Chapter 973: Nessa Trades One Field Piece

Nessa entered Account Five with Lenn Cor’s cloth tied around her left wrist.

The knot slid when her shortened ring finger caught it. She stopped inside the gate, trapped the loose end between her teeth, and pulled until Lenn’s name faced outward again. Vask could read the person he had entered as quarry stone before they discussed price.

The lower dock hung beneath the council chamber on four black plates. Each plate chose the fixed street above as down, though open water pipes and tool cords pulled toward the other roadback.

Vask waited behind a worktable instead of a speaking tube.

He had a narrow face, shaved scalp, and one ear folded beneath a metal cap. Nessa gave the cap more attention than the face. Five wires left it and entered the table through holes spaced like fingers.

Jade pushed Ty’s cradle through the dock gate. Holl kept the handless left arm bound toward House Twelve’s direction, which made the elbow point across Ty’s chest while the rest of him settled against the dock floor.

"The field piece remains locked under a livestock stake you damaged."

Vask placed both hands on the table. "I asked for temporary access, while the cup and roadback remain where their keepers put them."

"You measured my cage before we agreed on a sample last time."

"Your cage touched working metal and supplied more pressure than your stated offer."

Nessa unrolled Lenn’s cloth across his fingers. The marks for the bridge and fixed ward stopped beneath his right thumb.

"Release every name hidden behind quarry totals before you touch another joint."

Vask lifted his thumb. Beneath the cloth sat a source book bound with two iron combs. He turned it toward Nessa and opened to House Twelve.

Lenn Cor occupied the first line. Parel’s heel, three fixed ward beds, and the midpoint bridge followed below her name. Other pages carried workers, prisoners, applicants, and several blank source numbers without bodies attached.

Jade stayed beside Ty. "Blank numbers remain hidden people until somebody proves they are stone."

"Then Captain Nessa may take the pages carrying living loads and leave the blank matter under review."

Vask released eleven waxed pages from the iron binding and stacked them at the edge of the table. Nessa counted the page corners with her left thumb while they remained between them.

He opened a drawer beneath the table. Inside lay a transfer comb with six blunt teeth and one black plate cut short of its source groove.

"This comb divides one fixed load among six supports without removing the named source."

"Show me that Lenn no longer carries either piece."

Vask pressed the short plate against the worktable. The council evidence plate answered from Jade’s hand, but Lenn’s inhale stayed in the cloth around Nessa’s wrist. The transfer comb remained quiet.

Nessa placed the comb beneath her cage. Its first tooth bent for her shortened ring finger. The sixth left space where her smallest finger had been cut away.

Meren’s brewery clinic could use one tooth per foundation brace. The tram switch could take two during evacuation. A living wearer could pull free of one support without collapsing every other load if the comb behaved as promised.

When she pressed her index finger into the first tooth, pressure tilted three others while the far half stayed clear and left both stumps quiet.

Jade wedged the black plate beneath Ty’s cradle. "Eleven pages and one untested comb buy only the access Vessa approves."

"They can brace the clinic and west tram before Meren loses another keeper groove. Vessa still decides whether her cup answers."

Ty’s right thumb held the source pages against his cradle strap. "Then Vessa hears the entire price before Account Five hears a joint."

"The pages and comb cross to Jade before any remote line opens."

Vask pushed both across the table. Jade took the comb in her living hand and tucked the source pages under Ty’s cradle strap.

Ty’s four right fingers rested over the paper. "I will bite anybody who tries to call the blank numbers rocks."

"Your skull lacks the equipment, but the warning can remain."

Nessa looked at Jade. The dry answer helped because Jade’s cold arm was already late by half a handspan whenever the five table wires moved.

Vask turned the metal cap over his ear. A square opening formed above the table, no wider than Vessa’s keeper cup.

Through it, Nessa saw the livestock stake. The field finger remained visible behind three square teeth. Vessa Orl sat astride the well with her wrench across both knees. Dellin’s tag, Solla’s flour mark, the water worker’s hammer, and the housing buckle remained around the closure.

