The Carpal Saint of Infrared City
Decoded from subsurface broadcast, 2438 CE, District Omega-Vermilion
Before the towers fell and the marrowfields were burned clean by thermocalcination, there was a saint who healed with only her wrists.
They called her Saint Carpal — not because she spoke (she did not), nor because she performed the sanctioned bone miracles (she refused), but because she had seventeen wrists, all functioning, all precise, all humming with overlight.
Infrared City was a vertical ruin of red glass and moaning vents, its citizens bent double from radiation stress. Still they queued, up the scaffolds and across the melted causeways, to kneel before her bench of chrome and tendon.
With each wrist, she unwound a wound. With each twist, she absorbed a spasm. With each turn, she erased names no longer safe ... See more