From Human to Skeleton: Revived with Infinite System Crystals

The black knuckle crossed the west rail and struck Palla's boot hard enough to turn her ankle.

She caught the cage fiber before it wound around her leg. The line passed through the dead bone, entered the fourth desk's keeper cup, and pulled both toward the cargo seam beneath the tram.

Palla had sent one held pull followed by two. Nessa's answer should have come back as three separate cutter strikes.

The fiber gave her one continuous drag.

Davi braced his rifle across the desk legs. "Did Captain Cord answer the return check before this started?"

"Her answer requires one strike followed by two more against the rail."

Fenn wrapped the broken keg hook around a tram bolt and leaned against it. "I heard the desk eating our street, but no cutter answered."

The Meren plate shifted inside the brass carriage. Its lower edge disappeared beneath the hand socket, where the cargo teeth had already bitten a groove into the nearest rail tie.

Three bolts rose from the switch bed. Farther uphill, a brewery brace lifted beneath the third cellar roof. Fenn saw the movement through the open loading doors and put more of her weight on the hook.

"That brace holds forty kegs above the fermentation crew's shelter lane."

Davi pressed two fingers to his molar. "Commander Vey, the return line is loading fixed city hardware through the fourth desk."

Vey's reply came through Davi's collar speaker. "The delayed platform cleared thirty seconds ago. Destroy the crossing if the load reaches occupied foundations."

Palla put Sorn's half drawer rail between the lower teeth. The metal bent before it slowed them.

"Cutting the fiber leaves Meren's plate inside the cargo jaw. The teeth will take the rail as their next handle."

Davi lowered the rifle muzzle toward the line. "Then identify the part that removes our address without crushing theirs."

Palla knelt beside the keeper cup. Nessa's returned shoulder pin lay in an evidence pouch tied to Davi's belt. Its West Four maintenance punch faced outward through the clear wrapping while the pin knocked against his thigh in time with the pull.

She opened the pouch and held the pin over the empty cup. The socket turned toward it, matching stolen Oltin metal to the joint built from stolen Oltin cages.

"This pin can hold the hand open while I turn the carriage."

Davi caught her wrist before she inserted it. "That pin is West Four evidence from the far platform."

"Then witness where I spend it and why your city survives."

Fenn worked her free hand into her coat and produced the copper keg tag from Palla's first test. One corner remained missing where the hidden teeth had clipped it.

"Will this finally become evidence instead of Commander Vey's brewery debt?"

Palla slid the tag beneath the owner mark with seven cuts. "It becomes both if you hold it flat against the long cut."

Fenn held the copper with two nails split by flour work. Palla let the cargo jaw close by half a tooth. The long cut and six smaller marks pressed through grease into the tag, deep enough for Fenn to feel each edge through her fingertip.

"Charge him for the whole tag this time," Fenn said.

Davi kept his rifle across the desk. "What happens to Captain Cord when you remove Meren's tooth?"

"Her road keeps moving forward, while our return stops following it."

"You cannot prove the forward road stays open after severance."

"The freight teeth existed before Meren became their handle. I can remove our handle without breaking their track."

The fourth desk lurched another handspan. A drain cover tilted toward the seam, spilling dirty water across Palla's knee. The black knuckle remained still inside its cage loops. Only the fiber moved it.

Palla pushed the Oltin shoulder pin into the keeper cup. The stolen joint seated cleanly. The cargo hand opened far enough for her to turn the carriage one position toward Sorn's torn seal.

The Sadle plate came up under the desk, cloudy with grit from Switch Nine. Its edge opened no wider than two fingers. Air from the other side carried floodwater and hot brake oil.

Palla threaded the torn seal through Fenn's tag wire, then laid the Oltin pin across both pieces. The packet weighed less than Waddell's block wrapped in red tape had weighed during the earlier route test.

Davi watched the plate. "What does Sadle learn from metal without your explanation?"

"Their marshal knows his seal, Denna knows stolen prison hardware, and the seven cuts show who owns this pull."

She corrected herself before pushing the packet forward. "They will know an owner has seven cuts, because his name still needs proof."

"Could Denna use the packet to reopen this route from her side?"

Palla checked the tag wire and bent its loose end against the seal. "She could try, which is why the broken corner matters. Fenn's tag went through this jaw once and returned clipped. Denna will see that the road consumed part of it before we sent the warning."

Fenn pressed the tag flat again. "Then send enough metal to survive their argument."

Denna would test the seal against Sorn's record before touching any hinge. She would count the owner cuts, find the Oltin maintenance punch, and make the street wait while Toman wrote down every person asking her to hurry. Palla trusted that delay more than she trusted another open door.

With Fenn's thumb behind the clipped corner, they fed the warning through the narrow opening; the seal caught once against the plate before the Sadle pull took it.

Palla kept two fingers on the Oltin pin until the tag wire tightened. She could have kept the joint and left the warning hanging between worlds. Denna would receive a meaningless piece of seal, while Meren kept one more chance to call Nessa back.

The cargo teeth closed around another tram bolt.

Palla released the pin.

The whole packet vanished. The keeper cup dropped into the space the Oltin joint had held open, trapping Meren's lower tooth at its narrow neck.

Palla pulled the half drawer rail from the jaw and drove its bent end beneath that neck. "Davi, put one bounded shot through the exposed brass after Fenn clears her hand."

Davi shifted the rifle from brace to firing position. "My shot stops when your rail leaves the pulse line."

Fenn took the keg hook in both hands. "My crew receives hazard pay if this breaks the cellar roof."

"Your crew receives a city if we break the correct tooth."

Fenn hauled the hook. Palla forced the drawer rail in the opposite direction, reopening the split across her damaged palm. Warm blood made the iron harder to hold, so she wrapped her wrist around it and used the bone of her forearm.

The narrow neck came into view.

Davi fired.

The pulse stopped inside the brass and left a hole no wider than a shirt button. Fenn's hook tore free of the tram bolt. Palla fell onto one hip but kept the drawer rail under the weakened tooth.

The return fiber pulled again. Every loose cage handle on the platform turned toward the seam. The brewery brace rose another inch.

Palla drove her heel against the rail and bent the drawer iron upward.

Meren's route tooth broke.

The severed piece shot beneath the tram and disappeared into the cargo seam. Washed cloth followed it away from the city, which proved the far track still carried outward. The Meren plate dropped flat inside the carriage.

Three lifted bolts fell back into the switch bed. The brewery brace struck its socket hard enough to burst one keg above Fenn's shelter lane, but the cellar roof stayed where workers had built it.

The Sadle plate closed around an empty groove. No light returned through its glass. The other plates settled with it until the fourth desk became a heavy table full of broken teeth.

Palla cut the cage fiber away from the black knuckle. The line offered no pull and no path. Vey's recovery order remained folded around the inert bone with Nessa's thumb mark beside three separate reasons for crossing.

Davi lowered his rifle. "Can Captain Cord still return through another route?"

"She can return after she builds one that belongs to her."

Fenn looked up toward the leaking keg. "Commander Vey needs a larger account before my next shift."

Palla lifted the black knuckle and ruined drawer rail from the switch. Before following Davi toward the brewery, she pulled once on the loose fiber.

It slid out of the dead keeper cup and fell across Nessa's thumb mark.

No cutter strike came back.

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