Blue cut the wire around Marcus Vale’s cabinet with JJ’s knife.
The wire gave after three careful bends. It snapped close to the knot, then sprang away from the brass tag and struck Blue across the knuckles. She drew her hand back, sucked air through her teeth, and glared at the dead worker’s cabinet as if it had insulted her family.
"Marcus believes in traps for people who touch his belongings," Blue said. "That improves my opinion of him and my dislike of his cabinet."
JJ kept one hand near Ty’s torn shoulder and one hand on her sword.
"Open it from the side, not straight in front," JJ said. "People who leave warnings often leave teeth nearby."
"That is exactly the kind of advice that should come before I cut wire," Blue said.
Ty stayed against the wall and watched Scizor hold the case.
The cutter’s jaws gripped both chains now. The lower chain sat deep in the bottom slot. The guide chain had seated into the upper jaw, pulled tight enough to sing when the case shifted. Scizor’s red housing shuddered under the load, but it held.
That should have helped him breathe easier from the start.
It mostly made the next problem clearer in his chest.
The case hung away from the pit, alive with weight. His old body rested inside the glass with one arm across the lower band. Frost traced along the fingers. Every few breaths, the case settled by a hair, and Ty felt the answer inside his torn shoulder.
"Your face is getting expensive again for my patience," JJ said. "Tell me what the body is doing before you pretend it is nothing."
"It is quieter while Scizor holds the chains," Ty said. "Quieter still means connected, which is rude enough already."
"Rude is too small a word for corpse feedback," JJ said.
Blue pried the cabinet door open with the knife.
The hinges fought her. Old grit cracked away from the seam. The door opened two inches, stuck, then opened another two after Blue put her knee into it. A sour smell came out first, wet cloth and old oil, then a scatter of tiny flakes that stuck to the water on the floor.
"Cabinet opened without biting more than my dignity," Blue said. "Nothing bit me unless rust counts as an animal."
"Rust counts as a workplace complaint today for everyone," JJ said.
Inside, Marcus had packed the cabinet like a man expecting panic.
The first shelf held rolls of oiled cloth wrapped around narrow tools. The second held three pins, a crank handle, and a squat metal bit with a square base. The bottom shelf held a leather notebook gone stiff with damp. Its cover had swollen around the edges, but the strap still held.
Blue reached for the notebook first with two eager fingers.
JJ caught her wrist lightly before paper could win.
"Tools first, notes second, while the case is hanging," JJ said. "The room kills faster than paper explains anything useful."
Blue looked at the case, then at Scizor’s trembling jaws.
"That is a painfully correct order for this terrible room," Blue said. "I resent how often survival ruins reading today."
She took the squat metal bit from the second shelf.
It had Marcus’s name scratched into one side in crooked letters. The square base had four worn corners, each polished by use. The tip was narrow enough to fit inside a service socket, but the outer edge had been filed by hand into a shape that belonged to no official tool set.
Blue turned it in her palm under the shaft light.
"This is literally a bit of Marcus, which feels rude," she said. "I think it is also the key for Scizor’s drive pins."
"If he wanted dignity, he chose the wrong cabinet label," JJ said.
Ty pushed away from the wall despite JJ watching.
JJ’s hand tightened on his sleeve before he finished taking the step.
"I am looking, not crawling under anything yet," Ty said. "That distinction matters enough for peace with you."
"Peace is currently suspended pending your behavior until you earn it," JJ said.
Blue crouched beside Scizor’s left wheel and found the service socket under a flap of grime. The socket had the same square shape as the bit. A clean scrape crossed one corner, old but deliberate, as if Marcus had marked the angle for hands working in bad light.
Blue fitted the bit into place with both hands.
It sank halfway and stopped against hidden pressure.
"Of course it stops halfway before helping anybody," Blue said. "Marcus seems like the kind of man who made tools test your commitment."
"What does halfway mean in machine language right now?" Ty asked.
