Chapter 893 - 893: Armor Leaves The Living

The first strip of dead armor reached the Reaper's scythe and wrapped itself around the blade.

Jade's right hand opened against her chest. Two fingers obeyed her. The others tightened around Ty's broken rib, with her ring finger holding hardest, while the white thread behind her eye pulled toward the new flesh on the scythe.

Clear pulse beads bounced between her boots. One struck a crack in the street four times, skipped sideways, then struck three. Four, three, two would come next. Jade watched for it even as Ty shifted under her arm and Nessa's smallest finger folded deeper into her palm.

The bead struck twice.

On the brewery roof, a defender's gray sleeve folded his rifle arm across his throat.

"Palla, break the bead beneath the desk before it starts over."

Palla dropped onto one knee and trapped it with Sorn's bent drawer rail. Glass burst under the second blow. The defender's arm fell away from his neck, though the rest of his armor stayed tight enough to bend the rifle stock against his shoulder.

Commander Vey raised a fist. No one on the roof sent another pulse.

Nessa held the fiber running from Ty's rib to Jade's white wrist. Her smallest finger had vanished into her fist, and the finger beside it copied the curl whenever the gray glove moved on the Reaper's weapon.

"Every loose bead copied her hand before we broke the loop."

"Then separate the wearers from the living side first," Vey said through the roof speakers.

The soldier who had lost his Vale tendons came down the brewery stairs with his rifle tucked beneath his good arm. His damaged hand knocked against his ribs while he crossed the street. He kept looking back at the tunnel under the roof, where the last families were still moving flour sacks and children through the dark.

"My squad stays above that tunnel until the families clear it."

Vey studied the two severed tendons twitching under the man's torn sleeve. "A nerve cut leaves three of your rifle arms useless."

"Then the bakery crew gets three rifles and a safety lesson."

The gray glove on the scythe bent one finger.

Jade's right arm reached across Ty before she felt her shoulder move. She lost the pulse count, found the ceramic bolt below her elbow, and saw that her hand had already passed it.

Ty caught the cage fiber where it looped around his rib. "You wanted me pulling before your elbow cleared the bolt."

"I wanted my own arm to wait for the order. Pull now."

Her shoulder drove forward. Ty threw his weight backward, bending her elbow around the bolt while the borrowed hand caught the loose end of the dead strip.

Pain climbed from fingers that had no skin. It settled beneath nails Jade no longer possessed, then worked along the wrist joint and searched each crack between the white bones.

The strip flattened over her palm.

"Nessa, make the cage follow your living fingers before mine."

Nessa opened her good hand around the fiber, but the smallest finger remained curled. Jade could feel the failed movement in her own white knuckle.

"Vey, give every linked soldier a different hand shape."

Vey pointed across the roof while his free hand demonstrated. "First team closes one thumb. Second team opens two fingers. Third team holds every joint straight."

The defenders obeyed. Their gray armor twitched through three answers and completed none of them. Jade drove her palm down before the strip found the break at her wrist, pinning the dead tissue beneath Ty's rib.

The Reaper pulled from the other end.

Ty slid across the street on one knee. The chain inside his open side sawed against two ribs that had started growing around it. He buried a sickle in the fourth desk and stopped with his skull level beside Jade's hip.

"Releasing the rib remains available if you enjoy having an arm."

"Offering pieces of yourself remains your worst useful habit."

"That list got much longer while I was gone."

The laugh got as far as Jade's teeth. Her borrowed hand used the small looseness in her shoulder and lifted the strip from the pavement.

She stamped Ty's rib down again.

The injured defender reached Palla and laid his rifle across the desk. "The roof branch runs above the painted brewery sign. My bad arm cannot sight that high."

Palla took the rifle, braced it on the drawer rail, and fired. The shot chipped a blue letter from the sign. People inside the tunnel ducked, and the defender grabbed the barrel before she corrected too far.

Someone under the brewery shouted that the blue letter had survived three sieges. Palla kept sighting along the rail as flakes of paint settled across her sleeve.

"Your shoulder is fighting the stock because the weapon expects armor. Lean less and let the rail carry it."

"You might have mentioned that before I shot the brewery."

"I expected a mechanic to notice when a machine pushed back."

"Then mount your historic sign somewhere that carries fewer enemy nerves."

Leaning away from the stock, Palla fired again and broke the first roof bead. Three defenders lost their rifles in three different directions. One gray arm folded across its owner's chest. Another hung dead from the shoulder. The third punched the roof until the soldier trapped his wrist under a boot.

Vey pointed the field medics forward. "Cut the living ports while each arm holds a different position."

Release blades went under collars rather than under gray tissue. Black clamps closed on each nerve line before the armor could borrow another movement. The soldier with his wrist under his boot cursed when feeling vanished from his shoulder, but he kept the dead fist pinned until a medic dragged the last strip free.

All three rifle arms dropped.

Vey marked the damaged shoulders through his chest control. "Brewery Four transfers to unarmored evacuation work until medical clears every nerve line."

The injured defender refused the order with his good hand still on Palla's rifle stock. "Write recovery instead of discharge. My left arm can still carry children."

"Your left arm teaches rifle safety until the tunnel empties. You can argue with medical after the west wall holds."

That answer kept the defender moving. He collected the first weapon and pushed it toward a woman leaving the tunnel. Flour covered one side of her coat. She accepted the rifle with both hands and kept the barrel pointed at the rubble.

"I bake for everyone hiding under there, so show me the safety before you bleed on it."

He guided her thumb with his good hand. "This catch stays down until the west pile moves. The stock will kick harder without armor."

The Reaper closed its gray glove.

Every severed strip rose from the roof at once. Medics dropped onto them with clamps and knees, but the dead tissue pulled toward the ledge. One clamp tore loose with concrete still inside its jaws. A strip wound around a medic's boot and dragged her over one knee.

Something tugged inside Jade's borrowed palm. Her fingers tried to reel Ty's rib, the cage fiber, and the pinned strip toward the scythe together.

She forced white fire between the dead tissue and her wrist. The strip recoiled from her hand and cinched around Ty's rib.

Ty released the cage line, caught the bone in both hands, and twisted until it tore free of her grip.

Her ring finger opened last.

Jade saw the empty finger before she saw the dead armor crossing the street. She closed her left hand around it, flesh over bare bone, and pulled both arms against her chest.

The Reaper took back every strip the medics had cut away. Gray tissue wound around the scythe in layers, carrying Vale teeth, pulse ports, and shards of broken glass. The hooked edge grew past the original blade.

Nessa stumbled into Jade's shoulder. The copied curl had reached her middle finger, but she kept the cage fiber looped around her working hand.

"The roof branch broke, but I can feel it pulling farther west."

Vey turned toward the west district as his speakers clicked without anyone touching the controls. One pulse bead answered near the brewery sign, followed by six from the rubble. Farther down the street, the replies jumped from roof to roof until Jade lost the count beyond the west wall.

The gray glove on the Reaper's scythe flexed all five fingers.