Twenty-three minutes left on the break.
Arthur walked fast through the east corridor and pulled up the anchor on Elias's boot from memory. It was still there. Warm. Patient. He pressed his perception into it and the cafeteria opened up in pieces.
Noise. Weight. Forty-odd people sitting and moving and talking.
He felt Elias three tables from the far wall. Sitting alone. His triad was somewhere to the left — Arthur felt their weight without needing to identify them. Elias wasn't with them.
Good.
He pressed the anchor deeper.
Elias's posture fed back through the network. Shoulders slightly forward. Weight on his left elbow. He was sitting still in the specific way people sat still when they were thinking about something they'd already decided.
His right hand was resting on the table.
His left was in his lap.
Arthur stopped walking.
