Chapter 40 Name Your Rescue Price

Ruan kept one fist against the security foam while ten buyers watched him discover that authority had no hinge inside containment.

Ossian stepped between Doran and the seated bidders, opening Ironback across his left side without advancing into the boy's reach.

'He wants the wall opened before his audience remembers him cutting my rope... good, let memory set the fee,' Ossian faced Ruan, 'one hundred eighty thousand.'

Ruan lowered his fist, asking, "You want that much for cutting foam?"

"For eleven buyers, one patient, the auction records, plus every person outside who will learn what you valued them at."

Card six shouted that the house carried rescue insurance, prompting three others to demand the manager through the ceiling speakers.

No manager answered while heat crawled through the hardened barrier, sealing its internal cells tighter with every wasted second.

'Insurance belongs outside... these people bought concealment, now secrecy owns the door,' Ossian measured the warmth, 'payment reaches the guild first.'

Guild membership had never looked expensive until rescue made the percentage visible, yet nobody argued with the contract she had written.

'Money changes rooms... damn, trapped buyers breathe differently once someone else accepts the invoice,' Ossian noticed.

Paloma's voice came through his earpiece, "I heard the figure, but make him confirm gross payment before I start enjoying myself."

Ruan looked toward the nearest camera, finding its green recording light steady above the blocked public stair.

"Ivory Banner will pay The Unmasked one hundred eighty thousand credits upon safe release of every registered buyer in this room."

Paloma answered through the auction speakers after taking control from the evacuated clerk, "Accepted as a gross guild receipt, Commander."

'Twenty percent leaves before breakfast... thirty-six thousand for Paloma, enough left to stop counting bandages,' Ossian flexed his stiff fingers, 'open the service route.'

Maelle knelt beside the broken cradle, removing its copper restraint pins while Doran's false plates pulled against surviving black filament.

That material had stopped hunting Tallis, yet every voice made its buried strand tighten from shoulder to wrist beneath Doran's skin.

"The fragments are listening through him, but I can separate the plates before the filament tears his artery," Maelle said.

'Hard shell is bait... the clinic left a leash nobody saw until he spoke,' Ossian shifted Furnace across his ribs, 'make the room quiet.'

Eleven buyers received the order badly, filling the trapped chamber with objections, legal threats, and promises about influential relatives.

Ruan turned on them with enough command force to crush the noise into resentful breathing.

Calista worked outside the foam, guiding auction staff toward the service controls while Paloma preserved each camera feed against deletion.

Bastien brought the van beneath a ventilation balcony, then reported a freight shaft descending behind the service lift.

"Shaft wall meets the room behind lot storage, with no interior handle against a thin panel," Calista said.

'A rescue entrance hidden behind merchandise... fitting architecture for this place,' Ossian pointed Maelle toward the cases, 'find something dense.'

She opened their plain equipment case and removed the foam lining, exposing two compact hydraulic wedges concealed below ordinary survey tools.

"Paloma billed these as shelving repair, meaning we should probably avoid asking," Maelle said.

Stone flooring trembled when Bastien rammed the first wedge through the outer service panel from the freight shaft.

Doran reacted to the vibration, his arm snapping toward card six with enough force to split a chair across its back.

Ossian caught the wrist under Ironback, storing the impact while Jackal locked his right knee against the polished floor.

'Seam enters near the elbow... pull wrong, lose his hand, wait longer, lose a bidder,' Ossian tasted blood, 'Maelle, heat the plates only.'

Furnace fed controlled warmth through his grip, expanding counterfeit shell without cooking the filament buried beneath it.

Maelle slid a ceramic blade between plate and skin, cutting adhesive channels one narrow strip at a time.

Without warning, the system traced three silver warnings across Ossian's crowded sight.

[Fracture: 37%]

[Dreadweight load: 82%]

[Hostile rhythm identified as a larval derivative]

'Same rhythm as the core... dead fragments taught to answer a living thread,' Ossian held Doran still, 'the box is conducting it.'

A larval core lay inside its fallen glass cylinder, apparently inert beneath preservation gel and a fractured copper collar.

Every pulse under Doran's arm reached that collar through floor wiring intended to authenticate auction lots.

"Break the wire without touching the glass," Ossian told Tallis.

Tallis planted both feet and lifted the display base until its mounting bolts stretched from the floor.

Loadbearer strength lacked spectacle, yet the base rose steadily while three copper leads snapped beneath it.

Doran's arm softened for one breath, giving Maelle enough time to remove the largest counterfeit plate from his wrist.

The filament remained under his skin, black as burned thread, twitching toward the severed copper contacts.

'Still alive without the circuit... shit, the signal has another mouth,' Ossian looked across the cases, 'search every container.'

Ruan refused to move until card eleven began warming against his palm.

He dropped the bidder card, revealing a silver line embedded beneath its printed number and disappearing into the foam lining.

The other cards carried matching threads, turning all eleven buyers into extensions of the auction's authentication network.

"Solenne issued every card, while the house merely distributed them," Ruan said.

'Merely... a favourite word when guilt needs smaller clothes,' Ossian crushed card eleven under Ironback, 'everyone breaks theirs now.'

Ten cards cracked under shoes, canes, and one furious metal briefcase, silencing the rhythm inside Doran's arm.

Maelle removed the remaining hard fragments, placing each piece inside separate insulated envelopes from their equipment case.

The retained filament relaxed beneath Doran's skin without dying, an injury the depot could not safely remove.

"He needs real vascular surgery instead of another binding clinic," Maelle said.

The second hydraulic wedge punched through the storage panel, opening a triangular gap onto the freight shaft.

Bastien widened it from outside while Calista counted the buyers through in their original card order.

Ruan waited until card ten disappeared, perhaps guarding his payment claim while unwilling to let anyone watch him hurry.

'He stayed for the count at the Gate too... numbers are where he stores whatever conscience survived,' Ossian lifted Doran, 'take the boy first.'

Tallis crawled through carrying Doran's legs while Bastien received his shoulders beyond the torn panel.

Maelle passed the evidence envelopes next, followed by the broken cards and the auction ledger she had taken from the clerk's desk.

Ossian retrieved the larval core last, sealing its cylinder inside the empty hydraulic-wedge case before entering the shaft.

The system spoke again as his fingers closed around the sealed case handle.

[Fracture: 41%]

[Foreign thread signature recorded]

[Owned faces: 4]

Ruan watched the fragment orient itself, understanding that his destroyed certificate had become evidence capable of choosing a witness.

'Four faces, one stolen beginning... somebody taught dead pieces to remember this thing,' Ossian pulled the case close, 'keep the difference clear.'

Outside, medical crews took Doran while Ione accepted the evidence envelopes under a second signed seizure record.

Paloma showed Ossian the incoming transfer, already reduced by her contractual twenty percent before reaching the guild account.

Seventeen thousand six hundred had become one hundred sixty-one thousand six hundred, enough to make every exhausted face briefly suspicious.

"Rescue revenue might be the most honest money this guild has earned, despite coming from Ruan," Paloma said.

Ruan emerged last through the panel and found Calista recording the intact auction cylinder in Ossian's hands.

"That stolen core was officially destroyed months ago," he said.

"Your signature says that, while the empty witness field proves something else," Calista replied.

Something inside the cylinder clicked once, although its numbered preservation seal remained completely unbroken.

A single pale thread pressed against the glass, turning toward Ossian's voice like a needle finding north.

'Not dead, never witnessed, sold under the man who carried it away... hell, the rescue price bought a question,' Ossian watched it bend, 'now make Ruan answer.'