From Human to Skeleton: Revived with Infinite System Crystals

Jade's right eye stayed open when the maintenance tram rolled over its first track joint.

Her left lid came down with the jolt. The damaged one stayed open around the white piece lodged beneath it, letting brewery dust scrape across a surface that no longer watered properly.

The West Four medic caught her chin before she rubbed it. "Use the clean cloth against the corner because your fingers carry dead suit grease."

Jade took the cloth with her left hand. Her right rested palm up on the tram floor, white bones exposed from fingertips to elbow beneath a sleeve split during the fight. The hand had obeyed her for six blocks. Dead armor followed behind the tram with enough noise to make that obedience feel temporary.

Ty walked beside the open rail. Vey had assigned two roof rifles to him and another to Jade, which gave their medical appointment the attention of an execution.

"Move beside my left shoulder where both eyes can compare you."

Ty shifted there and kept his hands away from her. "Do you want the ordinary skull or the one with the damaged rib presented first?"

"Start with whichever skull you consider ordinary these days."

The medic used a brewery grease pencil with its point filed round. She touched Jade's forehead, temple, cheek, and jaw while Jade named each contact. Sensation ended below the right temple and returned near the corner of her mouth. The pale patch between them gave pressure without location.

The pencil crossed her split lid.

Jade saw its wooden shaft through the left eye. The right showed a white bar with a thin line running back toward the dead sleeves scraping along the tracks.

"The pencil loses its color in the damaged eye, and the route behind us stays attached to it."

The medic drew a square of blue chalk on the tram floor. "Cover the left side without touching the white piece and tell me where this square ends."

Jade held the cloth over her left eye. Blue vanished. The chalk became a shallow break in the floor, while every dead strip behind them kept a white edge sharp enough to count.

"I can find the square by depth, but I cannot tell you its color. The dead material keeps cleaner borders than the tram."

Vey walked two paces ahead with his rifle against his shoulder. "Can that eye distinguish dead Vale material from the skeleton carrying our current problem?"

"Give me room to test before you call either answer useful."

He signaled the tram driver to keep the same walking speed.

Jade uncovered her left eye. "Ty, raise your right hand and leave the rest where it is."

He lifted the hand with the repaired forearm. Both eyes followed it. The right eye showed no line.

"Turn your left side without bringing the chained rib closer."

Ty rotated his spine by moving one foot and the upper vertebrae. The rib stayed where Jade had asked. A white curve appeared along its cracked cage grooves and ended inside her right wrist.

Her ring finger closed.

Ty stopped. "Your hand moved after the rib line entered your wrist."

"I felt the finger move after it had already closed."

The medic put the blunt pencil beneath Jade's ring finger. "Open against resistance and keep your shoulder on the floor mark."

Jade opened the finger. The pencil rolled into her palm. Her shoulder stayed inside the chalk square.

"The joint still answers once I know what it chose without me."

Ty looked toward the armor dragging behind them. One strip had caught around a tram bolt and was gaining on the rear wheel. His left sickle shifted before his feet did.

Jade's white hand rose from the floor.

"Keep that blade down until I ask for a rescue."

Ty put the sickle back against his thigh. The hand stopped halfway between them.

"It answered your decision to get between me and the strip, not the strip alone."

"My bad habit has acquired its own mechanical support."

"Then we give the habit a brake both of us can use."

The tram crossed another joint. Jade braced with her left hand and let the borrowed one remain unsupported. It drifted toward Ty's throat by the width of two fingers.

She watched him prepare to catch her wrist. "When either of us says borrowed, the other releases contact and moves one step sideways."

Ty lowered both hands. "The person whose body was used chooses the next touch."

"That includes you, even when you decide losing another rib would be convenient."

"I accept the insult and the rule in that order."

Jade pointed to the rear bolt. "Bring the chained rib near my palm without putting your body behind it."

Ty removed the cracked rib from its seat by less than an inch. The gray white thread inside it tightened. Jade's fingers closed around the bone before she chose to touch him.

The collector pulled her elbow toward the open space beneath Ty's jaw.

"Borrowed means release my hand and move sideways now."

Ty released the rib. He stepped toward the tram's front instead of toward the dead strip. Jade drove her living shoulder down and opened her fingers against the pencil still in her palm.

The rib returned to its crooked seat. Her hand stayed above the floor.

Ty waited.

Jade turned her wrist toward him. "You may hold the outside of my forearm while I lower it."

He placed four bone fingers against her sleeve, far from the white wrist, and followed her movement to the chalk square. The contact felt chosen because he had waited long enough for her to become annoyed by the waiting.

The medic marked the successful motion on a strip from a flour sack. Over her shoulder, Vey read the order, distance, and result without lowering his rifle.

From the rear wheel came a hard scrape. The dead strip tore free of the bolt, slid under the tram, and caught Ty's left ankle from below.

Jade seized his forearm. The pull traveled through his ankle, climbed the chained rib, and reached her white hand through the grip she had chosen.

Ty's arm tightened inside hers. "Borrowed means release my arm and move sideways now."

Jade let go. Every part of her wanted to hold him against the tram, which made releasing feel worse and more necessary. She moved one step toward the open right rail.

Ty dropped his sickle through the floor gap and pinned the strip without using Jade as his brace. His ankle came free with a gray loop still around it.

He waited again.

"You may give me the loose end while keeping your ankle outside my reach."

Ty lifted the strip on the sickle. Jade caught it with the blunt pencil and pushed it over the rear rail. It joined the other armor rather than climbing through either of them.

The medic added a second mark to the flour strip. "The rule changed both pulls before either reached a throat or open rib."

"Write the motions rather than praising the people who survived them," Jade said.

Vey turned the strip toward the light. "How many repetitions prove that command survives outside this tram?"

"Two prove we can interrupt the route under these conditions. They prove nothing about the next world or the next injury."

Ty tapped the track switch with one sickle. "Repeat the test at every switch before confidence starts writing orders ahead of evidence."

Vey gave the medic three blank strips. "Record each contact, who called the release, and which direction the other person moved."

Jade accepted the first strip. Ty waited until she offered him the second.

The tram passed the switch leading back toward the fourth desk.

Jade's right eye showed a white line under the floor, running across the dead armor route instead of with it. The line caught the tram's rear axle and pulled toward the brewery while every loose sleeve continued after Ty.

She covered the damaged eye. The second line disappeared. The axle still scraped sideways against its flange.

"Stop before the rear wheel leaves the rail because something under us is pulling toward Palla's desk."

Vey struck the tram roof twice. The driver braked. Rifles on both buildings turned toward the intersection behind them.

Palla's voice entered Vey's molar channel over grinding metal. "Nessa's safety catch is bending inside the empty cup, and the lower teeth have started turning backward."

Under Jade's open right eye, the hidden line pulled hard enough to lift the tram's rear wheel from the track.

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