Yun-Jin held the service pin above the tray until her hand stopped shaking.
The old body in the case kept one finger against the glass. It stayed bent at the first joint, patient in a way Ty hated. The black stone lip under the receiver waited with the same patience.
"Only the lip, and nobody reaches under it with bare hands," Ty said.
"I enjoy when plans start with a body-part warning, because it gives the room a professional tone," JJ said.
Blue knelt beside the tray and held the black film close to the service plate. The seventh mark on the film lined up with a narrow slot hidden at the back of the stone lip. Without the film, the slot looked like a scratch in dirty metal.
"Pin goes in shallow and turns toward the bridge," Blue said. "If it drops deeper, the lip may lift the whole slab."
Yun-Jin nodded once, then set the pin into the slot and turned it toward the bridge.
The stone lip rose by the width of two fingers.
Air came out from beneath it, dry and cold. It carried dust, machine oil, and the old sourness of sealed cloth. Ty kept his palm near the receiver tooth but held himself back from touching it.
The body under the stone became clearer in pieces. A wrist showed first, then the back of a hand flattened beneath the tray edge, then a strip of dark service cloth wrapped around the forearm.
The body lay on its side in a trough cut under the receiver. Stone covered the ribs and hips. Only the arm, shoulder, and part of the skull showed through the lifted lip. The mouth sat turned toward the stone, hidden by shadow from the tray.
Yun-Jin made no sound, which worried Ty more than a sound would have.
Rusuf shifted his sword so the flat faced the body. He kept the edge away from the exposed arm.
"The body is pinned through the load, just like the sketch showed," he said. "If we lift the slab, the receiver may lose its anchor."
"The receiver may also gain an angry dead person with opinions," JJ said.
"Both are reasons to avoid lifting the slab."
Blue aimed the service plate glow under the lip.
The copper line ran along the trough wall and ended near the exposed wrist. A ring contact circled the wrist, but Daemon’s loose hook sat away from it, wrapped in gray cloth. One pull could connect the body back into the receiver.
Ty understood why Daemon had cracked the fuse.
"The body was meant to be fed by the tray," he said. "Daemon broke the feed before someone could make it answer."
"He found this before us, and he left it buried," Yun-Jin said, mouth tight around every word.
"He also left a way to look without feeding it, which is better than most terrible choices," Blue said.
Yun-Jin turned the pin a hair farther, and the lip rose another inch before stopping.
The old body in the case tapped the glass again, and Ty looked at it.
The bent finger had left a clean mark through the frost. Behind the glass, the hand pressed harder, as if the body wanted the stone body to see it.
"JJ, hold the case frame and keep the lock tooth clean," Ty said.
JJ moved without argument. She gripped the case frame near the rear guide and kept her sword angled under her forearm.
"The case is being needy, and I am choosing maturity under protest," she said.
"Put the protest somewhere the case cannot use it," Rusuf said.
"That leaves me very few storage options that feel healthy."
Ty kept watching the old body. Its finger stayed on the glass. The stone lip below answered with a small tremble each time the case shifted forward.
Two bodies in one mechanism became a thought, and Ty pushed it back into the work before it turned into an explanation.
"Blue, what changes if the hook touches the wrist ring?" Ty asked.
"The tray gets a witness path through the buried body," Blue said. "After that, the receiver decides whether the case body or stone body has better weight."
"Better weight sounds like a bad moral system," JJ said.
"Worker machines usually prefer honest weight. This one inherited someone’s worse ideas."
Yun-Jin crouched lower and saw the exposed hand under the tray held something between two fingers. At first Ty thought it was another tag. Then Blue shifted the light and the object showed a smooth black edge.
A small board had been tucked under the hand.
The board was narrow, shorter than Ty’s forearm, and made from dark material with two shallow depressions carved into it. One depression had a rail shape. The other had a stone trough shape.
Rusuf studied it from the side with the maintenance sword low.
"The board sits under the hand, but the stone pressure trapped it there," he said.
Yun-Jin looked at Daemon’s service pin, still in the slot.
"He left the pin so we could lift the lip far enough to see the board," she said. "He left the sword so we could move the board without touching the body."
"That sounds like him using my least favorite kind of mercy," Blue said. "The kind where you survive because he made the task unpleasant enough."
JJ tightened her grip on the case frame.
"Can the board come free while the body stays buried?" she asked.
Blue examined the hand, the tray edge, and the narrow space under the lip.
"Maybe, if Rusuf slides the maintenance sword under the board and lifts from the tray side," she said. "If he lifts the hand, we stop. If the hook moves toward the wrist ring, we stop faster."
"I can take the board without moving the hand," Rusuf said.
Yun-Jin kept her fingers on the pin.
"I keep the lip height while everyone watches the slab," she said. "If the slab tries to rise, I turn the pin back."
Ty nodded and gave the work one clean shape.
"JJ holds the case, Blue watches the hook, Rusuf moves the board, and I keep the receiver tooth from choosing for us."
"A lovely division of labor for people who used to have normal problems," JJ said.
Rusuf picked up the short maintenance sword from the tray.
It looked wrong in his hand because it had no grace to it. The square tip belonged in a machine wall. He respected that and used it like a tool, sliding it under the board with slow pressure.
The exposed hand under the tray twitched, and Yun-Jin almost turned the pin back.
"Hold it for one breath, because the board moved before the body did," Blue said.
Yun-Jin held while the hook contact rolled a fraction toward the wrist ring.
Ty put two fingers against the copper line through the gray cloth, blocking the roll without touching the bare hook. The line vibrated under his fingers. His hand still hurt from the receiver tooth, but this pain had direction.
"Hook is blocked through the cloth, and the bare contact is clear," Ty said.
Rusuf lifted again, and the board scraped free by half an inch.
The old body in the case tapped the glass twice.
JJ leaned her weight hard into the frame.
"The case can wait its turn like every other body in this hallway," she said.
The second tap stopped, and nobody celebrated the mercy.
Rusuf worked the maintenance sword under the board another inch. The stone lip groaned once, and Yun-Jin turned the pin back by the smallest amount. The lip settled without closing.
Blue kept her eyes on the hook as Rusuf worked.
"The line is trying to follow the board," she said. "Daemon wrapped them together before he tied the warning."
"Then the board and line were meant to separate last," Ty said.
"Or never, if the wrong person opened it."
Yun-Jin looked at the body under the stone.
"He left the body because taking it would feed the receiver," she said. "He left the board because leaving it would keep us blind."
That was the first answer the room had given them cleanly, and Ty hated it anyway.
Rusuf eased the board free of the exposed fingers. The hand stayed pinned. The hook stayed away from the wrist ring. The body under stone kept its side turned to the receiver, silent under the slab.
Blue took the board with both hands and set it on the tray.
The two depressions caught the service plate light. One matched the case track, and the other matched the stone trough.
A thin line ran between them, scratched so shallowly that Ty saw it only when Blue tilted the board. At the center of the line sat a small round hole, the exact size of Yun-Jin’s service pin.
The old body in the case pressed its finger against the glass again.
The buried body’s exposed hand stayed open under the stone.
The board rested between them while Ty looked from one body to the other and understood why Daemon left the warning where a friend would find it.
"The board wants both bodies named by position before the receiver opens anything else," he said.
Yun-Jin kept the pin in the stone slot.
"Then we do this with the body under stone still buried," she said. "Daemon left that part as the line nobody gets to cross first."
Blue set one hand near each depression and waited for Ty’s count.
The case clicked, and the stone lip answered from below.
The board between them stayed quiet, asking for two bodies without saying a word.