From Human to Skeleton: Revived with Infinite System Crystals

Jade moved the small table twice before the next image loaded.

First she pulled it away from Mason's reflection. Then she shifted it out of Mara's corner of the frame. The third place wedged it between the cot and the vending machine, crooked but useful, so she kept it there.

She set one paper cup near Mara, one near Rose, and angled the tablet against a stack of folded coats.

Mason slept through the scrape of table legs with one knee bent under the coat. Kieran watched the cot first and the screen second.

That was the correct order.

Jade checked the tablet glass before she checked the feed. No cot. No blanket edge. No dinosaur tail. Only the table, the cups, and Waddell's sleeve cutting off one corner like a bad photograph.

The tablet tried to make the lockbox larger.

Jade turned the screen away from Mason before the image finished loading. Waddell blocked the camera with his shoulder and left the excuse unsaid.

He had been doing that for eleven minutes.

Jade counted because repeated good choices mattered more than clean apologies.

"Public channel is sniffing for B.H.," he said.

Jade kept one hand on the tablet edge. "How many?"

"Enough to be annoying. Not enough to panic. Seven accounts, three repost chains, one thread using Bone Half like a joke, and one person asking whether B.H. is the skeleton's hospital codename."

"Your annoying and normal annoying are different."

"Mine comes with itemized dread."

Jade looked toward Kieran. The fire stayed low under the cot, gold light hidden by the blanket edge. Mason slept through the tablet glow because Jade had turned it down until the room stopped reflecting in the glass.

The dinosaur's plastic tail stuck out from under the coat.

Jade tucked it back in with two fingers. The motion was small enough that no camera should have cared.

The route tried to care anyway.

Jade turned the tablet another inch. "Keep him out of frame."

"Already out."

Rose sat beside Mara with the blanket folded across both their knees. Mara's eyes stayed on the cup in her hands, not the tablet. The route wanted her to look. Her thumb rubbed the cup seam harder and harder.

Jade reached over and turned the cup until the seam faced away from Mara's thumb.

Mara noticed and stopped digging at it. Rose noticed too and said nothing, which helped more than another promise would have.

On the filing-room side, the lockbox remained open one inch.

SIGNATURE REQUIRED.

JJ stared at the line through the shelter feed. "That signature could lead to the witness."

Mara's fingers tightened around the cup, and Jade answered before the lockbox could make the reaction useful. "Mara stays here."

The lockbox tried a softer phrase.

PROCEDURAL KEY AVAILABLE.

Rose leaned forward and repeated the boundary in her own voice. "She stays here."

The line dimmed.

Waddell tapped the side of the tablet. "Private message came through the shelter filter."

Jade turned her head. "Source?"

"No clean name. Account made ten minutes ago. Says they worked old Mercy side halls. Private channel, text only, no attachment, no child mention."

Jade held out her hand, and Waddell gave her the tablet before opening it.

She counted that too. People liked to call themselves careful after they had already looked.

Waddell waited for permission while the message pulsed under his thumb.

Jade turned the tablet so the blank wall took the reflection. "Open on my side only."

He did.

The message filled the tablet in plain black text.

I CALLED B.H. ONCE BECAUSE I WAS SCARED.

Below it:

I AM NOT PROUD OF HOW I SAID IT.

Jade read both lines twice.

The shelter room changed without moving. Caelin, still near the vending machine, lowered his eyes. Waddell saw him do it and said nothing. That cost him something. His jaw worked once, then settled.

The filing room pulled at the message. JJ caught it before the public drawer could.

"Private route only," she said.

Erebos replied from the lockbox.

PRIVATE MESSAGE:

LOW PUBLIC WEIGHT.

POTENTIAL CONTINUITY SOURCE.

ATTACKABLE.

Jade almost smiled. It had no humor in it. "Of course."

The message updated.

I SAW THE LOCKBOX.

Mara made a small breath sound. Rose put her free hand over Mara's wrist.

"Out?" Rose asked.

Mara looked at Jade. Jade waited.

