Its status was green.
CHAPTER 07
The Green Light
The inspection began at eight beneath a sky the color of dirty dishes. Mara arrived with her notebook, expecting to remain near the back. Instead, a local reporter stepped into her path before she reached the barrier.
“Did you know about the defective equipment before the dinner?”
“No.”
“Are you working with the city now?”
“I'm here as a witness.”
“Will you donate the money?”
Mara looked at him. “Would you ask that if I'd won a game show?”
He lowered the microphone a little. She walked past before he could decide whether her answer was another headline.
Celia stood beside two municipal engineers and a woman carrying a hard equipment case. Mr. Zhou introduced the woman as Dr. Lin, his company's regional technical specialist. An accredited interpreter joined them by video call. Mara felt an immediate, almost physical relief at no longer being the only bridge in the conversation.
The engineers photographed the relay housing before opening it. One read the serial number aloud. Dr. Lin compared it with the shipping list.
Nobody hurried.
Mara watched the discipline of it: photograph, record, verify, repeat. At dinner, the truth had arrived as a dramatic sentence. Here, it emerged through screws placed in a labeled bag.
The first relay had no backup battery.
The second contained one, but it was disconnected.
At the third location, near the market branch, a municipal engineer named Luis Ortega frowned at his tablet.
“The dashboard says this unit has been transmitting continuously for six weeks.”
He held up the loose cable inside the box.
“It isn't connected to the antenna.”
Rain ticked against the housing. Mara looked toward Larch Court. From here she could see the roof above her mother's apartment.
“What does the green status mean?” Celia asked.
Luis called the software contractor. They put the answer on speaker.
The green status represented the last valid message received by the central server. During installation, test messages had been generated to confirm that the dashboard could display data. Unless manually reset, a test value could remain visible.
“For six weeks?” Celia asked.
A silence followed.
“That should have been disabled before public release.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
Mara wrote down the exact answer.
Gideon arrived at nine fifteen in a dark car. His shoes were unsuitable for the mud, but he stepped into it without complaint. Beatrice followed, carrying no umbrella.
“I want everything documented,” he said.
“It is being documented,” Celia replied.
He looked at Mara. “And you're part of the engineering team?”
“No.”
“Then perhaps we should let the professionals work.”
Luis did not look up from the open housing. “She's standing outside the barrier. You're standing inside it.”
Gideon stepped back.
It was a small correction, delivered without a camera, and Mara valued it more than the applause.
Beatrice asked to speak to Celia privately. They moved far enough away that Mara could not hear. Gideon watched them, his face becoming very still.
Mr. Zhou approached Mara with the interpreter's phone in his hand. He thanked her for correcting the market branch reference.
“I should have asked you to identify it on the map,” she said.
“You corrected it when you found it.”
“That doesn't make the first version right.”
“No. It makes the record better.”
She wrote that down too, though it was not part of the inspection.
A maintenance worker arrived carrying the original installation photographs. His name was Paul, and he looked furious before anyone questioned him. He had fitted the housings, he explained, under instructions that another contractor would connect and commission them. His task sheet showed the limit of his work. Luis photographed it and asked permission to retain a copy. Paul handed it over, shoulders dropping as the questions became specific. Mara recognized his fear of being the nearest available person to blame. She also saw that careful inquiry could protect him without assuming he had done everything correctly. They checked his dates against the site records. Where the records disagreed, Luis marked the discrepancy rather than choosing the cleaner story. The page filled with small qualifications. To Mara, it looked more trustworthy with every one.
The workers compared their notes before moving on. Nobody called the discrepancy a minor detail.
By noon, all six relays had been checked. Four were incomplete. Two were functional under normal power, but neither had been tested through an outage. The city issued a notice stating that Riverwatch could not be relied upon for flood warnings. Existing municipal precautions remained in effect.
The notice was clear, dull, and unlikely to spread as quickly as Gideon's laugh.
Mara sent it to Nessa, her mother, and the Larch Court residents' group. Then she called Mrs. Alvarez to make sure she understood that the green dashboard did not mean the building was safe from flooding.
The older woman listened, then asked whether the rabbit boy should move his pet upstairs.
“Yes,” Mara said. “Upstairs is sensible.”
Gideon caught her before she left.
“You've made your point.”
“I didn't know I was making one.”
He glanced toward the reporter waiting beyond the fence.
“People will use you. Rowan has wanted my company out of this contract for years.”
“Then she should have evidence.”
“She has you.”
Mara felt the old heat in her neck, but this time she recognized what he was doing. He was inviting her to defend herself until the equipment disappeared from the conversation.
“She has six inspection reports,” she said.
She left him beside the barrier.
On the bus, her phone rang. The caller identified herself as a producer offering an exclusive interview and an appearance fee. Mara declined. Then another call came, from the housing clinic where her mother had once worked.
“We understand Ruth Ellis is your mother,” the woman said. “An old personnel matter may become relevant to the current coverage. We'd appreciate a chance to provide context.”
Mara looked out at the river.
“What old personnel matter?”
But she already knew. The past had found the cameras.