Chapter 918 - 918: Jade Chooses The Person Inside

The blanket dragged the carrier's face into the wash trench before Jade reached the rail.

Water pressed the cloth into the hidden mouth as one bare foot struck the trench wall and kicked again, stopping two inches short.

Across the storehouse, Nessa's marked crate rolled toward the east door. Its front wheels had already crossed the threshold.

"That crate holds all three West Four shoulder hinges. Without them, the next breach puts five defenders against one shared wall with separate cages."

Nessa ran after it with her right arm hanging at her side. The cutter strapped to her left forearm knocked against the rail at every step.

Jade put Ty's recovered phalanx between her teeth and caught the carrier rail with her living hand.

The crate moved faster.

Kestra kicked a floor lever. Both rails clattered through the same turn beneath the boards.

"Each pull sends the saved distance into the other rail. Pick your load before my east wall inherits two kinds of trouble and charges neither owner."

Jade saw three things at once. Nessa could still reach the crate latch. The soaked blanket had stopped rising over the carrier's back. Ty's loose left hand remained beneath Tovan's breathing cup across the room.

She had watched five Meren defenders lock those hinges shoulder to shoulder above the brewery tunnel. Families ran beneath them while dead armor carried the broken wall. One hinge would leave Nessa explaining which four soldiers should take the next load alone.

"Ty, send me anything that can fit between these wash teeth without taking Tovan's air."

Two ribs slid from beneath Kestra's numbered shelves. One caught against a door strip and spun on the floor. The other reached Jade with enough force to strike her boot.

Nessa reached the crate. Her useless arm struck its side while her left hand found the latch under the old unit mark.

"Jade, three hinges can reopen a district route after Room Four cuts it. I brought you here under a recovery order."

Jade wrapped Ty's rib in the loose end of the wet blanket and drove it between the wash rail and the floor guide.

"Open the crate while I pin his rail."

The rib bent. The person's carrier slowed by the width of a palm. Nessa's crate gained that distance and pulled half her body through the east door.

Nessa planted her left boot against the frame. The numb right shoulder turned under the load without helping. She caught the brass latch in her teeth, bit until the old safety wire broke, and tore the lid upward with her left hand.

Three pulse cage shoulder hinges lay inside gray packing cloth. Their serial faces had been ground flat. The double maintenance punch under each hinge belonged to West Four.

One still carried a strip of blue roof paint beside the punch. Jade remembered that color above the brewery, chipped where a defender had braced his rifle rather than leave his cage line. Nessa rubbed the paint once with her thumb before hooking the hinge.

Nessa hooked one with her cutter.

The remaining pair slid toward the open end of the crate.

At the trench, Jade pulled the blanket away from the carrier's head. A man's cheek struck the stone lip. Black cord crossed the back of his neck and entered a clamp beneath the carrier board.

The cord shortened when she lifted his chin.

"Kestra, I need the clamp loose before this cord finishes what the water started."

Kestra crouched on the other side and pushed a numbered pick under the clamp. "This lock opens toward the moving rail. Your chosen person keeps getting more expensive, and my pick still has only one useful end."

The invoice cord joining both rail beds crossed beneath her wrist. One cut there would stop both loads. Six medicine tags and two resident door numbers were braided into the same cord. Kestra moved her blade back to the man's clamp.

"Charge the direction after his mouth stops filling with your wash water."

The man's lips opened against Jade's fingers. Water came out, followed by a breath too small to move the cloth at his shoulder.

Jade found his pulse beneath the black neck cord. The first beat struck her fingertip. The second arrived late, and the third disappeared while the rail carried his knees closer to the drain bars.

Her white hand closed around the black cord.

The damaged eye pulled toward it. A thin line opened through the blood gathered under her lid and ran across her cheek patch. Jade felt the cord through the borrowed bones in her palm, every twist arranged to tighten when a rescuer lifted the head.

She had one cut before the hand tried to follow the restraint back into the floor.

Jade turned her wrist and brought the white thumb against the cord. The borrowed joint fought her halfway through. She pressed the living hand over it, Ty's phalanx still caught between her teeth, and forced both hands in the same direction.

The cord parted.

Her damaged eye closed on its own.

The carrier rail lurched. Ty's rib cracked inside the floor guide, and the front wheel dropped into the wash trench.

Kestra caught the man's shoulder. Jade caught his waist. His coat stayed pinned beneath the carrier board and pulled him backward while they lifted.

"Leave the coat attached because his body has paid enough freight for one crossing."

Kestra cut the side seam with her numbered pick. The cloth tore from waist to collar, leaving the man in a thin undershirt that clung to a line of round pressure marks along his spine.

At the east door, Nessa dragged the first hinge over the crate edge. One remaining hinge caught in the packing cloth. The third passed through the threshold and pulled the cloth after it.

Nessa could take the trapped hinge if she released the first.

Jade saw her measure the distance. Meren had ordered three pieces recovered. One piece would look like failure to any commander reading the line without seeing her dead arm.

Nessa wrapped the first hinge around the cutter handle and kicked the second back into the crate.

"One hinge keeps this route measurable. The other two can show us where the thief expects delivery, assuming somebody survives long enough to follow them."

She pulled her boot clear.

The crate crossed the east door with two hinges inside. Its rear wheel struck the frame, tearing off a strip of gray packing cloth before the door pulled shut behind it.

Nessa caught the cloth and tied it around the rail post. The recovered hinge hung from the knot, holding the lower channel open by one tooth.

Jade and Kestra rolled the man onto his side beside Dessel's shelf. His first full cough brought up wash water and a short length of pale thread.

The thread had been tied around the back of one tooth.

Jade removed Ty's phalanx from her mouth and put it back in her palm. She used two fingers to clear the thread from the man's lips.

"Your name can wait until your chest finishes the next three breaths without water."

His hand moved across the stone. The nails had been cut below the quick. Each fingertip carried a tiny round burn where a contact had rested.

Dessel leaned over the shelf edge. "They tuned him until he chewed his nails below the contacts. Counting with pain only works while they leave you somewhere untouched."

The man's eyes opened. He looked at Dessel, then Nessa, then the skull Jade still carried against her hip.

Ty raised one loose finger from beneath Tovan's cup. "I understand that the room has arranged a poor first impression."

The man stared at the moving hand longer than the skull.

Jade kept her voice close to him. "Tell me whether either name belongs to you. Ty. Erebos."

His tongue worked against a dry split in his lower lip.

"Neither name belongs to me, and neither one came through the wall with me."

Nessa knelt with her recovered hinge. The West Four punch faced upward, smeared with black grease from the crate.

"Which name did the wall use while those contacts burned your hands?"

The man pressed both palms over his ears.

His answer began as a breath through his nose.

The pitch rose until Jade recognized the first note Waddell's open radio had carried from the shelter vent. The man held it through one breath, swallowed, and let the next note fall lower.

Ty's fingers tightened beneath Tovan's cup.

The recovered shoulder hinge turned on its cloth knot. One ground serial face pointed toward the round burns on the man's fingers.

Jade waited for the third note that Room Four had withheld from Earth.

The man's mouth closed after the lower note.

Against Nessa's left forearm, the prison sliver struck the hollow cutter once at the missing pitch.