At thirteen hundred, the staging yard smelled like Caleb's old containment bay.
Winches lowered a Class-4 Wallbiter toward the slab. Black fluid ran from its shoulder plating before its legs touched concrete. The chains kept the trunk raised while recruits backed away from the spreading puddle.
Mabel stood beside the carcass with a thermal blade over her shoulder.
"Recovered at nine this morning," she said. "Wallbiter. Where do you cut to take its mobility?"
A recruit lifted his hand. "Rear hocks. Sustained plasma fire through the tendon."
"How long?"
He looked at the armored legs. "Until it gives."
"Your barrel overheats first. Try again."
The recruit lowered his hand. Nobody else offered a target.
Caleb stood against the chain-link fence, keeping his right shoulder clear of the metal. A drill-recording camera above the fence faced the slab. He could see the left joint from there. A seam opened as the carcass settled against its own weight.
"Leave the rear legs," he said.
Mabel turned toward him. "Show me."
He walked through the recruits and took a thermal knife from the equipment rack. The handle fitted his left hand poorly. He turned it until the switch sat beneath his thumb.
"Left side carries more weight," he said. "That gap opens wider when the leg takes the load."
He pointed with the unlit blade. One recruit came closer to see, then stopped at the fluid under Caleb's boots.
"We used to prop this joint before we hung one up in disposal. Cut it too early and the whole leg folded while you were under it."
Caleb kept himself outside the leg's path and switched on the knife.
The edge entered the seam. He worked it through the cartilage and turned it across the pressure sac beneath. Fluid sprayed onto the slab.
The left leg folded. Its armor struck the concrete, and the trunk dropped against the restraining chains. One of the recruits jumped back into the fence.
Caleb switched off the knife. He waited until the winch stopped rocking before putting it on the rack.
The recruit who had suggested the hocks came to the edge of the puddle. He leaned sideways to look beneath the plate without stepping closer.
"How would you see that seam while it's moving?"
Caleb pointed to the fold in the opposite joint. "When the foot comes down. Don't follow the armor. Watch where it opens."
The recruit bent to look from the front.
"Not there," Caleb said.
He caught the man's sleeve with his left hand and moved him out of the hanging leg's path. The chain above them was still under load. Even dead, the carcass could take another piece out of somebody if the support gave.
The recruit looked up at the winch and backed off.
"What if you're carrying a rifle?"
"Then you still need the gap. Shooting the plate won't make it wider."
Caleb stepped back himself. Talking about a live Wallbiter was easier while this one's jaws hung slack above the slab. He had never had to wait in front of those jaws for a joint to open.
Mabel crouched beside the opened joint. She touched the edge of the plate with her boot, looked at the angle of the cut, and stood.
"That's why I asked him to show you. Remember where he stood, too. The leg would have taken his foot if he'd stayed underneath it."
She looked at Caleb.
"Barrett thinks you might be a fluke."
"Does he send all his flukes to the front?"
"We haven't got a separate line for them."
She struck a transport crate with the flat of her blade.
"Assault Squad Three assembles in ten minutes. Surplus kits, live-fire simulation. Treadwell, you take point."
Caleb glanced at the cut joint. His old job had paid him to find those seams on a slab. In ten minutes, he would have to find them while something moved toward him.
***
He reached Barracks 4 with enough time to collect his helmet and eat the calorie bar left in his duffel.
The armor pressed on his ribs when he sat. His right arm had begun to tremble after holding it steady beside the carcass. He rested it across his lap and opened the foil with his left hand and teeth.
The bar tasted of dry sawdust. He kept chewing until the cramp in his stomach loosened.
Mabel had returned the comms chip that morning. He took it from his uniform pocket and pressed it behind his ear.
"I liked the cut," the buyer said.
Caleb swallowed. "It was a dead carcass."
"I liked the briefing more. You told her you need my money."
"I told her how the feed works."
"She thought she could put me aside. You knew better."
He folded the empty wrapper, small enough to fit in his pocket. The doorway stayed in his line of sight. He could not afford to lose track of the assembly time.
He tried raising his right arm to the height of a rifle stock. It reached his chest and stopped. The bar had taken the edge off the hunger; it had not made the arm easier to lift.
From behind his ear, the buyer waited for him to answer. Caleb lowered the arm before it began to shake again.
"You covered the hospital," he said. "I didn't give you orders over the squad."
"I'll supply your engagement points. Jaeger rank, better food, a suit worth wearing. You won't need their public bids."
He looked down at the scratched chest plate. Better food alone would have made him listen.
"What do you want?"
"The same thing I've already bought. An exclusive show."
"Then let me work."
Caleb waited, hand still on the helmet.
"You're making demands again."
Caleb put his good hand on the helmet. "I'm about to hold a rifle. Don't cover the sights with messages. Don't take over a medic while somebody needs treatment."
"I kept you alive."
"I know. I wouldn't be here without the capsule and the hospital treatment."
He waited for the interruption. None came.
"That's why I'm telling you," he said. "My arm barely works. The suit doesn't carry its own weight. I need to see the target and hear the orders."
Beyond the door, boots passed toward the staging yard. Caleb stood, using the bed frame to push himself up.
"If I fail the drill, Mabel won't put me somewhere you want to watch. Give me the afternoon."
The connection stayed open. He could hear its soft static while he waited, helmet held against his hip.
"We'll see," the buyer said.
Caleb put the helmet on. The military display lit blue; no message covered it.
He checked the time and went to join Assault Squad Three.