Chapter 14 - The Second Dispatch
Meridian Response had no windows in its main operations room. The architects had said that was for concentration, but Mark knew the real reason: a room without windows made every emergency feel equally close.
He returned under escort with Ruiz, Priya, and a state investigator named Nolan Price. Hal was being held in a secure room downstairs. Evan had disappeared before the warrant reached his home.
“You are not authorized to access live systems,” Price told Mark.
“I’m not here to access them.”
“You’re here because the city needs someone who understands the network.”
“And because you don’t trust your own supervisors.”
Price did not deny it.
Priya sat at a terminal with her hands folded. She had been silent since returning to protective custody, answering questions with technical precision and avoiding Mark’s eyes.
“You knew about the test incidents,” he said.
She looked down. “I knew there were unexplained delays.”
“You knew enough to film Leo’s crash.”
“I thought I was documenting a warning.”
“You watched my son fall.”
“I called for help.”
“After you started filming.”
Priya absorbed the words. “You’re right.”
Mark had expected a defense. Her admission left him with nowhere to put his anger.
“Why did you keep the memory card?”
“I didn’t. I put it in the bicycle light.”
Mark turned. “You?”
“Sara gave it to me two weeks before she died. She said if anything happened, I should hide the recordings where nobody would search.”
“You knew she was in danger.”
“I knew she was frightened. I was twenty-six and new at Meridian. I thought adults with families and titles would handle it.”
“You could have told me.”
“Hal told me you were involved.”
Mark stepped toward her. “He made that recording.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You believed it.”
Priya’s eyes filled. “I believed the person who trained me.”
The room went quiet except for the low murmur of dispatchers taking calls.
Price pointed to a system map. “The second dispatch is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. tomorrow. Vale will trigger a citywide routing demonstration. He intends to create controlled failures, then show the council how quickly Argus can restore service.”
“He needs failures to demonstrate restoration,” Mark said.
“He needs the failures to look organic.”
“How many people will be in danger?”
“That depends on which calls cross the silver line.”
Mark saw the map. Five zones converged near the rail terminal. The line moved across neighborhoods like a blade, splitting streets that shared the same hospitals and fire stations.
“What is this?” he asked, pointing to a narrow corridor beneath the river.
Priya leaned forward. “An old dispatch bridge. It connects the South Grid to the backup center.”
“There’s a second center?”
“There was. It was decommissioned after a flood.”
“The old rail terminal sits above it.”
Price said, “Vale’s demonstration uses the old center as a failover site.”
Mark thought of the brass key. “The key opens something there.”
He and Ruiz went to the terminal that afternoon. Behind a collapsed ticket counter, the key opened a steel cabinet containing an analog switchboard, a reel of paper call logs, and a black metal box marked with the old Meridian emblem.
The box held Sara’s original dispatch records.
Mark recognized his own handwriting on the first page. He had taken the call about the crash three years earlier without knowing Sara was the caller’s wife. The record showed her emergency call entering the system at 10:19 p.m. and being routed to the South Grid. A handwritten note beside it said, “Transferred by E.B. at 10:20.”
Sara had not died instantly. She had called for help.
Mark’s knees weakened.
Ruiz caught his arm. “Mark.”
“I was on the desk.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I heard her call.”
“You handled thousands of calls.”
“I heard her voice and didn’t recognize it.”
Ruiz gripped his shoulder. “You are not responsible for what they changed.”
“I am responsible for listening.”
The old switchboard clicked.
A line light turned red.
Mark lifted the receiver.
Static filled the tunnel, then a woman whispered, “The child is at the river.”
Mark dropped the receiver.
May you like
His phone rang. Nina was calling.
“Mark,” she said, breathless. “Leo is gone.”
