The city practiced parade somewhere else. Their block woke to stripes of quiet and the small bureaucracy of safety. Battery Crate hummed. The LED stripe laid its line like a ruler across the table. Kael lifted the ledger and felt the page steady in his hands.
"We do not need to be brave," he said.
"We need to be correct," Mira answered.
Nox: "And anchored."
Renn: "And on the dots."
[System: Day Plan] - Mission A: with ~50 PC, unlock Engineering T1: Fasteners Pro; install brick anchors at A1/A2 frames; test in A3. - Mission B: run escorted corridor to the laundromat (detergent, carts, hoses) during parade window. - Mission C: design Dumb Light decoy to lure infected without mirrors; test in alley. - Mission D: draft neutrality pact language with Brass Street regarding Receipt Wall and stair watches. - Observation: Blue smeared CROWN PARADE schedule on clinic wall; new handprints at child height along route. - Reward: +2 PC for anchor installation, +1 PC for corridor success, +1 PC for decoy functioning, +1 PC for pact ratified.
PC available: 49.5.
Kael did not like round numbers left unrounded. He liked earned numbers. He selected the node because doors deserve spine.
[System: Knowledge Acquired]
Engineering T1: Fasteners Pro installed.
Effects: +anchor selection for brick/block, +toggle - bolt use in hollow, +shear/withdraw modeling.
PC remaining: 46.5.
Mira watched him the way hinges watch storms. "You are about to make the door believe in itself," she said.
"I am about to let the wall carry some of the door's faith," Kael said. - - - Brick learns to hold
A3 grew a small rig out of scrap: a section of brick clamped in a wood cradle and a borrowed fish scale spring gauge to measure pull - out. Kael set a sleeve anchor, a wedge anchor, and a toggle bolt in holes he drilled with patience and a prayer to straight lines. He pulled until numbers told stories.
"Wedge wins in good brick," he said. "Sleeve wins in tired brick. Toggle wins when gods hate you and hollows hide."
Nox grinned. "I like that our religion has hardware."
They drilled A1's jamb, where the brick had been honest for decades and wanted to keep being honest. They set two sleeves and one wedge for the strap cleat and bar seat. At A2 they replaced two long screws with anchors that gripped like better habits. The door frames stopped whispering about leaving their posts.
Mira pressed her shoulder to A2 and pushed. The wall answered with a noise that meant no. "Anchored," she said, approving.
[System: Reinforcement]
Brick anchors installed A1/A2; bar/strap seats upgraded; pull - out tested in A3.
Effect: +door denial; +wear life.
+2 PC.
PC: 48.5. - - - Parade window and a small corridor
CROWN PARADE drifted west. The clinic street filled with people who wanted to be told where to stand. Their noise drew variants like flies to loud honey. Kael chose the opposite direction. "We go to the laundromat," he said. "Quiet is a road when loud makes a traffic jam."
He mapped the corridor: out RN - 4, behind the dumpster, through the chain link cut he had worried into a friend last week, across the lot in the hymn shoulder, then into the laundromat rear door with the hinge that did not know its own name.
Thread in front, Scout at her shoulder, Bar carrying empty, Latch deciding; Isa and Tom as rear eyes. Aunt Mara at A2 teaching the child a new square that included counting to five without moving, a skill that belongs in churches.
They crossed during the 12:00 shoulder's middle. The block felt hollowed, attention sucked to the parade route. The laundromat smelled like long - ago soap and coins that missed pockets. They found two rolling carts with bearings that still had some kindness, a coil of braided hose, and three jugs of detergent like blue bricks. Renn discovered a bag of clothespins and smiled because order is allowed to be small.
They moved back in the shoulder's fall, wheels whispering complaint only to the floor. At RN - 4, Kael tugged the Noise Pot line once; no reply; calm. The corridor held.
[System: Corridor]
Laundromat run completed; carts + hose + detergent recovered.
+1 PC.
Mira wrote a new square near the A2 bench for the child: a folding game about pinning clothespins to tape only when told. "Hands that wait," she said. - - - Dumb Light
Mirrors had become language, and language had become a hunt for glints. Kael wanted a decoy that did not translate. He built Dumb Light from a dead phone backlight, a resistor, and a paper sleeve that breathed in a flat, insect pulse. He hid the LED behind slotted cardboard so that from a distance it looked like the blink of a dying machine or the lie of a passing toy.
He set it at the alley bend on a stake, wired to a thin cord so he could tug the sleeve and alter the rhythm a little. He tested during the 19:00 shoulder. A shuffler drifted toward it like a man who wanted to remember where he left his keys. The Seer, not present, did not answer. Two runners paused, confused by a light that did not argue or reflect. They lost interest when the sleeve stopped. Good. Dumb Light lured the uncurious and bored the clever. That is a useful spectrum.
[System: Decoy]
Dumb Light Mk I built; tested; effect: lures shufflers, distracts some runners; neutral to Seer.
+1 PC.
Kael noted: never use when mirrors are talking; never near children; use to thin a pack before a shelf sermon. - - - Stripes and a pact
Stripe arrived with the map man and a bottle with a red cap that said Stabilizer in letters too cheerful for the year. Four hinge plates too. "We have parade on our west," she said without drama. "We do not have time for a war on our east. We want to sign something that is not a flag."