Mara set the cup down carefully. "I can say the lockbox existed."

Rose watched her face. "Only that?"

"Only that."

Jade nodded.

Mara spoke toward the tablet without touching it. "Side lockboxes were used when a transfer packet needed to move without opening a main chart. A signature could be staff, porter, or protected escort. That is all."

JJ wrote the range down without asking for more.

LOCKBOX SIGNATURE RANGE:

STAFF.

PORTER.

PROTECTED ESCORT.

The route tried to add MARA UNSTABLE SOURCE.

Rose's voice cut through before Jade's did. "She answered within the boundary."

The line hesitated.

"Record Rose's boundary," Jade said.

Mara looked at Rose like she had been handed back a small piece of floor.

Waddell's tablet buzzed again.

"Public thread found the letters."

Jade's hand tightened.

The public drawer opened on JJ's side without permission. It spat guesses into one dirty stack: BH, B.H., Bone Half, Body Holder, Borrowed Human, Broken Hero.

"Broken Hero?" Waddell read, disgusted.

Kieran's fire snapped once under the cot. Mason shifted. Kieran lowered it before Jade had to turn.

"Sorry," Kieran said.

Jade kept her answer flat. "Do it smaller."

"Yes."

The public drawer tried to pull B.H. into recognition. JJ shoved the private message under her arm and planted one boot on the drawer lip.

"These are jokes and guesses."

Zunoder's reflection appeared in the tablet glass behind the public thread. "Jokes travel. Guesses teach search terms. Search terms teach strangers what to call him."

Jade hated that he was right.

"Do not answer publicly," she said.

Waddell looked at her. "They will define it."

"They are already defining it. If we answer, they aim at the shelter."

Caelin lifted his head. "Can I help scrub the thread?"

Waddell looked at him long enough to make the answer difficult.

Caelin held both hands visible, palms up. "No statements. No corrections. Just reporting accounts to the filter."

"Why?"

Caelin swallowed once. "Because if I sit here doing nothing, I will start arguing in my head. If I argue in my head long enough, I will want to win. That is when I become useful to the wrong side."

Waddell's face stayed hard, but his voice lowered. "Honest answer."

Jade considered him. "Waddell watches."

"I was going to anyway," Waddell said.

Caelin moved to the second tablet slowly, like fast motion would become evidence. The first report prompt asked for a reason. His thumb hovered over misinformation.

Waddell stopped him. "Wrong."

"It is misinformation."

"It drags a protected child into a public thread. Use that."

Caelin changed the report reason with care.

The form asked for affected party, and his thumb froze again. Typing Mason would make the report stronger. It would also put the protected name where the platform could keep it.

He looked at Waddell.

"Protected minor," Waddell said. "No name."

"Will they reject it?"

"Maybe. Then we make them reject the safe version first."

Caelin typed exactly that. Protected minor. He chose child endangerment and left the details short enough to be useless to strangers.

"Thank you," he said.

Waddell stared at the screen. "Do not thank me while I am supervising you."

"Noted."

Jade let the exchange stand because it fixed a real thing without asking Mason to become the reason out loud.

The room marked Caelin as filter work under watch and public statement forbidden. Waddell read the line and grunted.

"Accurate enough."

The private message pulsed again.

I CAN TELL YOU WHERE THE SIGNATURE WAS KEPT.

Then:

BUT IF YOU PUT MY NAME ON IT, I AM GONE.

JJ looked at Ty. Ty looked at the lockbox.

The signature inside could help him. The witness asking for a limit could hurt him.

Jade answered before the route could tempt him. "Name stays off."

The message waited until Erebos wrote:

NAMELESS PRIVATE WITNESS:

WEIGHT LOW.

Jade did not move her hand from the tablet. "Low keeps people alive."

This time no one laughed at the line.

The lockbox opened another inch. Inside lay a receipt with the signature turned down.

The message added one final line.

ASK WHY HE CAME BACK BEFORE YOU ASK WHO I AM.

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