Goats crowded the net behind her.

Vessa raised the wrench toward Nessa. "Your face arrives without your shoulder, which usually means somebody wants my hardware."

"I am asking for one answer from the lowest plated joint. You keep the cup shut and every closure stays yours."

"What does my livestock ring receive for carrying that answer?"

Nessa showed her the severed transfer comb through the square. "One divided support after I prove this comb carries no hidden body."

Vessa pointed the wrench past the cup. A young goat had chewed through half the cord holding the third ring’s water barrel. Its mother leaned against the net each time the city changed down.

"The first support goes there, and you send somebody who knows which end of a goat complains."

"You receive the first clean support and a worker you may send home for being useless."

Vessa checked the goats, the cracked third ring, and the field finger. "One joint may answer while the loaded ring stays braced and every closure remains locked."

Nessa turned to Vask. "One lowest joint, one pulse, and no copy of the chain or keeper cup."

"The first channel records only the pressure that reaches it."

"Close the other four channels where I can see their wires."

Vask removed four copper pins from the table. Their channels went dark. He left the pin beneath his index finger and moved his hand away.

Nessa seated three cage needles around the first wire. One would carry the question. One would stop the answer after a single bend. The last sat across two paths. Its inward edge would break copied pressure inside the table, while its outward edge would close the route back to Vessa. One push would spend it.

Jade set her cold wrist across the five wire bundle. Ty wound one jaw chain link around the worktable leg while Holl kept the wrong left elbow away from every plate.

Nessa pressed her molar control.

The first wire reached through the square opening. Vessa held the keeper cup between both boots. Behind its teeth, the lowest plated joint bent once.

Pressure returned through Nessa’s cage, where one needle recorded the curve and a second entered the stop notch.

The notch slid away from the needle.

Nessa bit harder. Her third needle cut through the first wire, but the copied pulse had already entered Vask’s metal cap.

Both of Vask’s hands remained flat beyond the pins as the four empty channels opened around them.

Inside the keeper cup, every plated joint closed.

Vessa struck the cup with her wrench. Dellin’s tag held. Solla’s flour mark split along one edge while the water hammer kept the loaded ring from leaning.

The third livestock net dropped by the width of Nessa’s thumb. The young goat slid backward, hind legs through one square. Vessa hooked its belly with the wrench handle and hauled it onto the ring before its mother could follow.

"Your one answer just used every joint behind my lock."

The third needle had lodged between two paths. Nessa could drive it into Vask’s cap and ruin the copied pressure, or turn it outward and close the line still pulling on Vessa’s cup. The field finger struck the keeper teeth again.

Nessa turned the needle outward.

The square opening collapsed. Vessa, the goats, and the keeper cup vanished from Account Five while the copied pressure stayed beneath Vask’s cap.

Nessa drove her cage into the table and broke the first channel at its root. "I cut one wire, so explain why four closed channels learned the movement."

Vask’s cap tightened against his folded ear. Blood ran from beneath the lower edge.

"The field piece carries five stored roads. When one joint answers, pressure finishes every empty channel shaped like its old hand, even after you pull the pins."

"You built the whole hand before offering one channel."

"A partial anchor fails under a district, so I refused to build one."

Ty’s chain locked the table leg to his cradle. Jade shoved the transfer comb toward Nessa, who caught it in her left hand and tore its testing wire from the drawer.

Ty pinned all eleven pages beneath the cradle strap. Nessa folded the transfer comb into her cage until its teeth pressed against the three fingers she still trusted.

Vask left his cap in place. The five channels around his hand carried the stolen closing motion, each one bending as if a finger rested inside it.

Above them, five towers around the city changed direction.

The first four table channels pulled toward Earth, Meren, Rillhold, and the moving stake. The fifth stayed over Vask’s empty index hole and dragged toward Ty.

Ty’s four fingers closed around the gap where the missing one should have been. The fifth wire tightened until the cradle rail bent beneath his wrist.

"The fifth one found the cut inside my hand."