From Human to Skeleton: Revived with Infinite System Crystals

Nessa's return fiber went slack around her elbow, and the four house strips jerked toward Ty before the loose end touched the lane.

Across the lane, his left shin broke away at the knee and struck the first doorstep; two ribs slid beneath another door while the third house took his right hand through the gap left by Sela's number strip.

With both remaining arms around the freight frame, Ty kept his skull, spine, and chained rib together.

Daro Pell drew air through the space Ty's sickle had opened, but the wooden frame folded closer around him. The four gravity nails had lost Meren as a place to spend their weight.

Nessa pulled on her cutter. Its edge came halfway out of the stone and stopped when the nearest house settled another inch.

"The return anchor is gone, so every loose load stays here with us."

Jade lay on her left side beside the cart. Her white hand had released Ty's belt, though the open right eye still faced the erased nail holes.

"I can see all four routes ending under Daro's ribs now."

The wash basin tipped. Water ran into a floor hatch that none of them had seen beneath the handcart.

Someone struck the hatch twice from below, waited, then pushed it up against the cart wheel. A woman climbed through carrying a square board across her shoulders. A copper joint inside her left knee kept turning toward the wash house until she tied it to her belt.

Two workers followed with coils of rope. One had a living forearm fitted into a leather socket. The hand pulled toward a shutter across the lane, forcing him to keep the wrist cord wrapped around his waist.

The woman set her board over the wet floor and looked first at the houses, then at Daro.

"Sela Marr, spend Griswald's disc in the fourth socket before this frame folds."

Sela covered the brass payment with her palm. "That disc is the first cleared origin securing my son's transfer."

"Your son's transfer is standing on Daro's chest right now."

"The pay clerk promised Olan would never return as failed cargo."

The woman hooked her knee strap tighter. "That clerk took the seventh bowl and left you beside his weight."

Sela looked toward the clean circle on the handcart shelf. Her pry bar remained beside five empty payment loops. Ty watched her count them once before she removed the disc from her wrist.

"If I spend this mark, Olan's house can call him backward again."

Daro's frame took another breath from him. His fingers closed on the cut leather and failed to pull it wider.

Sela crossed the lane and pushed the pay disc into the empty socket. The long cut and six smaller marks faced the three field fingers already buried in the others.

All four sockets released the carrier frame by the width of a coin.

Nessa tore her cutter from the floor. "Hold the disc there until every gravity nail leaves Daro's frame."

Sela used both thumbs. The owner mark pressed into her skin while Nessa closed the cutter around the first nail.

Ty lifted the upper bar. His separated ribs pulled harder beneath the doors, but the carrier's chest gained room each time Nessa cut metal. Jade called the route order from the floor, warning when a house strip tried to load the next socket early.

The fourth nail broke.

Daro rolled out of the open frame and stayed on his back, taking each breath through clenched teeth. Sela pulled her pay disc free. A crack divided Griswald's crown from the seven cuts.

Daro turned his head toward her. "My wife was promised the next clean transfer after I carried these doors."

Sela closed her hand around the crack. "Your frame broke the only payment I had for Olan."

"Then we both have family behind the same clerk, and neither bargain survived this lane."

Kestra pushed her square board under Daro's shoulders. "Save that argument until both of you can follow the clerk who sold it."

The three field fingers climbed out behind it. One seized the broken disc, another caught a gravity nail, and the last dragged both beneath the wash basin before Nessa's cutter reached them.

The delivery channel under the basin carried their tapping away from the lane.

Ty's right hand remained inside the third house.

The woman with the copper knee watched his other bones pull against separate doors. "You brought an unclaimed load into an addressed settlement while our return road was open."

"Ty Hockenson is my name, and these pieces belong with me."

"Your name will not steady a wall carrying six directions."

Jade pushed herself upright with her living hand. "His name is not being offered as building material."

"Then keep him outside until the houses finish choosing his bones."

The woman introduced herself as Kestra Vol, keeper of the storehouse beneath the wash lane. She unwound a weighted cord from the square board and cast it across Ty's separated leg.

The weight rolled toward the doorstep. Its cord split around his chained rib, pulled toward the cargo channel, and tightened again around the right hand inside the house.

Kestra caught all three lines against her board. "Joined residents pull toward one former address at a time. Your skeleton is carrying too many returns for my upper rooms."

Ty looked at Jade's right cheek. After Meren's line died, the pale patch had been drawn tight toward his missing hand. Keeping his body assembled would make her sit beside that pull while Kestra argued with every house.

"What does your storehouse require before all three of us enter?"

"Loose cargo enters one piece per shelf until the route cannot choose a former owner. Two named handlers may carry it, and every weapon stays wrapped."

Nessa tested her shortened fingers around the cutter. "He remains a person under my recovery witness while stored as cargo."

Kestra lifted one shoulder. "Your witness can argue with the shelf after my floor stops moving."

Ty released the freight bar. His spine separated below the chained rib, and Kestra's board caught his pelvis before the nearest doorstep could take it.

"Write Ty Hockenson on the tag, record one night, and let Jade choose who carries my skull."

Kestra cut a wooden tag from the back of Sela's ruined house strip. She wrote his name, one night, and voluntary storage in grease pencil. Jade read every word before tying it through the chain at his neck.

Her thumb rested against the hinge of his jaw where no pulse could answer her. Ty wanted to give her something kinder than another useful instruction. The open eye kept watering, and she still had to carry his head through a stranger's freight room, so the joke arrived first.

"I will carry your skull, but you are facing forward through the whole inventory."

"I assumed you would make me watch Nessa's hands after my early strap cut."

Nessa gathered his loose ribs into an oilcloth sling. "My hands are still repairing what your sickle volunteered."

"That punishment appears both fair and medically useful."

Jade took his skull beneath her living arm. Her white hand stayed pressed against her own waist while Kestra and the two workers freed the rest of his bones from the doorways.

They carried him through a threshold made from two doors chained in opposite directions. One pulled toward the wash lane. The other strained toward a stone wall covered with cooking pans. Every shelf inside had bolts through its feet and cords running from stored objects to separate floor rings.

Kestra loosened her knee strap only after reaching a cabinet holding three copper guard joints like her own. The worker with the fitted forearm sat beside a shutter made from the same dark wood as his leather socket and let his hand stop fighting the cord.

"We build our streets with whatever the roads return," Kestra said. "Houses receive doors, while clinics receive joints they can keep moving."

Nessa placed Ty's rib sling on a low freight shelf. Jade set his skull above it, facing the room as promised. His left leg occupied a separate rack, and both arms rested in bins too far apart to reach each other.

The pulls weakened one by one. Jade's cheek loosened enough for her to turn the open eye away from the floor.

Kestra pushed a storage ledger toward Nessa. "Your shelter costs one unloading shift, and the next delivery belongs on these empty racks."

Metal struck the rails outside. A sealed crate rolled against the storehouse wall and stopped beneath the wash basin.

Its four hinges had their serial faces ground away. Each underside retained the double punch used by West Four maintenance.

Nessa tightened her shortened fingers around the cutter as the first hinge moved from inside.

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