Chapter 46 Thirty Seconds of Someone Else

The copied mouth withdrew down the lift shaft, leaving black thread stretched between concrete lips and the lowest clinic level.

Ossian descended alone first, wearing Carrion Orchid beneath Dreadweight while Ione brought rescued patients toward the storefront.

'New face, unfinished instinct, Solenne waiting below... terrible order for a trial,' Ossian stepped from the platform, 'keep living bodies separate.'

The basement theatre held twelve surgical chairs, each restraint cut after its patient moved.

Solenne stood at the centre wearing no complete mask, silver threads running from twelve nail rings into grafts beneath her coat.

One eye tracked Ossian like a hunting bird while the other adjusted to darkness with a nocturnal pupil.

"You brought Carrion Orchid instead of my core, proving improvisation remains your most expensive habit," she said.

'She knows habits from before the Gate... hell, do not buy history with obedience,' Ossian opened Jackal Right, 'show every graft.'

The system identified twelve borrowed traits without finding one stable face beneath them.

[Patchwork Persona is active]

[Grafted traits: 12]

[Trait duration is approximately 30 seconds]

Solenne crossed the theatre faster than Jackal's warning, borrowing tendon speed from the first graft before changing inside ten seconds.

Her second trait hardened bone against Ironback, while a third redirected Furnace heat through sweat glands adapted from desert prey.

'Three answers before my switch finishes... she does not change faces, only the useful lie,' Ossian caught her wrist, 'count each ring.'

Silver thread entered Dreadweight's seam where Jackal Right met Ironback Left, pulling both instincts toward Solenne's borrowed signals.

'She studied the stack from auction footage... not its shape, the instincts holding each seam,' Ossian released one buckle, 'break her borrowed commands.'

"Every adaptation leaves another entrance, since bodies survive through accepting revision before their pride catches up," she said.

'Revision offered through theft... she makes violation sound like weather,' Ossian stepped onto a padded restraint base, 'remove the floor signal.'

He released Dreadweight before the threads could reach Salamander underneath, losing stored force without surrendering the four original masks.

Solenne took his left knee with a borrowed striking joint, driving swelling through the injured leg already weakened by older missions.

"Ruan taught you to endure damage, but I could teach your masks to stop requesting permission," she said.

'Permission is the line between wearer and material... shit, she offers strength by erasing the person holding it,' Ossian opened Orchid, 'identify prey.'

Carrion Orchid painted the theatre in green sources, marking surgical scraps, dead grafts, living tissue, plus Solenne's twelve silver threads.

Its instinct urged him toward the nearest restraint chair where harvested skin remained attached to a sedated patient.

Ossian refused the easy source, forcing Orchid to distinguish heartbeat from discarded material before he accepted another step.

The mask resisted, making every living body smell like waste until he named each rescued patient reported over Ione's channel.

'People remain primary... names before useful parts,' Ossian moved past the chair, 'you feed only where I choose.'

The system raised synchronisation as Carrion Orchid narrowed its green field to Solenne's detached graft tissue.

[Carrion Orchid synchronisation: 84%]

[Instinct trial is active]

[Living patients excluded: 9]

Solenne switched to an armoured skin trait twenty-two seconds after activating tendon speed, abandoning the first movement pattern early.

Maelle called elapsed times from the lift doorway, keeping each active trait separate from rings Solenne had already blackened.

"Tendon speed ended at twenty-two, armour began at twenty-four, heat transfer overlapped both for six seconds," she reported.

Calista filmed the nail rings rather than Ossian, creating a visual clock from every silver line changing colour.

Maelle's count turned every borrowed trait into a deadline, giving Ossian a rhythm Solenne could shorten but never escape without payment from another sensory memory she once owned.

Calista kept the camera on Solenne's rings as they darkened, preserving a record of each lost sense without turning patients into scenery for the Directorate report waiting upstairs overnight.

'A team counts what one body cannot watch... Ruan taught endurance, these women teach reach,' Ossian heard twenty-nine, 'force the armour now.'

