Naomi's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Naomi clipped the red cloth to the pulley line and hauled it up the pole. The flag climbed against a gray sky. To anyone passing, it was harbor business. To three workers on shift, it meant tonight was safe. She watched it snap in the wind and thought of a neighbor's dry tap, a crying child. Pipeworks would fall. She would make sure of it. The trouble was the meeting itself. Open ground meant disappearances. She had whispered names, willing hands, and nowhere to put them. Six weeks, maybe eight, before the company turned its eye on her. She needed walls that did not listen. She found them by accident, chasing a call into the service mains. Below the old clock tower with its cracked base and faded numbers, a brick tunnel branched into arches no map showed. Pipeworks had forgotten this junction. Water ran above it. No cameras. No ears. That night, four shadows gathered under the worn clock face and slipped down into the arches one by one. Naomi lit a small lamp. She looked at their faces and counted. Four had become five. The work had a room now. The room had a door. And the door, she knew, could also be found by someone else.