The na attack began with a target.
TARGET: BONE HALF.
The words hung in the black floor where the waiting room had been. Then the last two words pinched inward, folding until they looked less like a label and more like a wound sobody had learned to spell.
JJ took one step toward Ty. "Bone..."
The floor swallowed the rest.
Her mouth stayed open. No sound ca out. Her sponsor panel sparked at the edges, throwing blue white errors across her wrist before she yanked her hand back.
Yun-Jin moved between Ty and the black floor as if a stance could stop a hostile file.
Ty kept his eyes on JJ. "Try again."
She did. Her throat worked. The anger reached her face before fear could. "It won't let say it."
The route answered from the ceiling and the floor at the sa ti.
THIRD REMOVAL: NA.
TARGET DESIGNATION: BONE HALF.
CURRENT STATUS: TEMPORARY.
SOURCE STABILITY: INCOMPLETE.
Ty looked down at himself.
He still had bones. Still had the sickle. Still had the preserved absence where his right index finger should have been. Nothing had changed in the shape of him. The attack began in the hesitation before anyone addressed him.
Omina struck the floor once with her boot. "Define temporary."
No answer ca.
"Define it," she said, "or record hostile classification without standard."
Heissman gave a small approving sound. "That was almost affectionate."
"Do not beco recreational."
"Never during active erasure."
The ceiling clicked.
TEMPORARY DESIGNATION:
A NA USED FOR ROUTE HANDLING WITHOUT OLDER SOURCE, LEGAL BODY CLAIM, PUBLIC TITLE, OR PRIMARY WITNESS ORIGIN.
PRIMARY WITNESS ORIGIN AVAILABLE.
The waiting room television returned on the far wall.
Jade was on the cafeteria floor with Mason folded against her. The dinosaur had slipped sideways under one arm. Mason's face was wet, his eyes unfocused after the sentence he had chosen to give. Jade looked up at the screen before anyone else could.
"No."
Ty heard it through bad speakers, route static, and whatever wound Erebos had left between rooms. One word, held steady.
Caelin's tablet sat face down on a cot near Waddell's boot. Muffled speech leaked from it, sharp with official urgency. Waddell nudged it farther away without looking down.
"Director can wait until the kid stops shaking," he said.
Kieran the Hunter remained inside the fading gold circle. Her hand hovered near Mason's back, close enough to warm him and far enough to let him pull away. Mara cried beside Rose Vale without trying to make the crying useful.
The route brightened Mason's outline.
PRIMARY WITNESS ORIGIN:
ACTIVE CHILD WITNESS.
PRIOR TESTIMONY ACCEPTED.
CONTINUATION AVAILABLE.
Ty's grip tightened around the sickle.
Yun-Jin caught his wrist before it rose. "It is baiting the cut."
"I know."
"Make your hand believe you."
He forced the sickle down.
Zunoder appeared in the television reflection behind Jade, wearing Ty's face with the kind of softness n used near hospital beds. He did not look triumphant. That made him worse.
"You see the problem," Zunoder said. "The child knows the body. He saw it move. The first safety he can na wears this face."
Mason flinched at the voice.
Jade's arm closed around him, slow enough for refusal. He did not refuse.
Ty stepped closer to the television until the dead waiting room light slid across his ribs. "The body protected him."
JJ turned sharply. "Ty."
"It did," he said. "We do not get to shave the facts down because a thief found them useful."
Zunoder's borrowed eyes softened.
Ty pointed the sickle at the reflection. "A fact is not a deed signed over to the next hand wearing my skin."
The reflection twitched.
Erebos spoke through the ceiling instead of Zunoder's mouth. His voice had the dry patience of an old form being pushed across a desk.
"Nas follow competent source. Body is source. Witness is source. Grief is source. Missing property is source. Refusal is sentint."
Omina's aura burned green along the floor. "Refusal under predatory standard is a competent act."
"Unsupported assertion."
Ty looked at the screen. Jade had already started shaking her head because she knew him too well.
"Then record this one," he said. "Mason Bell pays nothing else for my na."
The television dimd around the boy.
Ty kept going before the route could treat the pause as invitation. "Jade's grief is not a stamp. My missing finger stays where it is until the wound is understood. The body did what it did, and Zunoder does not inherit the aning. The title you want to grab can stay outside the door."
Heissman inhaled through his teeth. "Careful with titles."
"I did not say it."
"That may matter."
"It better."
JJ's panel sparked again, then steadied. She read quickly, lips moving before she trusted her voice. "The route is pricing that. Refusal is not free."
"Nothing useful is," Yun-Jin said.
JJ shot her a look. "I hate when the severe people are accurate."
"I am not severe."
"You dress like a warning label."
"Focus," Omina said.
Ty almost laughed. It ca out as a dry click of teeth. The sound helped more than rage had.
The route printed over the television, each line cutting into the image behind it.
FORCED CHILD MORY: REFUSED BY TARGET.
COPIED GRIEF SIGNATURE: CONTESTED.
UNRESOLVED BODY CLAIM: INADMISSIBLE AS SOLE SOURCE.
ACTIVE ABSENCE WITNESS: PRESERVED.
PUBLIC TITLE: RESTRICTED.
NA DEFENSE QUALITY: IMPROVED.
Jade read the lines, and her shoulders dropped by a fraction. Relief would have asked too much of her. Her body only accepted that the ceiling had not fallen yet.
Waddell bent, picked up the tablet, and unmuted it long enough for Caelin's voice to burst out.
"...requires imdiate classification before public leak contaminates..."
Waddell muted him again. "Still not helpful."
Rose Vale wiped her face with the heel of her hand. "What does improved an?"
Mara answered before the route could. "It ans they tried to make the boy the receipt, and he said no."
Jade looked at the forr records worker.
Mara swallowed. "We all heard him."
The route heard that too.
The black floor under Ty shifted. JJ's shadow fell correctly again. Behind the chair where Mason's mory had been trapped, a gray door outlined itself with a brass slot at eye level.
Heissman leaned toward it and leaned back just as fast. "Bad."
JJ wiped one eye with her wrist. "That sounded like several kinds of bad."
"Nine," Heissman said. "Possibly ten after lunch."
Omina did not look away from the door. "Na it."
The brass slot opened.
ALTERNATE WITNESS PATH AVAILABLE.
NA OFFICE REVIEW INITIATED.
REQUIRED: SOURCE OF DESIGNATION.
QUESTION ONE: WHO FIRST CALLED THE TARGET BONE HALF?
QUESTION TWO: WAS THE DESIGNATION IMPOSED, CHOSEN, OR WITNESSED?
The cafeteria did not turn toward Mason.
Caelin's tablet stayed muted. Rose kept one hand on Mara's sleeve. Kieran's fire remained low around the cot instead of rising into a cage around the boy.
Small, partial, expensive. Real enough that Ty could stand on it.
Zunoder's reflection remained behind Jade, but his borrowed face had lost its bedside softness.
"You have delayed the obvious," he said.
Ty watched Mason breathe against Jade's sleeve. In and out. Still here.
"No," Ty said. "I made you look sowhere else."
The gray door clicked open.
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