He attacked one second before Maelle's count reached thirty, making Solenne preserve bone armour instead of selecting tendon speed.

The armour expired under Ironback pressure, leaving her committed to a stance her ordinary joints could not maintain.

She sacrificed smell for renewed bone density, blackening another ring while perfume flooded the theatre without meaning.

Carrion Orchid recognised that lost sense as dead material but waited after Ossian's refusal, petals closed against his sight.

'It learned a boundary in one fight... damn, mastery is not obedience, it is a choice repeated,' Ossian released Ironback, 'take the discarded sense.'

Every change cost her one sensory memory, shown by a ring turning black after its thread withdrew.

She touched spilled perfume without recognising the scent, then glanced at her own hand as if surprised by the absence.

'Thirty seconds maximum, shorter by choice... each switch burns a sense she once owned,' Ossian tracked the black ring, 'make her spend them.'

He threw a surgical lamp left, forcing hunting sight, then opened Furnace low enough to demand heat resistance on her right.

Solenne changed twice within six seconds, blackening two more rings before recognising the false attack against either side.

Carrion Orchid showed every abandoned graft as brighter food than the living bodies around it.

Ossian followed that hierarchy, severing dead tissue from silver threads without striking the flesh Solenne still controlled.

Her fourth spent ring released a childhood voice from the thread, whispering a word she no longer appeared to understand.

"Memory is material, while sentiment merely wastes its better applications," Solenne said.

'She calls loss efficiency while counting nothing gone... damn, make the bill visible,' Ossian closed Jackal, 'Orchid, take only discard.'

The petalled mask opened across his perception, consuming three abandoned grafts and leaving every active thread untouched.

Synchronisation reached completion without demanding a patient, granting full distinction between harvested remains and living hosts.

[Carrion Orchid synchronisation: 100%]

[Instinct trial passed]

[Mastery condition met by refusing living material]

Solenne lost control of the consumed traits, leaving nine active grafts plus three black rings against her fingers.

Ossian exploited the thirty-second limit, trapping her bone armour under Ironback until its borrowed duration ended.

When normal bone returned, he released stored force into the floor beside her hand, breaking four nail rings without shattering fingers.

Her silver threads recoiled through the drain, tearing a leather notebook from an instrument shelf as they fled.

Maelle arrived through the lift and caught the notebook before its cover slipped into runoff.

Ione entered behind her, choosing a clear shot only after Calista confirmed no rescued patients remained in the theatre.

Solenne opened her final prepared trait, flattening joints through a burrowing-animal graft before folding into the circular drain.

Orchid marked her as living, preventing Ossian from feeding through the grate even while dead graft residue surrounded her route.

'Mastery means the limit stays mine... let the prey escape before becoming what she expects,' Ossian kept the mask closed, 'track runoff later.'

The system settled into silver lines after Solenne disappeared beneath municipal tunnels.

[Owned faces: 5]

[Fracture: 45%]

[Patchwork traits remaining: 8]

Vaska entered after sealing the drain with reactive foam, then inspected Carrion Orchid without touching Ossian's skin.

The mask opened one petal toward her censer, recognising prepared decay compounds without treating Vaska as harvested material.

[Vaska compatibility: 91%]

[Carrion Orchid records its highest match]

[Transfer unavailable during mastery review]

"Ninety-one percent exceeds every stable match we have ever recorded," Maelle said.

Vaska wrote the figure on her own contamination form before requesting independent review of Ossian's acquisition.

"Compatibility is not consent, leaving the appetite for examination before any discussion of ownership," she said.

'Highest match, cleanest boundary... good answer from someone the mask wants,' Ossian accepted the form, 'give her full access.'

Maelle opened Solenne's notebook beneath Ione's camera, finding surgical schedules, graft durations, plus twelve columns of lost senses.

The first pages predated the Gate and showed a familiar plain face measured from every angle.

Ossian recognised the Human Mask before reading the handwritten date beside its unfinished mouth.

Solenne had sketched his first face six years before the system awakened it.