The elevator descent made Marco's shoulder ache before he moved it.
The pain was memory first. His arm rested at his side. Ridgeway's replacement work bow was locked in the surface equipment cage, nowhere near him; his personal bow remained at home. Still, when the lift passed the depth marker for Zone 1, his shoulder tightened where Wes's weight had pulled and the gate seemed to strike again inside the joint.
Marco put both hands on the rail.
The crew around him allowed the gesture to be ordinary.
Cal checked his respirator seal. Harlan read the shift card. The two morning-pool workers discussed a high-school football score. Dana stood beside the controls with Marco's clearance packet clipped to her board.
Medical clearance did not mean an unrestricted first shift. The physician allowed a thirty-pound load and gradual bow work. Dana kept Marco beside Cal, barred him from solo tasks, and told him to turn around at pain, panic, or unfamiliar sign.
His System Rank G did not lift the crate or quiet the elevator. The repaired body and the armed escort determined today's limits.
His Rank remained G.
His public license was active again, with workplace restrictions.
His body had not read either line before tightening.
“You can ride back up,” Dana said quietly.
“I know.”
“That wasn't a challenge.”
“I know that too.”
The doors opened into Zone 0.
Marco smelled wet stone, hot metal, disinfectant, and fungal sweetness from the incoming line. None of it was the blindjaw. His pulse disagreed.
He stepped off.
The first two hours stayed above the active checkpoint. Marco moved sealed gland crates from intake to cooling, inspected cart locks, and logged decontamination tags. Laborer settled into work his body recognized. His shoulder held at twenty pounds, then twenty-five. He stopped before the therapist's maximum rather than treating permission as a target.
Wes worked at the opposite desk with his arm still in a sling. His concussion symptoms had mostly cleared, but screens required scheduled breaks.
“Remember carrying me?” he asked.
“Parts.”
“I don't.”
Wes had reconstructed the evacuation from statements other people wrote. He knew which route his body traveled, where the rats appeared, and that Marco's shoulder worsened in the bypass. None of it existed in his memory.
“Thank you,” he said.
Marco aligned a crooked crate tag. “Cal, Harlan, and two harvest hands carried too.”
“I thanked them.”
“Then you're caught up.”
Wes looked at the restricted-duty clock. “I used to think getting hurt underground would at least come with a better story.”
“You complained about map forms for a week.”
“That sounds like me.”
The ordinary exchange loosened something Marco had carried more tightly than the pack.
At break, Ray appeared on Dana's tablet from his apartment.
He wore a brace and sat in a chair surrounded by route manuals.
“You look terrible,” Marco said.
“I have achieved home-office management.” Ray peered at him through the screen. “Elevator?”
“Bad.”
“Work?”
“Fine so far.”
“Those can both be true.”
Dana turned the tablet toward the shift map. The assignment covered North Approach Two, three junctions from the repaired wards. The spur remained closed. A patrol had swept the route before dawn and found ordinary prey sign. Nobody called that a guarantee.
“Cal escorts. E patrol is one junction over,” Dana said. “You can decline now or inside.”
Ray said, “Repeat that last part until his stubbornness hears it.”
“It heard.”
“Your stubbornness has G potential.”
Marco almost laughed. The release of breath helped more than pretending calm.
He entered with Cal.
North Approach Two had been washed since the incident. Chalk, blood, shed shell, and most loose dust were gone. The walls remained. Every seam looked capable of pulsing.
Marco checked the junction alarm, then the floor. The device showed green. Fresh beetle tracks crossed its base. Cal checked the ceiling. Three incomplete kinds of reassurance were better than one.
Cal waited without urging him.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
They collected bluecap bundles from a low cart and replaced three bait canisters. The work required no weapon. Cal carried the spear and held the active-zone lead because his Rank F, license, and medical clearance covered the assignment. Marco handled route records and material condition.
At the second canister, a dragging sound came from the side cut.
Steel over stone.
Marco's hands went cold.
