Waddell put the first witness statement on the cafeteria freezer because the freezer was the only flat thing left that had not been shot, blessed, cursed, or bled on. The paper stuck to old condensation. He stared at it.
"This is stupid."
Jade sat on an overturned milk crate with her injured hand wrapped in a dish towel and her bad eye hidden behind a strip of gauze Kieran had insisted on. She had argued for six seconds. Then the room tilted sideways and she lost.
"Be specific."
"We are building legal evidence on a freezer in a basement under siege."
Rima leaned over his shoulder.
"Many nations began worse."
Waddell looked at her.
"Name one."
"No."
"Because you made that up?"
"Because examples create obligations."
Tyree set a stack of dry napkins beside the freezer.
"I vote we keep the part where the skeleton saved people and leave out the part where all the paperwork tried to eat us."
Kieran tightened a gold line around the service hall door. The door had been shut again, but the half-inch opening changed the room. Everyone knew it. The basement had a scar now.
"Leaving out the paperwork is how paperwork wins," she said.
Tyree made a face.
"That sounds like something paperwork would say."
Jade almost smiled. It hurt too much, so she saved the effort. Waddell tapped the top of the page with his pencil.
"Statement one. Time unknown. Location, central school basement shelter. Event, skeletal entity blocked fatal strike directed toward Jade Fujiwara and nearby civilians."
"No," Jade said.
He sighed.
"What now?"
"Do not call him skeletal entity."
"The people reading this are not ready for boyfriend returned as weaponized bone."
"Then they can catch up."
"Jade."
"Write white skeleton if you have to. Not entity."
Waddell looked at Kieran. Kieran did not look away from the gold line.
"Entity is dehumanizing. Also imprecise."
"Thank you, Professor Knife-Light."
"Accepted."
Rima pointed at the page.
"Write behavior first. Identity later."
Waddell's pencil paused.
"Explain before I hate that."
"The stolen face has appearance. Your skeleton has action. If you argue identity first, Zunoder wins the easy half of the room. If you argue behavior first, people must compare what each one did."
Jade hated how useful she was.
"Write that."
Waddell wrote.
RECORDED BEHAVIOR: WHITE SKELETON BLOCKED STRIKE, MOVED JADE AWAY FROM IMPACT, CUT HOSTILE CLAIM FROM TARGET WITHOUT STRIKING JADE.
He stopped.
"Is that accurate?"
Jade touched the gauze over her eye.
"Mostly."
Tyree looked over.
"Mostly means?"
"He saved my body. Something still took payment."
The room quieted around that in layers. Children kept breathing behind the pantry shelves. A wounded soldier groaned when someone changed a bandage. The generator coughed. Normal sounds tried to make room for an abnormal sentence and failed.
Waddell wrote anyway.
COST TO WITNESS: UNKNOWN. VISION DAMAGE REPORTED. DEATH-CLASS MARK AGGRAVATED.
Jade leaned forward.
"Do not write death-class."
"The fake response team already used it."
"That is exactly why."
Kieran spoke without turning.
"Use adversarial term, not accepted term."
Waddell wrote:
ADVERSARIAL TERM USED BY FAKE RESPONDERS: DEATH-CLASS MARK.
Jade nodded once.
"Better."
The freezer paper fluttered. No wind moved through the basement. Rima's hand went inside her coat. Kieran's gold line went bright. The pencil lifted from Waddell's fingers. It hung in the air. Then it wrote one word by itself.
TY
Tyree grabbed the pencil before it finished the second stroke. The wood cracked in his fist.
"Nope."
Waddell stared at the broken pencil.
"I liked that pencil."
"It was compromised."
"Still liked it."
Jade pushed herself up from the crate. Kieran turned fast.
"Sit down."
"The paper is listening."
"I noticed. Sit down while noticing."
Rima crouched near the freezer. She did not touch the page. Her black eyes moved over the damp corners.
"Not listening. Attracting."
The first paper hand pushed through the floor under the freezer. It was flat, white, and jointed wrong, with a brass pen between two fingers. It slapped the tile, found purchase, and pulled up another hand behind it.
Waddell raised his pistol. Rima caught his wrist.
"Do not shoot documentation."
"That sentence deserved shooting."
"It will multiply."
Kieran's gold light lashed down. The first hand froze with the pen one inch from the witness statement. A second hand came through the freezer door. Tyree kicked it. His foot passed through paper and hit metal hard enough to dent it.
"Ow. Bad plan."
The children behind the pantry started crying again. Jade grabbed the clipboard with her good hand.
"Names."
Waddell did not ask which names this time.
"Shelter count?"
"Everyone who saw him."
He understood. He always looked annoyed when he understood something terrible.
"That is a lot of people."
"Good."
"You want more witnesses?"
"I want the paper to choke."
Rima's smile flashed. "There she is." Waddell shouted over his shoulder.
"Anyone who saw the white skeleton block the strike, raise a hand and say your name. Full name if you can. If you cannot, first name and who can verify you."
No one moved. Fear held them better than thread. Then the boy with the broken dinosaur lifted one hand.
"Mason."
His voice shook. Tyree looked at him.
"Last name?"
"I forgot."
That broke something in the room. Not cleanly. Enough. The older woman from the pantry raised her hand.
"Mason Bell. I know his mother."
Waddell wrote. The paper hands recoiled from the freezer. Kieran saw it.
"Again."
The wounded man with the towel lifted his good hand. Shame had eaten half his face since he opened the service door.
"Caleb Morris. I saw the skeleton push her. I thought it was attacking her. It was not."
Waddell wrote faster. The freezer page stopped fluttering. More names came. A teacher. Two soldiers. A cafeteria worker. A girl who would not let go of her little brother's collar. Each name weighed the paper down until the hands could not lift the corners.
Jade sat back on the crate because her legs had become rumors. Rima watched the page settle.
"That will hold for now."
"For now is my least favorite unit of time," Waddell said.
The basement intercom popped. It had not worked since the gym collapsed. Static cleared. Zunoder's stolen voice came through bright and wounded.
"Thank you for making a list, Jade."
Every name on the freezer page turned black.