Ty saw bare feet above Tower Five, and the city chose where to drop him.
His loose ribs struck the cradle together. The black rail beneath his spine became a floor. Water that had crossed between both stair gutters slapped the iron beside his head and ran toward the fixed ward drains.
His handless left arm swung in against his side.
The shoulder seated cleanly.
Relief made him stupid for one breath. Nothing pulled that arm toward House Twelve. His right wrist stopped trying to climb through Jade’s palm. Every present piece of him agreed that down lay beneath the cradle.
He could have stood.
The lower roadback came apart outside the tower.
First went the address bells. Hundreds struck together as their ropes changed weight. Then screws tore from the outer housing in a line that ran beyond Ty’s sight. A row of sleeping shelves peeled free. Blankets, cook pots, and three occupied beds followed.
Around them, the fixed ward settled with bed legs landing inside their floor cups and wash water reaching its drains. A nurse near the upper gallery laughed once before the lower roadback answered with people calling names.
Ty lifted his head toward the bare feet.
Blond hair hung past the stranger’s ears. He wore blue beneath a white travel band, with an amber hilt resting against one hip. His right hand had bent around a black line under the skin. Two knuckles faced the wrong direction, and the fingers kept changing width because the hand had forgotten its shape.
Jade’s grip tightened on Ty’s wrist.
"That is Dimitri. He came to Earth with Masabi, got scared, and still stepped between people who could flatten him."
Another lower housing pulled free. Its painted address board spun across the tower mouth.
"Tell me he has a way to stop this before half the city falls through the other half."
"He used to need Masabi for the big decisions, but I never saw him choose who deserved the floor."
Ty reached across his chest and caught the address board before it took Lera Kott in the face.
"Then today can be his first independent disaster."
Holl had one knee across the cradle frame. The common direction helped him hold Ty, but the old straps had been tied for a body falling two ways. One loosened across Ty’s chest while another bit between his ribs.
"Holl, count what stayed attached before I use it."
Holl pressed a thumb against each joint as he named it.
"Shoulder, ribs, right arm, four fingers, and the empty left."
"Good. I would hate to rescue somebody with borrowed inventory."
Jade pulled the unmarked chain link from Tower Five’s empty cuff. The narrow angle toward the Mercy cup vanished when the metal came free. Somewhere beyond the city, Ty’s old right index finger kept traveling with the living bearer he had chosen not to drag home.
The chain belonged to the people falling here.
Lera leaned through the tower door. Vote chalk dust slid from her sleeve and fell onto the same stair that now served everyone.
"Lera, whose address rope is crossing the wash tanks?"
She caught the rope with both hands and read the stamped knots as they tore past.
"Lower Nine through Lower Thirteen, with the clinic beneath."
"Then give me the rope that owes you rent."
Lera looped it around his four present fingers. Ty closed them and rolled from the cradle.
His feet struck iron together. The clean landing jarred his knees and drove his spine into place. Pain came from one direction, an ordinary insult he had missed more than he wanted to admit.
Down the stair that had been a wall, he ran.
The first falling home broke against Tower Five and split around him. A cupboard door caught under his right arm. Somebody’s shirts emptied over his skull. He shoved through them and found the address rope dragging sparks from the lower gallery.
Iri Tolland hung from a blue medicine rail with one arm. Two clinic workers clung behind her. A third lay on a wash platform that had tipped until its wheels faced open sky. Glass bottles rolled around the worker’s head while a pen of six horned pack beasts pulled the platform farther from the gallery.
"Iri, get every living person against the blue rail."
She hooked one knee over it without releasing the worker below.
"The blue rail is leaving with the floor."
"Bring the floor, and we can argue about ownership afterward."
Ty wrapped the jaw chain around the address rope. His left forearm had no hand to close the loop, so he jammed the bare end through the rail and used the whole arm as a pin. The new direction held the shoulder where he needed it.
For once, his missing hand was the simpler problem.
When the wash platform dropped, chain ran across his teeth and tore one link sideways. His four fingers locked around the rope while the force lifted both feet from the stair.
Jade caught his ankle with her living hand.
Her cold arm arrived after him and drove through a tower rung up to the elbow. The delay nearly pulled her shoulder loose, yet the arm stayed wedged.
"The pen fastener breaks before the clinic rope does."
Her damaged eye remained open a finger’s width. Blood gathered beneath it and fell across her cheek.
Ty looked past Iri. The pack beasts had crowded against the pen’s new lower wall. One iron hook carried all six bodies, the platform, and the clinic worker beneath the rail. Its screw had backed halfway out.
"Nessa, cage the hook without trusting your transfer comb."
Nessa slid her root cage down the address rope. Three teeth closed around the hook housing while she fed two of Vask’s released source pages through the gaps. The paper tore at one corner and held long enough for Lera to add a council key through the fold.
"The cage can share weight, but the wall keeps leaving."
"Let the wall leave after Iri gets the worker breathing."
Iri pulled the injured worker upright. The man’s boot had caught beneath the platform lip. She removed it, left the boot, and shoved him toward the blue rail.
The Angelic lowered one bare foot.
White rings passed through the fixed ward above Ty. A broken bed support straightened. Two wash tanks stopped walking across their bolts. Dimitri flattened his deformed hand into a wide brace and caught an upper gallery where a dozen patients still lay strapped to their beds.
The black line under his skin split toward each finger. His arm shook. He held the gallery anyway.
People above called thanks to him.
Below, Lower Eleven lost its final housing screw.
The entire address row dropped past Ty. Curtains opened as it fell, showing meals left on tables and people bound together with sleeping cords. Lera’s rope jumped through his fingers and peeled skin from her palms.
Ty bit the chain and pulled.
His jaw links shortened around the blue rail. Iri shoved the last clinic worker into Lera’s reach. Nessa released the cage from the pen hook before the departing wall could take her with it. The six pack beasts and wash platform swung beneath Tower Five, then struck the fixed stair hard enough to bend its outer rail.
Holl threw a second strap around Ty’s waist. Jade hauled his ankle toward the tower while her cold arm remained buried in the rung.
Ty found iron under one foot. He pushed until Iri climbed over his shoulder and dragged the injured worker inside.
The pen settled against the stair. One beast kicked through a slat and missed Ty’s skull by the width of a jaw link.
"Someone owes that animal a larger address after this."
Lera tied the council rope around the bent rail.
"It can file with every family from Lower Eleven."
Through the tower mouth, Ty watched workers cross floors that finally behaved like floors. The upper roadback had stopped rolling, and its beds rested square in their cups. Under the saved gallery, Dimitri spread his flattened arm through its supports. Fear showed plainly on his face when the black fiber moved under his wrist.
He kept holding it.
Farther down, Lower Nine through Lower Thirteen broke into separate homes, pens, ladders, and people tied to whatever had survived the first pull. Their address bells fell with them.
Dimitri looked from Ty’s chain to the lower roadback. Across his cracked white band, a ring turned until it found Ty.
Then he pressed his bent hand deeper into the upper supports.
Every fastener above Tower Five held.
An entire street below him kept falling.