F-Rank Mimic Chest: My SSS Mimic Skill Lets Me Become Anything

Black wax reached Dane through the upper tag nail first.

The nail tugged at his lid band. The lower one followed at his tongue root, and the careful pressure in both wounds became heavier than Grib’s ordinary commands. The wax had found the routes already driven through him. It needed no new ones.

Buk woke beneath Dane with his breath held.

”Bad wax finds names,” he whispered into the floor. ”Buk prefers name unfound.”

His weight left Dane’s lower board by degrees. Sackcloth dragged across stone; the bent spoon slid after it with one faint scrape. Buk stopped. When nothing entered the corridor, he dragged himself the rest of the way toward the broken shelf.

Leather rubbed over the wettest patch of his trail. His injured leg bumped wood, and he went quiet behind it.

Dane pressed the crooked pin once. The tick might have meant hide, hurry, or I know you are still there. Buk answered by setting his spoon down without a sound.

Cart wheels squealed along the Quartermaster Track.

Grib pulled them into the annex, one wheel complaining at each turn. A shallow bowl knocked against the cart rail. Damp fungus and old brine reached Dane through his seams.

”Patrol ration,” Grib warned someone behind him. ”If even one cap leaves that bowl, the ration office will discover theft and my name in the same breath.”

Another step entered without breath or body heat. A heel touched stone, and bones settled inside cloth with a dry sequence of clicks. A point tapped a slate, paused, then made one precise scratch. The hot-wax scent belonged to whoever carried it.

”Clerk Kett requested an inspection,” Grib announced. ”Quartermaster Grib attended before anybody could describe that as avoidance.”

The dry jaw behind him clicked once before Kett spoke. ”You filed one hinge fault. Under it, you placed a missed rat, Captain Skek’s abandoned search, and Milo Trent’s hazard withdrawal.”

”Same room, same asset, same defective hinge. Connected incidents.”

The bone stylus began writing.

Grib filled the scratching with words. ”Connected locally. The hinge catches, the room is wet, and your passive tag says incomplete. I am giving you three causes before you attach one to me.”

The scent of hot sealing wax sharpened. Both nails pulled at once.

Pressure traveled from the upper nail around the strained hinge. It followed yesterday’s painful holds, crossed the front rim, and stopped where Milo’s copper had rattled over stone. The lower nail found the tongue movement that had made wealth sound close before Dane forced the lid shut.

No words left his mind. His wood had kept the marks.

Kett’s stylus returned to the slate. ”The passive tag supplied heat, location, and a fault state. Your report added intention after the incidents survived.”

”Patterns supplied those.”

”You cite guesses after they survive.” Kett moved close enough for cold wax to tighten inside the nail wounds. ”The asset’s private System is not your Registry. The guild receives a third record when treaty exposure requires one. Stop borrowing from layers that never spoke to you.”

Grib’s next breath came through his nose. He had no quick answer that would survive the stylus.

Kett read from the slate. A successful organic feed lay first. After it came the rat that escaped while the lure remained active. Then unregistered weight, wounded enough to bleed, had stayed beneath Dane during Skek’s search. Last came Milo’s tested hook, salvage placed beyond the bite line, and a written withdrawal.

Behind the shelf, Buk drew his leather dressing tighter. The small pull reached Dane through the floor.

”One hid,” Grib said. ”The trainee took salvage. Those are different failures.”

Kett scratched a line beneath both. ”Different targets. Each received an escape condition after the lure selected it. A hinge catches when it catches. Yours waited until both targets had an exit.”

He pressed the stylus into the wax. The contact drove the reconstructed paths through Dane’s two wounds and opened the staff layer to him.

/==[ Brackenvault Registry: Black-Wax Audit ]==\

| Asset: F-2 Storage Mimic Seventeen

| Passive Tag: Incomplete

| Audit Scope: Missed Feeds / Intent Trace

| Clerk: Kett

\==[ Wax: Reads Action Residue ]==/

The notice gave Dane words for the intrusion but no relief from it. Wax kept worrying at the old hold around Buk and the later tremor that sent Milo’s copper away. It pressed both traces together until the matching choice hurt in the upper nail.

The bowl left the cart. Grib protested before it touched the floor.

”Clerk Kett, that ration is counted. Use a stone. Stones do not come out of my allotment.”

The bowl settled one step from Dane’s front rim. Its damp, fungal smell mixed with Buk’s blood.

Black wax drove inward.

