Chapter 382: A Vote Under Foot

The six people on the lower stair gave their names before the Stone Table could repeat its order.

Naro Fenn kept the brass release box. Iska Bel held the clinic worker’s spare lamp. Omri Doss sat with a burned calf in a bucket of cooling water. Sava Kett carried two patient cards with the names covered. Tern Ull and Jori Nemm held the upper rail together.

"You can lose my stair after we cross," Naro said. "You cannot lose the clinic above it."

Iska pointed toward the outward apartment row.

"My father is behind `WATER FIRST`. Move his building before you cut."

Omri refused to answer for any floor beyond the one he could see. Sava wanted the two clinic beds moved. Tern had a sister somewhere above the fifth landing and would not call her dead. Jori asked how long the exposed joint would remain open.

Kestrel put a measured answer on every separate line.

Six minutes if the carrier kept its current load.

Less if another subscribed basement gave it a stable foothold.

The Stone Table sent a city ballot anyway. Its seal appeared on every visible Basalt screen with two choices: authorize the strike or delay it. South Bank’s treatment association blocked the ballot inside the clinic. Ash Quarter replaced it with six building questions. Three apartment groups covered their screens.

Farah preserved each action as evidence and rejected the total displayed beneath the Stone Table seal.

"That number includes rooms without contact," she said.

The municipal speaker answered from a chamber whose floor moved with the carrier.

"We have emergency authority during invasion."

"Show its physical reach."

The speaker produced a charter boundary. It covered central water, transit, and military streets. It did not cover South Bank apartment releases or Ash Quarter’s tram foundations. The ballot total kept rising.

Caleb watched from Foundry Twelve with his left rail brace locked to a floor plate. The exposed joint appeared on three screens, each from a different current keeper. He could reach it after growing, but his right side needed a fixed landing. The only tested landing sat beneath the clinic.

"If I strike from there, the clinic takes my first load," he said.

The Stone Table speaker offered the clinic as a military loss.

Sava Kett lifted both covered patient cards.

"These two people have not offered anything."

One patient could answer and chose extraction. The second remained sedated after a steam burn. The clinic worker kept that bed attached to the floor.

At Mercy, Elara turned the carrier diagram with her left hand. Her right forearm rested inside a cloth sling secured to the table edge. Pela had removed every joint-control cable before the feed opened. Caleb’s silver showed no response to her movement.

"The strike diagram assumes the exposed joint carries only its own weight," Elara said. "It carries the tower, clinic pipe, and three apartment braces."

She drew four load paths without choosing one. A red path dropped the clinic. A green path folded the outward apartment row into the joint. A white path moved force through Ash Quarter’s tram foundation. The fourth had no color because its far end was unknown.

"What built that one?" Farah asked.

Sani enlarged the uncolored line from Hesh.

"Old firebreak. South Bank and Ash Quarter shared one before the city divided maintenance."

"Where does it end?"

"It used to end beyond the tram depot. I cannot tell you where the carrier put it."

Elara sent the diagram to each visible local keeper. She did not send a preferred cut.

Five minutes remained.

The carrier pulled against Tower Six. Its leg widened the empty basement opening and tore a heating pipe from the next foundation. Steam entered an occupied utility room. Mira’s Ward workers broke the interior door and pulled out two mechanics with burned hands.

Daro added both injuries to the public board. Tower Six kept its manual stop. Its chair refused to reopen the remote angle service even when Private Continuity offered a free emergency reconnection.

"The pump truck is already under the leg," she said. "A faster invoice does not lift it."

At the storage building, the clinic worker opened the lower release. Naro, Omri, Sava, Tern, and Jori crossed. Iska remained at the stair rail.

"My father first."

The apartment marked `WATER FIRST` opened a maintenance hatch. Four residents crawled onto the tower pipe. Iska’s father came last with a metal oxygen bottle tied across his back. The pipe bent under their combined weight.

The kitchen floor above them still displayed `CUT OUR FLOOR`.

South Bank’s water crew could preserve the pipe or release the outward row. They could not do both while the carrier held the joint open.

The kitchen woman wrote a second line beneath her first.

`TWELVE OUT. THREE STAY.`

Three people appeared behind her: an older man on a floor mattress and two adults holding the mattress corners. The woman pointed toward the stair, then at the floor brace below them.

The three were current. Their reasons were not yet known.

Four minutes remained.

The Stone Table ballot reached sixty-two percent authorization. Its denominator included the sedated patient, the three people on the mattress, and every room visible only as a window.

Ash Quarter cut the ballot feed at its district boundary.

Its tram keeper, a mechanic named Boro Tann, appeared beneath an overturned carriage. Eleven of the twenty-eight residents had put timber under the carriage roof. The other seventeen waited inside the depot service tunnel.

"We accept loss of the tram foundation after our tunnel clears," Boro said. "Our answer covers this depot."

"Does the white load path reach your foundation?" Elara asked.

"It reaches our old firebreak collar. The collar has two releases."

"Who holds them?"

Boro showed his left handle. A tunnel keeper named Mevi Durr showed the right one from forty meters away. Their employer could fine them for equipment loss but could not turn either handle remotely. Farah recorded both employment penalties before anyone used their answer.

Three minutes remained.

Iska’s father reached the lower stair. The oxygen bottle caught on a broken rail. Iska climbed onto the tower pipe, freed the valve with both hands, and brought him through the rack cut. The other four apartment residents followed.

Forty-eight Basalt residents now stood on storage concrete. The clinic’s answering patient came next. The sedated patient remained inside with two treatment workers who retained their own lower release.

The water crew dropped the second brace.

The outward apartment row separated from the tower. Twelve residents reached the public stair. The kitchen woman stayed with the older man and the second mattress carrier. Their floor settled against the exposed joint without crushing.

Caleb lost his fixed landing.

"Strike route is gone," he said.

The Stone Table speaker demanded that he use the tram foundation instead. Caleb put the white path beside his current limits.

"I can put force into it. I cannot catch what comes off the other end."

Boro Tann heard him.

"We did not offer you our collar."

Two minutes remained.

The carrier began closing its exposed joint around the apartment floor. The kitchen woman held her message against the window. South Bank’s clinic kept its sedated patient. Ash Quarter’s tunnel emptied one person at a time.

Boro and Mevi tested their releases separately. The left collar opened into red soil. The right opened onto a pale plate held by chains, rails, oven links, and hand-pulled trench lines.

Kiri Don appeared beyond it with forty-three residents still under her support.

Boro kept one hand off his release.

"Ash Quarter tram depot," he said. "Twenty-eight here. Our cut only."

Kiri looked past him at the city moving on the carrier’s back.

"Far trench support," she answered. "Forty-three here. Your city stays yours."