"Halfway means the pin is loaded inside the socket," Blue said. "All the way means the pin moves and something heavy decides whether we deserve ankles."
JJ looked down at Ty’s feet in the water.
"I would like to keep the current ankle count," she said. "It has been reliable under pressure so far today."
Blue pulled the bit back out and checked the socket.
Something pale wedged inside the square channel and blocked the bit.
She hooked it with the knife point and eased it free. It came out wrapped in a strip of cloth smaller than her thumb. The cloth had been tied around a sliver of flat metal. Marcus had scratched a line into the metal with a sharp point.
Blue unfolded the cloth carefully beside her knee.
The message had been written in cramped letters across the inside. Water had eaten parts of the ink, but enough remained to be useful.
Blue read it aloud, slow enough to keep every word clean.
"If Scizor is awake and my cabinet still opens, the upper rail has failed once and will fail again. Feed the lower chain first. Catch the guide. Use my bit only after the case stops swinging. Never trust the polished rail."
Ty looked at the rail behind Scizor with his hand braced.
The polished rail ran clean into a narrow slot in the wall, too clean compared to every other thing in the chamber. Water avoided it. Rust avoided it. Even the grit had collected along the edges as if swept aside by hands that wanted it seen.
"That polished rail is the one official instructions wanted us to use," Ty said.
"Then official instructions were trying to make us tidy while dead," JJ said.
Blue checked the note against the light again.
"There is more at the bottom near the ruined edge," she said. "The ink is ugly here, but I can make out enough."
She held the cloth closer to the light coming from the shaft above.
"Polished rail drops rejected loads into the royal catch," Blue said. "Worker rail runs behind the west wall. Diaz checks the west turn every day because Diaz trusts bolts less than promises."
"Marcus wrote about Diaz like Diaz was still coming tomorrow," Ty said.
"Workers write that way when the work keeps going without them," JJ said.
Blue looked toward the west wall past Scizor’s wheel.
At first, Ty saw only stone ribs, pipes, and a sheet of mineral crust. Then Scizor dragged the chain one link deeper into its jaw, and the case shifted enough for the wheel to reveal a second track behind it. This one sat lower than the polished rail, darker, rougher, half covered by a broken drainage lip.
The worker rail had been hidden behind official metal.
It had dents along the edge from hand tools. Somebody had kept it alive without permission.
"That rail looks worse and more honest than the polished one," JJ said.
"Bad honest rail beats clean murder rail for everyone here," Blue said.
Ty touched the bandage cloth in the cabinet with two fingers.
The cloth was stiff but intact. It had been oiled and folded with care. A needle packet sat underneath it, wrapped beside a small tin of dark paste. The paste smelled bitter when Blue opened it, enough to make Ty’s nose wrinkle.
"That is either medicine or Marcus preserved lunch badly," Blue said. "The label says bind for scraped skin, pinched fingers, and poor decisions."
"Give it here before Ty turns blood loss into a plan," JJ said.
Ty offered his injured shoulder before she dragged it out of him.
That surprised her for half a breath before she moved.
He saw it in her eyes, the quick reset from argument to care. She cut the torn coat back with her knife and pulled the fabric away from the raw strip of skin. The cold had taken a clean patch from him, wide as two fingers and angry at the edges.
JJ’s jaw tightened when the injury came into view.
"This is going to hurt in a way you deserve less than usual," she said.
"That is almost kind, coming from you today," Ty said.
"Accept it before I improve the wording too much," JJ said.
She spread the paste over the cloth and pressed it to his shoulder.
The pain hit hard enough to bend his knees.
JJ caught him with her forearm across his chest and held him against the wall until he found the floor again. Ty kept his teeth shut and one hand against the stone. The paste burned, then settled into a deep ache that felt cleaner than frost.
"I hate Marcus slightly less for owning medicine," Ty said.
"Marcus earns temporary forgiveness through competent cabinet stocking," JJ said.
Blue put Marcus’s bit back into the service socket and waited until Ty nodded.
