Chapter 886 - 886: Palla Opened Room Four From The Wrong Side

Burial grit had packed the four cell bolts level with the floor.

Palla dug the first one out with the point of Denna's ruined key. Heat had softened the key's teeth into a blunt curl, which made it useless in a lock and nearly perfect for scraping burial grit from a bolt head. Her right palm left a wet print beside the hinge whenever she changed her grip.

Behind her, Toman lowered the clinic lift by hand. Its chain knocked the shaft wall in uneven bursts. Denna walked beside the cage with one arm through the bars, squeezing the pump bag for the patient whose chest had stopped working alone.

"You have four people left on that lift, so keep your road clear until I bring them down."

"The road will close behind three travelers, and you will still have a lift when it does."

Denna looked at the blood under Palla's hand. "You cannot promise both with that hinge remembering you."

Palla set the key across the second bolt and struck it with Waddell's one-pound weight. The blow turned the bolt a quarter turn. Red tape wrinkled against the iron, and the crooked line drawn on it split at the edge.

"Then I will promise the part that belongs to me. Your patients will not become the price."

Toman put his shoulder against the lift brake. "I can hold this cage for two minutes before the lower shoe strips."

"You have three because I replaced that shoe after your office bought the cheap batch."

"You complained for six months and never filed the invoice."

"I was saving the pleasure until you were trapped in the room."

The third bolt came loose in Palla's fingers. The fourth sat beneath the hinge cup, carrying the full pound Waddell had sent. She could reach it only by sliding her damaged hand under the weight.

Ty crouched on the other side of the grille and fed one sickle through the gap. The curved blade found the lower black bar showing inside Room Four. He lifted gently, testing the resistance.

The hinge pulled on his left side.

His elbow struck the floor before the sickle slipped free. Bone showed between the torn edges below his ribs, where the Reaper's hook had opened him twice. The wound drew toward the seam as if a line remained knotted inside it.

Jade caught his shoulder before his ribs reached the grille. "Pull your blade out before the room takes the hand holding it."

Ty twisted the sickle sideways. "The bar has teeth underneath, and one of them caught the old hook mark."

The Reaper watched from the speaking platform. Its hook rested against the rail, angled toward Ty's wound.

Palla understood what the old cell wanted. The prison door had carried bodies in one direction. Opening it backward made it search for the prisoner already caught in its metal.

"Leave the sickle where it is, but take your hand away from it."

Ty looked at the blade, then at Palla. "That sounds like advice from someone keeping both hands."

"Half of this hand still works, which gives me seniority here."

He released the grip. The sickle stayed wedged under the black bar, shivering each time Toman's lift chain struck the shaft.

Palla slid her numb fingers beneath the counterweight. The hinge cup pinched her knuckles against the fourth bolt. She worked Denna's key into the narrow space and leaned until the ruined metal bent around the bolt head.

The Earth wire lay slack under the bolted plate at her knee. No hand came through it. No voice crossed. The line remained a shut branch while the complete bracket inside Room Four took the weight.

The fourth bolt turned.

The black bar rose past Ty's sickle. A strip of gray flooring opened beneath it, wide enough for Palla's forearm. Cold pressure climbed through the old break in her palm and settled in her wrist.

She pulled the hand free. The bolt followed, stuck to the blood across her skin.

Jade caught the bolt in her sleeve. White gathered beneath her closed eye, and the black bar rose another inch in answer.

"Put that bolt down before your eye teaches the door a cheaper method."

Jade dropped it beside the other three. "The door knows my injury, and I refuse to spend it."

The Reaper left the speaking platform.

Its hook scraped across the floor grille as it approached. Ty planted both feet between it and Jade, though he had no sickle in either hand now. His loose blade still held the bar; the other lay near Palla's knee.

"If you mean to collect me, you can wait until I finish using the wound you made."

The Reaper turned the hook toward the opening. Its point entered Room Four beside the sickle. The lower bar rose high enough to show a fourth desk beyond the human-world wall and an open field case on the floor.

Palla pushed Waddell's weight deeper into the cup. "It is not helping us cross. It is measuring which one of you the room will keep."

Denna reached the bottom with the lift. Toman wedged the brake while she dragged the first cot onto the switch-house floor. The patient on the hand pump made a small choking sound. Denna cleared his mouth with two fingers, rolled his head, and squeezed the bag until his chest rose again.