Kael had drafted language on butcher paper:
STAIR NEUTRALITY PACT v0.1 - We = Stair A1/A2/A3 and Brass Street Clinic block. - Watches: shared at hymn shoulders; cloth flip; no shouting. - Taxes: no paint on stairs; Receipt Wall records watches and repairs only. - Trades: screws/plates/bleach/fuel stabilizer for timing advice and reinforcement help. - Names: none inside parley; titles by function only. - Breach: if violated, pact is suspended pending Quiet Court.
Stripe read, mouth crooked. "We can do this," she said. She made a mark that was not her name. Kael made a mark that was not his. Isa witnessed with a line that meant I saw this; Tom witnessed with a check mark that meant I approve in a school that no longer existed. The map man drew a small square in a corner because he liked squares.
[System: Pact]
Neutrality Pact v0.1 ratified between Stair and Brass Street. Effect: +watch reliability, - paint coercion, +trade clarity.
+1 PC.
They poured a thimble of fuel stabilizer into the clinic's drum as proof of intention. Kael wrote RUN ON SHOULDERS ONLY in chalk on the generator frame because words on machines keep hands honest. - - - Blue finds the Receipt Wall
When they returned, the TAX letters near the mailboxes had new friends. Someone had daubed a small crown in the corner of the Receipt Wall paper as if to sign it. The paper had not asked for a signature. Kael exhaled through his nose. Mira stared until the crown looked smaller because a certain kind of gaze reduces graffiti.
Kael took a thin black pencil and drew a rectangle around the crown and wrote in small letters: trespass. He did not erase; he archived. He added a line to the ledger for the watch minutes Isa and Tom had paid, then added a line labeled Blue: 0 minutes. Payment matters. Names do not.
[System: Counter - communication]
Receipt Wall defended by annotation, not erasure. Effect: message preserved; intrusion labeled; neighbors see math.
Tom laughed quietly. "We are making bureaucracy fight graffiti," he said.
"We are making doors fight ideas," Kael said. - - - Seer returns with a small choir
Near dusk the Seer returned with three regular infected orbiting it like moons. It paused at the alley mouth and stood where the hymn node would be loudest if a person wanted to be heard. It tilted its head toward the roof, then the clinic, then the alley. The moons bumped into a trash bin and apologized to nothing. The Seer moved its hand one inch and the moons followed the inch like students.
Mira touched Kael's arm. "If it learns our squares, it will write us."
"Then we teach it boredom," Kael said. He did not mirror. He did not flash. He tugged the Dumb Light sleeve twice at the far bend. The moons all turned gratefully toward stupidity. The Seer turned too, then stopped itself as if insulted. It cocked its head, thinking. The Dumb Light stopped pulsing. The Seer frowned with its whole skull and left with irritation so dignified it almost looked human.
[System: Variant Behavior]
Seer rejects Dumb Light after 1 cycle; followers respond. Action: Dumb Light only for pack - thinning; never sustain with Seer present.
Kael wrote: Seer has ego. He scratched it out and wrote: Seer has pattern pride. - - - Anchor - 3 learns brick better
Using the stabilizer high, Kael felt allowed to be ambitious. He built a brick anchor test board with labeled holes and paper tags: hole size, anchor type, torque, pull - out reading. He made it a ritual: drill, brush, blow, set, torque, wait, pull. He wrote times in the margin because time is a fastener.
Nox learned the ritual with the same joy he used to reserve for breaking things. "I like pulling until numbers tell me to stop," he said.
[System: Lab Note]
A3 anchor test rig established; procedure posted.
Effect: +reliable installs; +training capacity. - - - PC crosses a line
They sat to audit while the parade noise drifted away like a tide. Kael read the day with the tone he used for anchors: steady, square, no decoration. - Fasteners Pro unlocked; brick anchors installed A1/A2; A3 test rig. - Laundromat corridor run succeeded; carts/hoses/detergent recovered. - Dumb Light Mk I built and tested; effective on shufflers, neutral/insulting to Seer. - Neutrality Pact v0.1 signed with Brass Street; stabilizer + plates received; generator rule chalked. - Blue tried to sign the Receipt Wall; annotated as trespass; records intact. - Seer returned with small group; decoy used to peel followers; Seer pattern pride noted. - Doctrine: repeated.
[System: Audit Complete]
+2 PC (anchors), +1 PC (corridor), +1 PC (decoy), +1 PC (pact), +1 PC (discipline), +1 PC (doctrine).
Total PC: 55.5.
Advisory: With 55+ PC, expansion feasible: Bio/Chem T1 Antiseptic Gel, Engineering T1 Fasteners - >Masonry drill discipline, Info T1 Line Relay (heliograph), Energy T1 Charge Control. Next: prep Anchor - 4 scouting south route after parade; teach Isa/Tom anchor ritual; build Door Receipt (small card hung inside listing who checked hinges, when).
Mira traced a square on the table with her finger. "We go south tomorrow," she said. "I want to draw squares on a new floor."
"We go south during the shoulder," Kael agreed. "We carry rules before we carry beds."
Nox rolled his shoulders, pleased. "And we bring screws," he said. "We always bring screws."
Renn tapped his headlamp twice, then once, then twice, practicing the mirror code without light. The child, from his tape square, whispered, "We win when we are boring," as if recalling a scripture. Aunt Mara smiled like paperwork had saved a life today.
Kael put his palm on the ledger. "We do not need to be brave."
"We need to be correct," they answered.
Outside, CROWN PARADE painted its arrows at people who wanted to be pointed at. Blue signed papers it did not write. The Seer rehearsed its dignity. Inside, anchors learned to hold, and a dumb light learned to insult clever monsters. The house prepared to grow a new square.