/==[ Brackenvault Registry: Command Pressure ]==\

| Source: Black-Wax Audit

| Target Response: Open / Claim

| Test Value: One Patrol Ration

| Witness Layer: Internal Registry

\==[ Command: Active ]==/

The upper nail hauled on Dane’s lid band. The lower one tightened his tongue beneath five ordinary coppers, the thin silver, the square-holed red-string coin, Nate’s knife, and Nate’s brass return charm. Hunger measured the bowl. Then Buk’s warm blood reached it from behind the shelf, and his mouth prepared for either answer.

His lid rose.

Dane bore sideways through the crooked pin. Metal shifted in the strained hinge and caught. Pain circled the pin, spread under the upper nail, and shook his left band. The opening stopped before the tongue could clear his teeth.

Coins ground into the tongue as it shoved for room. The bowl remained outside. Buk’s breath broke once behind the shelf, too near, and hunger changed preference.

Dane forced more of his weight into the snag.

Grib dragged the cart backward. Its bad wheel struck the doorframe.

”The command opened it,” Kett said over the scrape. ”The jam came from the asset.”

”You have already named the hinge.”

Kett made no reply. The stylus waited while Dane’s lid shuddered against the pin.

The command finally loosened. He let the lid settle without releasing the sideways hold completely. Pain continued to pulse through the old strain.

Stone scraped under the bowl.

Kett moved it half a step to Dane’s right.

The lower nail pulled first this time, wrenching the tongue and its copper load toward the new scent. The upper nail followed. Dane’s first jam slipped as the lid found a cleaner path, and the gap widened enough for one folded tooth to pass the rim.

He released the pin before the wrong pressure could help it open. For one sick beat the lid climbed freely. His tongue uncoiled toward the bowl while the deeper part of his mouth tightened around the warmer prey behind the shelf.

Finding the painful ring from the other side, Dane drove until the crooked pin kicked, caught again, and sent a tremor through the floor. Fungus shifted in the bowl without crossing the rim; his tongue struck closed teeth. The taste of Buk’s blood stayed in the room. Dane held until the command withdrew from both nails and left him shut around the ache.

Kett lifted the bowl. Grib took it at once. Soft pieces touched ceramic one after another as he checked them and set each back.

”The Core supplied the opening and appetite,” Kett said. ”When I moved the target, the asset abandoned one snag and made another in the new path. I am recording selected resistance under command. The ration and hidden weight remain unclaimed.”

The last phrase stopped Grib’s counting.

”If you write selection, somebody opens a sentient-asset review. Then they ask who took Nate Parr’s kill credit, who signed that repair, and why an incomplete tag stayed on the floor.” The bowl struck the cart rail harder than before. ”Melt it. I can file accidental loss before your wax grows curious.”

”Destruction preserves every unanswered question,” Kett said. ”Correction produces output.”

The wax pulled once more, but no Open command came with it.

/==[ Brackenvault Registry: Correction Order ]==\

| Asset Status: Abnormal / Retain

| Pattern Basis: Two Mercy Deviations

| Command Resistance: Confirmed

| Destruction: Deferred

\==[ Output Preferred Over Evidence ]==/

For three drips, nobody touched Dane. Grib tied the bowl to his cart with a strap that creaked under each angry pull. Behind the shelf, Buk released a shallow breath.

Dane remained closed.

Kett turned a slate page. ”Ash Company holds a licensed Floor Two permit. Its mage can produce trained evidence that survives your repair file and Skek’s patrol report. Schedule the unit for controlled contact.”

Grib went still beside the cart. ”Mage-class down here? That is how complaint letters learn spellwork.”

The stylus cut through warm wax. A fourth notice reached Dane through the tag.

/==[ Brackenvault Route Schedule ]==\

| Floor: Two / Controlled Hazard

| Candidate: Ash Company Delve Unit

| Mage-Class Contact: Vera Pike

| Test: Abnormal Mimic Response

\==[ Pike Unit: Pending ]==/

Vera Pike.

The name cooled Dane’s lockplate. Hunger loosened its hold on his tongue for one beat, then returned.

There was no face behind the name, no memory, and no reason for his body to know it.

Kett lifted the black wax away. Pressure withdrew through the lower nail and then the upper. Grib pulled the fungus cart after him, every piece still in its bowl. Their steps receded along the Quartermaster Track while Buk stayed silent behind the shelf.

Ash Company was coming because Dane had let two people live.