"I can hold the return while you cross, but the lift leaves before any of you come back for another speech."

Palla took Ty's spare sickle and drove its handle between the hinge and the sheared wall. "You should leave before the marshal sends someone clever enough to bring a second seal."

"He will bring three, because clever people love spare paper."

Toman hauled the next cot clear. "He will bring six after he learns she broke the first one."

Denna kept pumping. "Then he can carry the extras while I move my patients."

Palla pressed her damaged palm to the exposed hinge plate.

The old break fitted the raised keeper lines. Pain returned first in her thumb, then crossed the numb center of her hand like a tool finding a buried nail. The door gave her the memory of iron closing on bone. She drove her shoulder forward before the memory could make the choice for her.

The opening widened from the floor to her waist.

Palla found no proper doorway on the other side. Room Four's gray floor continued at the wrong angle, while the human-world wall leaned away above it. Hundreds of screens had been stripped from that wall. Empty mounts remained around one working display that showed only the bolted steel cover in Waddell's laundry corridor.

Palla pulled her palm from the hinge. Skin stayed behind in two keeper grooves.

"I cross first because the door will close on my hand if I move last. Ty follows, and Jade keeps the Reaper behind her."

Jade moved beside her. "I will not place that hook at your back while you crawl."

"Then keep it at yours until Ty can reach the other side."

Ty picked up the sickle holding the bar and braced it with his forearm. The pressure worked deeper into his damaged ribs. "She is right about the order. I can hold the bar from either side once Palla finds the upper catch."

Palla lowered herself through the opening. Her coat caught on the fourth bolt, tearing from hem to pocket. The floor beyond took her weight sideways and threw her against the fourth desk.

She caught its leg with her good hand. The desk had been bolted down, but one bolt was missing. A child's gray glove hung empty from the station beside it. Its wrist cord ran under the wall toward Earth.

The open flute case lay within reach. Two narrow beds in its lining were empty, each marked by a pink strand trapped under the closing straps. A third bed held ash ground into the cloth.

"The two hairs stayed here, and their straps lead under the fourth desk."

Ty came through headfirst. Palla caught his wrist and pulled while Denna forced the counterweight down from Sadle. His ribs cleared the black bar, then the Reaper's hook drove into the opening behind him.

The hook caught the same gap in his left side.

Ty's spine bowed against the lower bar. Palla grabbed the sickle at his belt and cut the hook's shaft, but her blade struck something that rang like a rail. The Reaper pulled from Sadle, trying to take him back through before Jade could cross.

Jade seized the chain with both hands. White pressed against her damaged eyelid, searching for a route through her face. She turned her head away and wrapped the chain around Denna's ruined key instead.

"You can follow the wound you purchased, but you cannot replace either of us with it."

Denna jammed the key beneath the counterweight. The bent teeth held one pull. "Move him now, because I am not spending a patient to buy another."

Jade shoved Ty through. The hook tore out between two ribs and followed him into Room Four. Ty hit the gray floor beside Palla, rolled once, and caught the chain around his forearm.

Jade crossed while the Reaper hauled itself after the hook. Its shoulder entered beside her boot. The old hinge tried to widen for the dead thing and narrow around the living woman at the same time.

Palla drove Ty's spare sickle into the upper catch. Jade kicked off Denna's key and cleared the lower bar. Behind her, Denna tore the one-pound weight from its cup.

The doorway folded around the Reaper's waist.

Denna stood on Sadle with the weight held against her chest. Toman had the final cot halfway into the lift. She looked through at Palla, then at the patients, and released the old hinge.

"Keep my key until it becomes useful somewhere ugly."

The black bar dropped. The last view of Sadle was Denna putting Waddell's weight on the cot beside the hand pump before the sheared wall closed.

The Reaper remained trapped through the hinge, upper body inside Room Four and everything below its waist caught somewhere in the shut road. It drove both hands against the floor and began pulling.

Ty wrapped its chain around the missing desk bolt and leaned back. Jade braced beside him while Palla tore the two pink strands from the flute case straps.

Both hairs moved in her bloody hand.

They pulled toward separate cracks beneath the fourth desk. Palla followed the tighter strand and found the missing bolt hole packed with fresh white bone dust.

Something struck the underside of the desk.

The cracked helm rolled out first. A black knuckle bone followed, bounced against Ty's sickle, and stopped beside the gray glove. The floor under the desk lifted on four fingers that belonged to no hand Palla could see.