The blindjaw had moved with heavy impacts, not a drag. The collapsing mesh had dragged. The cart that broke Ray's leg had dragged.
Cal lifted the spear. “I hear it.”
The alarm remained green. Beetles still scratched beneath the nearby shelf.
The side cut turned after twelve feet. Their route authorized them to pass it, not enter.
Marco could think of harmless causes: a loose tray shifting under ventilation, a maintenance cable, water moving debris. He could also think of reasons an instrument might remain green while conditions changed.
“Withdraw to Junction One,” he said.
Cal nodded.
They did not investigate. They left the collection cart, marked its position, and walked backward until the side cut left sight. At Junction One, Cal called the patrol.
The licensed E-rank pair arrived in four minutes. One covered while the other sent a crawler camera around the turn.
A damaged harvest sled lay tilted against the wall. Water from a new crack had undermined one runner. Each ventilation cycle shifted the sled half an inch and dragged steel across stone.
No creature waited there.
Marco felt relief first and embarrassment immediately after.
Cal saw both.
“We lost nine minutes,” he said.
“Patrol lost four.”
“Cheaper than a leg.”
The patrol lead logged the water crack and cleared the route after maintenance secured the sled.
Nobody congratulated Marco for retreating. Nobody mocked him. The shift resumed under a new condition note.
Marco made himself walk back to the side cut after it was cleared.
The secured harvest sled looked small. Water struck its runner, ventilation shifted the loose frame, and steel dragged exactly as before. Knowing the source changed the sound so completely that he resented it.
He photographed the crack and measured the interval. The water pulse matched the surface pump. No repeating mana fluctuation appeared. No residue trace registered on the loose mineral. A harmless explanation could also be documented rather than merely felt.
On the way out, the evacuation alarm underwent its scheduled noon test.
Marco knew it was coming. His pulse still jumped. He named five visible objects, set both boots against the floor, and kept breathing until the announcement ended.
Cal did not look away theatrically or watch him too closely. He waited.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
They finished the route.
That was what ordinary professional behavior looked like when no story required a hero.
They completed the collection block twenty-three minutes late with less material than planned.
“Bad production,” Dana said. “Good return.”
Ray watched the body-camera excerpt remotely and sent one message: Correct retreat. Check the source only after the spear arrives.
He did not write be less afraid.
Preparing his personal bow for a professional field review cost ninety-four dollars.
Pritchard replaced a worn rest that had begun drifting during the public outings, checked the limbs for twist, inspected the string under magnification, and retuned the sight to the new center.
“Shoulder cleared?” he asked.
“For gradual draw.”
“Gradual means you stop while it still feels insulting.”
Marco bought two personal dungeon arrows for twenty-eight dollars. Thirteen remained from his public outings; they had stayed locked at home while Ridgeway's issued work quiver went into the incident. Fifteen personal shafts now rested in the case for his field review, each rolled, flexed, numbered, and assigned a condition line.
The first aboveground draw at ten yards trembled before anchor.
He let down.
The second reached anchor, held for one breath, and returned without a shot.
On the third, Marco released. The arrow landed four inches left of the center circle.
It was an ordinary bad shot from a healing shoulder.
He stopped after six arrows.
Two months earlier he would have called the short session wasted. Now it provided exactly what he needed: load tolerance, a new sight reference, and proof that cleared did not mean restored.
His second week back included a surface post-processing shift outside the threshold.
Nia placed a preserved ridge-crawler recovery pack on Marco's table with a red evidence tag across the seal. The animal had died beneath falling stone during the migration. A response crew had made the emergency field cuts after the route cleared: ruined hide left with the render section, one ruptured gland isolated, and the remaining neck block held for investigation before surface post-processing.
“Review only,” she said. “Don't invent value because you want a milestone.”
Marco inspected the preserved sections.
The intact scent gland had bruised against the jaw and failed pharmaceutical grade. Tendons on the left rear leg were contaminated with stone dust. The abdominal catalyst node had split.
