The Rules of the Ring

Chapter 5: Part 2

At six twenty, the work lights threw long shadows from the closed service gate. Miles parked his pickup outside it and unlocked the shallow drawer of his tool cart. Needle watched from the passenger-side mirror while he removed a cardboard document sleeve.

Selene had paid the invoice from her phone before he arrived. Miles checked the payment, then handed her a paper map labeled PROFESSIONAL COPY beneath his job number and sent the PDF to her email.

"The scale matches the current course plan," he said. "Solid points are copper pins. Open points are the displaced anchor centers I measured before repair. The arrows show direction and distance. The curved line is a comparison aid, not a surveyed underground feature."

"Understood. Show me where the third obstacle sits."

Miles laid the map on the closed tailgate and held the upper corners while Selene held the lower ones. She used Ruth's course sheet to transfer the start line, the three obstacle centers, and the exit boundary onto the margin grid.

The first two obstacles sat outside the displacement pattern. The iron turn crossed it.

Selene marked Sol's refusal at the center of the turn. Maribel and Hush had stopped two feet south of him, and Peanut had stopped at the north approach. All three marks lay over the shallow curve drawn from yesterday's shifted anchors.

Miles adjusted his glasses and checked the scale a second time. "Your marks match the course dimensions?"

"Ruth measured them after she suspended the obstacle. Yes."

"Then the refusals and the offsets share a line. That still doesn't tell us what caused either one."

"It tells us where the next inspection starts."

Selene photographed the annotated copy, then slid it back into the sleeve. Miles returned the original to the locked drawer, closed it, and tested the latch with one pull.

She called Ruth before leaving the gate. Ruth answered from the north office, where the suspended-course report was still open.

"I have Miles's paid map copy," Selene said. "All three refusal points cross yesterday's displacement curve."

Ruth was quiet while paper moved near the phone. "Bring the copy at seven thirty tomorrow morning. The obstacle stays closed."