From Human to Skeleton: Revived with Infinite System Crystals

The marshal's red seal came through the plate before the marshal did.

It whipped around the chain and struck Ty across the open ribs. A bent section of floor grille followed, carrying one black boot, half a coat, and a bare hand gripping the chain hard enough to bend the seal between its fingers.

Denna's hand held the back of the coat from inside the narrow road. Toman had one arm around her waist. His other hand kept a ledger above the split floor while all three of them slid toward the advanced city.

Every rifle on the brewery roof changed targets.

"Captain Cord, place the ceramic on the ground, step clear, and let quarantine crews separate every body from the route."

Commander Vey's voice came through the roof speakers and Nessa's damaged molar at different speeds. Jade heard the speaker first. Nessa heard the implant and drove the ceramic bolt under the red seal before Vey finished speaking aloud.

"There are living hands attached to the other end, Commander."

The bolt caught against the desk leg. Nessa put her bare shoulder behind it. Her numb finger stayed folded against her palm while the rest closed around the chain.

Vey lowered his rifle by three inches. The defenders beside him kept theirs trained on Ty's skull and Jade's damaged eye.

Davi leaned over the brewery roof and cupped both hands around his mouth. The damaged local channel had made shouting useful again.

"West rubble is moving again, and the brewery truck lost its left brace."

"Put the empty kegs beneath the axle and keep civilians inside the tunnel."

"The kegs belong to people who complain louder than the Vale."

"Tell them I saved the brewery so they can complain tomorrow."

Davi left the channel with boots pounding over the roof.

The marshal's shoulder entered the plate. He wore no glove, and his hand had the red groove of someone who had wrapped a seal around the wrong machine. Gray stone scraped across his coat as the buried hinge tried to follow him.

"I am Marshal Sorn of Sadle's drainage wards, and this route is under district custody."

Nessa looked at Jade. "Does every world send an official through the wall before introducing itself?"

"Earth would have sent paperwork first, which makes him an improvement."

Ty pulled the chain away from Sorn's neck. The link inside his ribs shifted with it and dropped his left arm across Jade's shoulders. She stepped under him while the Reaper pulled from Room Four. Holding a skeleton together this way hurt her neck; several earlier methods had hurt worse.

"Your ribs are opening farther each time you rescue another official."

"I have started collecting them because the universe keeps leaving them unattended."

Vey raised two fingers. Defenders on the opposite roof unfolded a restraint net between their rifles. Black cords ran through glass beads and living tissue no thicker than veins. Each bead pulsed when the soldiers flexed their trigger hands.

Nessa saw the net and moved between it and the road.

"That cage was built for Vale tissue, and none of you know what this chain carries."

"It carries an armed dead organism into a district under active breach," Vey said. "Containment starts while your diagnosis is still catching up."

Jade felt Ty prepare to move her behind him. His spine changed angle before either sickle rose. She caught his jaw with one hand and turned his skull back toward her.

The defenders watching them lost track of where to point.

Ty had no face left to read, but his shoulders still apologized before his voice did. That habit had survived more bodies than the rest of him.

"I missed the one-hour deadline by several universes."

"You missed it by years, and I bought dinner anyway."

"Please tell me the cheap wine stayed on its shelf."

"You promised the good kind, so I left the shelf empty."

His hand closed over hers against his skull. His thumb rubbed once across her knuckles before the next order found them.

"Then I still owe you the good kind."

"You owe me enough time to complain while drinking it."

Davi leaned over the roof again while the west truck scraped behind him.

"Captain, the skeleton and the woman are arguing about wine under six rifles."

"They trust our aim more than I do, so brace the west truck."

Vey watched Jade keep one hand on Ty's face while her other arm carried his loose ribs. His rifle shifted from Ty's skull to the chain entering him.

"Prior association changes their questioning order, but it changes nothing about quarantine."

Palla dragged the freed desk another foot across the street. "She crossed three broken roads beside him before your people found either of them. Keeping them together saves your officers the trouble of learning that grip."

Two roof rifles tracked the desk, three held on Ty, and the last stayed on the road.

Nessa looked away first. Palla kept both hands on the desk and gave the roof soldiers a stare that asked which one planned to comment.

Vey dropped his two raised fingers.

The pulse net hit the chain.

The first current entered the red seal and tore Sorn's bare hand free. Denna caught his coat with both hands. Toman wedged one boot between sections of the split grille and nearly lost the ledger when the second current reached the buried hinge.

The third pulse crossed Room Four.

Ty folded against Jade. Every loose rib struck her shoulder at a different time. She wrapped both arms around him and held until the current found the white piece behind her right eye.

It had entered through her chest during the first ritual. She remembered the white skeleton breaking its own skull and pushing the piece through her soul. The piece had crossed her and left the skin over her sternum closed. Later, in the old collection room, the hollow above its right eye had matched the pressure inside hers.

The piece tore loose.

Jade's eyelid split along the old damage. White blood ran upward into her eyebrow, paused there, then pulled toward Ty's ribs.

Her right hand left his back.

She tried to close it around the chain. The fingers passed over the links and reached for Ty's throat instead.

Jade caught her own wrist with her left hand.

White fire opened beneath the skin from her knuckles to her elbow. It consumed no cloth. It took only the part of her arm the Reaper had once replaced, leaving white bone working inside the sleeve and her hand burning where flesh had been.

"Nessa, pin my right elbow before it reaches him."

Nessa drove the ceramic bolt between Jade's arm and Ty's spine. The white hand bent around the obstruction. Its thumb found the gap below his jaw.

Ty hooked one sickle beneath Jade's forearm and lifted without cutting.

"You asked for me, so stop spending her body."

The narrow plate tore wider.

The Reaper's cracked helm entered first. Its scythe followed under one arm while the rest of its body remained stretched through Room Four and caught at the Sadle hinge. The hollow above its right eye faced Jade.

The piece behind her eye pushed toward that empty place.

Jade planted one boot against the desk. Palla caught the back of her belt when the white arm dragged her forward. The fire reached Jade's shoulder, and part of her cheek lost sensation before the skin there began to pale.

The Reaper lifted its scythe toward Ty.

Jade's borrowed hand copied the movement with empty fingers.

"The wager bought a fight, and my body stays mine."

She drove her right wrist against the ceramic bolt. Bone cracked near the elbow. The white hand missed Ty's throat and struck his shoulder hard enough to turn him.

Vey's restraint net tightened around all three, its living cords recoiling from Jade's fire while the roof soldiers kept pumping current into the wrong dead thing.

Nessa answered by tearing a bent needle from her own pulse cage; blood ran from the hole in her upper arm. She pushed the needle through the nearest net cord, wrapped its trailing fiber around Jade's white wrist, and bit down until the speaker in her molar clicked twice.

The net changed rhythm.

Jade's right arm stopped an inch from Ty's neck. Her own pulse hammered in the left wrist holding it back. Nessa's borrowed pulse arrived through the cage a fraction behind, forcing the white fingers open before they closed again.

"Nobody breaks her shoulder until my cage gets a vote."

Nessa pulled the fiber tighter. Her smallest finger straightened without her permission.

The white hand opened at the same angle.

Jade felt Nessa's numb finger inside her own borrowed grip, and the Reaper pulled on both.

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