The envelope was old but addressed only a handful of times. One edge was worn tissue thin, a small tear revealing a folded piece of paper inside. Peering closer, Mission saw that it was pulp paper, probably made in the Crow’s Nest by one of her kids, water and handfuls of torn paper blended up and pressed down on screens and left overnight to dry. Bits of thread and various colors could be seen in there, and just the hint of writing.
“Mission,” someone at the table hissed.
He looked up to see Bradley sitting across from him. The fellow porter had his blue ’chief tied around his bicep. Mission had thought he was running a regular route in the Down Deep.
“You applying?” Bradley hissed.
One of the other boys coughed into his fist like he was asking for quiet. It looked like Bradley was already done with his application.
Mission shook his head. There was a knock on the window behind him, and he nearly dropped the letter as he whirled around. Jeffery stuck his head in the door. “Two minutes,” he said to Mission, ignoring the other lads. He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. “I’m just waiting on his tray.”
Mission bobbed his head as the door was pulled shut. The other boys looked at him curiously.
“Delivery,” Mission explained to Bradley loud enough for the others to hear. He pulled his pack closer and hid the envelope behind it. The boys went back to their scribbling. Bradley frowned and watched the others.
Mission studied the envelope again. Two minutes. How long would he have with Rodny? He tickled the corner of the sealed flap. The milk paste the Crow had used didn’t stick very well to the months-old—maybe years-old—dried glue from before. He worked one corner loose without glancing down at the envelope. Instead, he watched Bradley as he disobeyed the third cardinal rule of porting, telling himself this was different, that this was two old friends talking and he was just in the room with them. Just friends talking as he peeled the flap away.
Even so, his hands trembled as he pulled the letter out. He glanced down, keeping the note hidden. Purple and red string lay strewn in with the dark gray of cheap paper. Kid paper. The writing was in chalk. It meant the words had to be big. White powder gathered in the folds as it shivered loose from the words like dust falling from old pipes:
Soon, soon, the momma bird sings.
Take flight, take flight!
Part of an old nursery rhyme. Beat your wings, Mission whispered, remembering the rest, a story about a young crow learning to be free. Beat your wings and fly away to brighter things. Fly, fly with all your might! He started to check the back for a real note, something beyond this fragment of a rhyme, when someone banged on the window again. Several of the other boys dropped their charcoals and visibly startled. One boy cursed under his breath. Mission whirled around to see Jeffery on the other side of the glass, a covered meal tray balanced on one palm, his bald head jerking impatiently.
Mission folded the letter up and stuffed it back in the envelope. He raised his hand over his head to let Jeffery know he’d be right there, licked one finger and ran it across the sticky paste, re-sealing the envelope as best he could. “Good luck,” he told Bradley, even though he had no clue what the kid thought he was doing. He dragged his pack off the table, was careful to wipe away the chalk dust that had spilled, and hurried out of the conference room.
“Let’s go,” Jeffery said, clearly annoyed.
Mission hurried after him. He glanced back once at the window, then over at the noisy crowd jostling against the temporary barriers by the door. An IT tech approached the crowd with a computer, wires coiled neatly on top, and a woman reached out desperate arms from behind the barrier like a mother yearning for her baby.
“Since when did people start bringing their own computers up?” he asked, curious as a seasoned porter about how things got from there to here and back again. It felt as though he were witnessing yet another loop his kind was being sliced out of. Roker would have a fit.
“Yesterday. Mr. Wyck stopped sending our techs out. He says it’s safer this way. People being robbed out there and not enough security to go around.”
Jeffery was waved through the gates, Mission as well. They wound in silence through the hallways, every office full of clacking sounds or people arguing. Mission saw electrical parts and paper strewn everywhere. He wondered which office was Rodny’s and why nobody else was having their food delivered. Maybe his friend was in trouble. That was it. Made sense of everything. Maybe he had pulled one of his stunts. Did they have a holding cell on thirty-four? He didn’t think so. He was about to ask Jeffery if Rodny was in the pen when the old security guard stopped at an imposing steel door.