She turned it a quarter turn with both hands.
Scizor’s rear wheel dropped onto the track with a heavy clunk. The red housing shifted lower, taking more of the case’s weight through its frame rather than the chains alone. The guide chain loosened by a finger. The lower chain stayed tight.
Blue kept her hand on the bit after it moved.
"That was one pin moving out of three," she said. "There are three pins, because Marcus apparently wanted decisions to arrive in groups."
"What do the other pins do after this one?" JJ asked.
"Second pin chooses rail before the third one moves," Blue said. "Third pin releases the dead lock, which sounds like a terrible phrase and probably means exactly what it says."
Ty looked at the case and the black latch.
The dead lock sat under the lower band, a black latch built into the royal frame. It had stayed closed through acid, theft, cold, and the pit. If it released wrong, the case might open. If it stayed shut, the case might refuse the worker rail and choose the royal catch.
"We choose the rail before releasing the lock," Ty said.
"That matches Marcus’s order better than guessing today," Blue said. "It also matches my desire to keep your old bones inside glass until we understand what they want."
JJ glanced at Ty without looking away fully.
"Do you understand what they want from you now?" she asked.
Ty watched his old hand inside the case.
The fingers rested against the glass, quiet again. They looked less like a threat when Scizor carried the weight. That made them harder to hate. A thing trying to return to him should have felt simple. This time, it felt like finding his own name written in a stranger’s handwriting.
"They want out of the case before we choose," Ty said. "I cannot tell whether they want me too."
JJ heard the difference and kept her hand still.
She said nothing for a breath, then put one knuckle against his good arm.
"Then we keep asking better questions before anything opens," she said.
Blue turned the bit another quarter turn slowly.
The service socket resisted, then gave. Behind Scizor, a hidden latch pulled through the floor with a grinding drag. The polished rail tilted down toward the slot in the wall. The worker rail rose beneath it, rough teeth locking into place one after another.
Ty felt the change through the case and his bandage.
The old body shifted toward the worker rail with a small knock against the glass.
The movement lacked force, but it still pulled the case closer to the path Marcus had protected.
"It picked the worker rail when the choice became real," Blue said.
"The case did, or the body did that?" JJ asked.
"I dislike that answer enough to avoid inventing it," Blue said.
Scizor rolled forward with both chains in its jaws.
The case moved with it, carried by the chain and jaw, inch by inch along the rough rail. The polished rail sank out of alignment. Water rushed over it and vanished into the slot that Marcus had warned against. Somewhere below, the royal catch took the empty flow with a hollow thump.
Ty walked beside the case with one hand near the glass.
He kept space between his skin and the frost this time. The bandage pulled at his shoulder with every step. JJ stayed close enough to grab him and far enough to swing if Scizor changed its mind. Blue moved with the bit still in the socket, one hand guiding Marcus’s tool through each hard turn.
The worker rail carried them behind the west wall.
The chamber narrowed into a service throat where the ceiling dropped low. The case barely fit. Scizor’s housing scraped both sides, shedding red flakes into the water. The rail kept climbing by small increments, every tooth catching the next with a sound Ty felt through his boots.
Halfway through the throat, Scizor stopped under the low ceiling.
Blue twisted Marcus’s bit again with both hands.
It refused to move against her full weight.
"Second pin is locked against something ahead of us," Blue said. "Marcus got us here, then handed us to the next person."
JJ lowered her head under a pipe and looked past the case.
The service throat opened onto a round turntable sunk into the floor. Its rim had been marked by hand, each notch filled with grease that had gone black. A narrow calendar strip had been bolted beside the handle. The same name had been scratched into nearly every square as Diaz.
Ty read the strip twice while the case hung between rail teeth.
Every day, the worker named Diaz had checked the west turn until the checks stopped. The final square carried a deeper cut than the others, carved so hard the metal had buckled around the letters.
The message below it waited beside the locked handle.
If Marcus sent you here, pay Diaz before you turn.