Salvage drew him toward the damaged node.
At first it looked like the familiar promise of recoverable structure. He changed the light angle. A dark line crossed the capsule wall.
If he cut where the skill first pulled his attention, the capsule would open through contamination and ruin the clean tissue beside it.
Marco probed from the opposite side.
The node itself was lost. A sheath around the spinal junction remained intact and could sell as low-grade binding membrane if separated before rendering.
“Node is waste,” he said. “Posterior sheath is recoverable. Maybe twelve dollars gross. Seven minutes if the contamination strip stays clear.”
Nia checked his proposed cut. “Do it.”
The membrane came free in one piece.
The strip remained green.
Nia weighed the membrane: fourteen ounces, eleven dollars and sixty cents at the local contract rate. Marco had overestimated by forty cents. The seven-minute recovery took eight because his shoulder forced one reset.
“Profitable?” she asked.
Marco calculated labor at his actual wage, sterilizer overlap, and avoided render handling. “Barely, if it happens during the existing batch. Not as a separate station.”
“Then write barely.”
He entered the result without rounding it into a triumph.
He had not turned damage into a miracle. He had declined the tempting part, recovered a smaller one, and kept contamination out of the batch.
Marco assigned the point to Endurance.
Endurance: 11 → 12. Integration estimate: 24–72 hours.
Marco sat with the notices while the field pack waited.
He checked the updated profile once.
System status: Rank F · Level 12 · Strength 10 · Endurance 12 · Agility 10 · Perception 11 · Will 11 · Mana 6 · License ACTIVE — PUBLIC TEAM-RESTRICTED.
The profile did not explain every weakness. In an open fight without preparation, an ordinary F-rank frontline delver should beat him. In a familiar dungeon with time, route information, tools, fallback positions, and material knowledge, his useful contribution had crossed the line.
One rank could summarize that only badly.
Nia tapped the table. “The crawler is still waiting.”
Marco closed the display and finished the batch.
At shift end, Dana called him into the office. His monitored-duty reports sat beside the incident record, medical clearance, output history, active public license, and updated System Rank.
“Ridgeway will sponsor the professional field review,” she said. “No promise from the board. If they don't add the endorsement, you remain on current duties.”
“Why sponsor me?”
“Because Rank F with a professional field-recovery endorsement lets us assign you where we already know you're useful, improves our insurance position, and gives us a worker who can combine route logging with recovery.” She slid the form across. “Consistency. Not destiny.”
Ridgeway would spend $410 on the review and one paid preparation shift. If Marco passed, ADR's contract rate for professionally endorsed field-recovery hours rose enough to repay the cost in roughly six weeks. If he failed, the company still retained a trained F-rank worker on his existing public license and could decide whether another review made sense.
The sponsor agreement also listed what Ridgeway would not buy: advanced bow equipment, a combat-endorsement review, personal public-site gear beyond the required field outing, or any future application. Ridgeway continued supplying every arrow and weapon used on its paid shifts; Marco would use his repaired personal bow and his own arrows only for the independent review route whose harvest and equipment risk remained his. Employer support widened the path without making private gear a workplace expense.
If he left within six months, repayment applied only to the review fee and decreased with verified professional hours. Injury, layoff, or loss of medical clearance canceled repayment. Emma highlighted that clause before Marco signed. A benefit that became debt whenever the worker got hurt would have changed the risk instead of sharing it.
The sponsorship was support with arithmetic behind it, which made Marco trust it more.
Marco signed the application.
The county portal offered the first appointment on October twentieth.
The application preserved the uneven package: Level 12; System Rank F; public license active; medical clearance current; Salvage 4 and Bow 2; fifteen personal arrows; incident record verified; advanced combat endorsement not requested.
Ray reviewed the submission remotely and found two date errors. Emma found a cost omitted from the equipment attachment. Sarah read the field-risk waiver all the way through and made Marco initial the household rules again.
On Friday, the county approved the appointment.