threshold that would push me to Lv 29 before Wanqing was ready. In the old timeline I had never deliberately held a cap. I had run through every cap I encountered as fast as the game would allow. The discipline of holding was a different discipline from the discipline of running. Running felt, in the old timeline, like the natural motion. Holding felt, in this one, like the more useful skill.

I did two cycles. I held the Lv 28 cap deliberately. The two cycles took two hours and twelve minutes. I did not, in either cycle, take any small careful XP-rich engagement that would push me past Lv 28 by the end of the IRL week. The Black Iron Beasts at the Lv 28 floor were the Black Iron Beasts at the Lv 28 floor. They cleared cleanly. Two purple drops in two cycles — both small careful pieces I deposited in the *Severing Light* shared inventory at the Greenleaf Inn with a small careful note for Wenqing's small careful Saturday morning sort.

*Ding!* [System Notification: Black Iron Beast (Lv 28 Elite) felled. EXP +390, Gold +9. Purple item drop: Iron-Crowned Vambrace — Rare Grade. Deposited to shared inventory.]

At 9:50 PM IRL the bonded-DM icon brightened.

It was Old Wolf.

The text was three lines.

> *Sun Xiulan replied at 9:30 PM IRL.* > > *Her reply is one line. I will give you and Wanqing the line tomorrow morning at 7 AM IRL at the south-gate marshal stone.* > > *The line is the small careful piece I have been waiting four IRL months to read.*

I closed the bonded DM.

I logged out at 11:14 PM IRL.

In the dorm room A-7 the cracked-egg ceiling stain was over me. The small careful late-evening Hangzhou cool came in through the cracked window. The small careful slab phone on the desk had no messages.

In the inside pocket of my jacket on the desk chair the small folded paper sat folded at the small careful seventh-grade carbon-paper crease. In the small drawer at the back of the desk it would, by morning, be a small careful new piece beside the small careful old-timeline pieces that had not, in three weeks, been written down. I had, in the old timeline, never been to the eastern-lane tea-house. I had known its address from a civic-historical background document in the third year of the server. I had not, in the old timeline, ever walked into it. The Sister-Lin-proper meeting next Friday at 4 PM in the small specific eastern-lane tea-house would be — by my count — the small careful first IRL face-to-face I had had with the small careful Beijing-pipeline lateral-promotion handler since the small careful end-of-August morning shift she had given me her name at the apron-drawer.

In my chest the second voice — *three months and three weeks* — was, for the first time in either timeline, three months and three weeks. The first voice — the old counter — said:

*Sun Xiulan's one line is, by Old Wolf's read, the four-IRL-month line. By 7:14 AM tomorrow at the south-gate marshal stone I will know the line. By 7:35 PM Sunday at the IRL western fountain Old Wolf will have asked the third-party observer the question the line lets him ask. By 8:00 PM Sunday I will know what he learned.*

I closed my eyes.

I slept.