Chapter 905 - 905: Dead Armor Takes The Stairs

Iven Rusk closed the eleventh safety catch with his teeth because his right arm had started pulling toward the clinic stairs.

The arm lay across the brewery grain scale. A brass hoop pinned his upper shoulder to the platform, and two black clamps held the gray cords that had replaced part of his rifle tendons. Neither cord had moved during Nessa's surgery. Now the scale needle climbed past eighty pounds while the rest of him stayed seated.

Iven spat the catch into his left palm. "The road has found the tissue the surgeon left attached to me."

The surgeon pressed both thumbs against the hoop. "That tissue kept blood moving through your arm, so losing it will cost more than armor."

"Keeping it appears ready to cost me the entire clinic."

Across the room, Perr sat on an empty yeast crate with a bandage around one palm. He had been the smaller boy holding his sister's coat through the cage tunnel. He still carried the red latch from Cage Five because his sister believed West Four charged families for missing equipment.

Iven had explained public equipment twice. Perr trusted his sister's accounting more.

The first dead strip hit the clinic door from outside.

Its edge came through the gap above the hinge and folded around the handle. The steel bread rack jammed across the landing held until a second strip climbed over the first. Both pulled toward the blue chalk around Ty's quarantine line beyond the stairs.

The gray cords inside Iven's shoulder pulled with them.

The scale rolled across the floor. Its rear wheel struck the loading table hard enough to knock Nessa's empty yeast jar onto its side. The surgeon caught the jar before the severed fingertips spilled from their packing cloth.

"Every patient uses the rear tank door while the stair rack still holds."

Two brewery workers lifted cots from the floor. Perr slid off his crate and looked toward the red latch in his hand.

"Your sister is waiting beside the third east gate post," Iven told him. "Carry that latch through the rear door and give her my receipt."

Perr looked at Iven's empty palm. "You never wrote any kind of receipt for us."

"Tell her I signed it with the shoulder that broke the scale."

That answer almost moved him. A rifle struck concrete on the landing, and Perr ducked behind the crate instead.

The molar speaker under Iven's back tooth clicked through three overlapping reports. West Four storage had lost six stripped sleeves. A roof locker had opened from the inside. The suit plates around the pinned Vale body were dragging their keg lever toward the brewery.

Vey cut through the reports. "All units remove remaining Vale material from living ports and clear the west tram lane."

A defender on the east roof answered, "Removing shoulder plates leaves three rifles without enough support to cover the transfer stairs."

"Then put those rifles on brick rests and keep living shoulders out of the road."

Iven reached for his own shoulder release. The lever sat below the brass hoop, half an inch past the end of his left fingers. His right hand hung over the scale edge and scraped its nails along the floor whenever the cords shortened.

The surgeon caught his left wrist. "Opening that hoop before I control the artery gives you one useful arm for less than a minute, followed by blood I cannot put back inside you."

"Then place the pressure pad before you finish warning me."

The surgeon shoved folded filter cloth beneath the back of Iven's shoulder and leaned his weight onto it. One brewery worker stayed to hold the pressure while the other carried the last cot toward the rear door.

The stair rack bent inward.

Perr left the crate at the same time.

He ran for the front landing instead of the rear door. The red latch had fallen near the bread rack, close enough for his bandaged hand to reach between its bars. He caught it before Iven understood that the boy had chosen equipment over distance.

One dead sleeve pushed through the rack and closed around Perr's coat.

The boy kept hold of the latch.

Iven kicked the scale brake free. The pull on his right shoulder rolled him toward the stairs faster than his feet could manage. He used the movement, hit the landing rail with his left hip, and caught Perr under one arm.

The child's full weight dragged through Iven's unsupported shoulder. His left hand failed to close around the boy's ribs, so he hooked his wrist beneath Perr's belt and lifted with the joint.

The dead sleeve pulled the coat in the other direction.

"Release the latch because your sister can argue about its price later."

"She said we cannot owe West Four anything after they leave us."

"Your sister can owe me one red latch and collect you alive."

Perr let go. Iven put his boot through the latch before it disappeared beneath the rack.

The sleeve kept the coat.

Iven hauled Perr out of it, leaving the child in his undershirt, and turned his own back toward the stairs. The two cords beneath his right shoulder tightened until the black clamps buried their teeth through skin. His arm lifted without his permission and struck the rail above Perr's head.

The Reaper road wanted the dead tissue. His living arm happened to surround it.

Iven pushed Perr behind his legs and found the first clamp with his left hand. Its release tab faced the wall. He could either put the child down to reach it or give the cord a straighter pull through his shoulder.

He put the child down.

"Hold my belt and move when my left foot moves. Your sister can complain about the order at the east gate."

Perr wrapped both hands around the belt.

Iven drove the red latch beneath the clamp and struck it with the heel of his left palm. The clamp opened. The gray cord tore forward through his shoulder, bringing a strip of muscle and shirt with it before joining the sleeve on the rack.

His right arm dropped against the rail. Feeling reached his thumb in one hard pulse, then left the hand empty.

The second cord pulled deeper.

The surgeon came down two steps with the pressure cloth already red. "Leave that clamp closed until we get you back onto the table."

"The first cord just learned which direction carries a child."

Iven hooked the safety catch box with his left heel and dragged it closer. He chose the thickest brass catch by touch, wedged it between the second clamp and his collar, then leaned his body away from the stairs.

The clamp held while gray tissue ripped through beneath it and slapped through the bread rack. Iven's right shoulder struck the wall after the pull vanished. The arm stayed attached, hanging lower than before, with blood working through the brewer's hoop in short pushes.

Perr kept both hands on the belt.

"My sister will say this counts as owing you."

Iven pressed his left forearm over the wound. "Your sister may repay me by never crawling under another barricade for government hardware."

The clinic stairs filled with movement. Empty sleeves, shoulder plates, and strips from the west wall rubble climbed over the bread rack without reaching for Perr. Each piece turned at the landing toward Ty.

Beyond the door, Ty stepped out of the blue quarantine box.

Five West Four rifles followed him from both roofs. Vey walked behind the left line with his weapon trained on Ty's spine. Jade stayed at Ty's open side, one flesh hand holding the white wrist over the rib caught around the Reaper chain.

"The fixed perimeter is feeding this route through every clinic and storage room," Ty said. "Give me an empty direction before another person carries it for me."

Vey pointed down the tram line leading away from the east outlet. "You get one cleared lane, two roof teams, and no turn that I have not ordered."

"That remains more permission than I expected from your quarantine."

"It remains quarantine with enough legs to protect my district."

Jade looked toward Iven through the bent rack. Her white eye stayed open while the other narrowed against the brewery dust.

"Can the child reach the rear door without crossing your road?"

Iven lifted Perr with his left arm again. The shoulder shook under the weight, but the wrist held beneath the boy's belt.

"He reaches his sister after somebody gives my surgeon another pressure cloth."

Palla threw one down the steps. The surgeon caught it and pushed it beneath Iven's hand.

Ty entered the tram lane.

Every dead sleeve on the stairs left the clinic door and dragged itself after his next footprint. The bread rack sprang back far enough for the surgeon to pull Iven and Perr through. Behind them, the last gray cord slid over the blue chalk, passed three open clinic beds, and chose the road following Ty.