The city woke mean. Battery Crate purred anyway, refusing to take it personally. The LED stripe set a line across the ledger like a road with no turnoffs. Kael rubbed his thumb over the corner of the paper until the fibers lay down. Mira checked the seam with eyes that turned gaps into rules. Nox did a quiet inventory of weight - pipe, shoulders, doors owed. Renn flexed ankles and listened for corners. Eli polished honesty off a pair of wire cutters with his sleeve, which is just cleaning with optimism.
"We do not need to be brave," Kael said.
"We need to be correct," Mira answered.
Nox: "And heavier than whoever knocks."
Renn: "And on the dots."
Eli: "And wired right."
[System: Day Plan]
- Mission A: fortify A4 for night - bar seat steel strap, hinge shims, latch catch tuned, Pebble Curtain density +3.
- Mission B: draft Court-in-the-Hall v0.1 (mobile Quiet Court): public sentences payable in work, not pain; signage + tickets.
- Mission C: test Line Relay v0.1 (heliograph) between A3 roof and south water tower during shoulders.
- Mission D: stage BITTER SIGNAL at RN-6 and DRY GRAY at clinic gutter; pre-label pull cords.
- Observation: rumors of Blue "Confiscation Courts" after dusk; preacher absent mid-day; two Seer sightings west.
- Contingency: if confiscation raid forms, do not hold hallway; break formation with geometry; receipt-drop; capture leader if possible for Court.
- Reward: +1 PC A4 fortification, +1 PC Court mobile, +1 PC line relay test, +1 PC smoke staging, +1 PC raid handled with minimal blood.
PC available: 67.5.
Kael underlined CONTINGENCY twice. Contingencies are doors you pray to never open and then oil anyway.
---
A4 - make a door that teaches
They crossed on the 07:00 shoulder. Eli held the Hymn Ear to the stair rail and nodded at the way metal said good morning. Nox drove screws into a strap like paying taxes to gravity. Mira packed the Pebble Curtain tighter with three extra washers so it would whisper louder when wrong feet entered the room and not at all when right ones did. Kael shimmed the hinge with a slice of blister pack because plastic likes duty and takes it personally.
"Latch catch?" Eli asked.
Kael shaved the catch with a file until it kissed rather than bit. "Now the door knows yes and no," he said. "No maybe."
Mira chalked two new squares in A4: a sleep square by the interior corner and a work square by the window. Rules: shoes off in the sleep square; eyes on the pipe in the work square. She wrote, small but not shy, DO NOT APOLOGIZE TO DOORS. MAKE THEM CORRECT.
[System: Fortify]
A4 strap reinforced, hinge shimmed, catch tuned, Pebble Curtain densified. Effect: +denial, +signal quality.
+1 PC.
---
Court-in-the-Hall v0.1
They rolled butcher paper over the table and printed like city clerks. COURT-IN-THE-HALL v0.1 (Mobile).
- Jurisdiction: corridors and corners under Stair/Brass Street Neutrality; cases: theft, coercion, breach of watch, vandalism of receipts.
- Evidence: receipts, witness marks, pipe-shoulder logs, mirror code acknowledgments.
- Sentences: work minutes, hinge checks, cleaning duty, water runs, watch at hymn shoulder; never pain.
- Tickets: yellow paper slips - offense, who saw, what minute, where, restitution due.
- Procedure: public reading at stair elbow; two flips of the WATCH/DONE cloth; no shouting.
- Appeal: Quiet Court at end of week; ledger only.
"Tickets?" Nox said, amused. "We are fining the apocalypse."
"We are giving it chores," Kael said. "It will complain less when tired."
Mira folded ten yellow tickets with a crease that implied inevitability. Eli lettered them like he was paying respect to paper. Tom practiced filling one out with his tongue between his teeth. Isa watched with a look that was not hope and not its opposite but something that lets both stand without fighting.
[System: Governance]
Court-in-the-Hall v0.1 drafted; tickets printed; procedure posted at elbow. Effect: +public order, -vigilante impulses.
+1 PC.
---
Line Relay v0.1 - sunlight as wire
At 11:30 shoulder they climbed to A3's roof. The water tower two blocks south sent back glare like a lazy lighthouse. Kael mounted a cheap heliograph plate - polished tin on a pivot - to Board C and set a sight notch with a bent paperclip. Renn stood at the south stair with a palm mirror and learned to make his wrist act like a second hand.
"One sweep = ready," Kael said. "Two sweeps = go. Three sweeps = danger. Hold = wait. Friendly diagonal remains friendly."
Mira watched for accidental glints: none. Eli tightened the pivot until it turned like a polite neck. Kael flashed once. The tower winked. Twice. It winked twice. Three times. The tower drew a small line that meant do not do that again unless you want birds to think you are flirting. Good enough.
[System: Comms Test]
Line Relay v0.1 (heliograph) established A3 <-> south tower. Effect: +daylight range.
+1 PC.
"We will not use it at noon," Kael said. "We will use it on shoulders only, with felt baffles and small words."
Renn grinned at the sky with teeth that did not apologize. "We are outlaw lighthouses," he said.
---
Staging the air
They rigged BITTER SIGNAL under RN-6's ledge with a pull cord that could be found by hand in smoke. They pre-staged DRY GRAY at the clinic gutter with a note for Stripe: PULL ON SECOND HOLD ONLY. Eli braided cords so they would not catch ankles that belonged to friends. Nox drilled a small hole through which a cord would pass into A1's periscope corner, so a person there could start a can without being in the sermon at all.
Renn sniffed BITTER again and made a face like a song he refused to like. "This one makes the mouth argue with the lungs," he said.
"Good," Kael said again. "Argue with loud."
[System: Prep]
Smoke cords staged; remote pull possible at A1; coordination with clinic posted.
+1 PC.
---
The rumor of confiscation
By late afternoon, whispers moved faster than water. Blue would hold a "Confiscation Court" after dark at the long brick: mirrors illegal, receipts "Crown property," hoses "ration lines." The rumor brought civilians like moths bring themselves to candles and then write poems about it later. Stripe sent two holds and a diagonal: she could stand at the clinic, not at the brick. "We hold at our elbow," Kael replied with a single hold: wait.
He posted the Day Plan at A1 with an extra line: IF THEY TAKE, THEY CARRY TICKETS HOME.
Mira tucked tickets into her jacket. Isa and Tom rehearsed dot-and-square exits like dancers who want to make sure gravity agrees with art. Nox leaned his pipe in the corner because letting a tool rest before making it work makes it loyal later.
Eli rewound a small motor from a toy fan and frowned at it until it turned into a mouth that would eat two AA batteries and give a mirror board a gentle nod. "For the heliograph when wrists are busy," he said. "Not for today. For one day when hands are already holding someone who wants to leave."
Kael nodded because future is a tool too.
---
Dusk - the seizure attempt
The hymn shoulder rose like a cautious hand. The crowd rose more like a fist that wasn't sure what it had been promised but wanted to collect anyway. Blue arrived with six - two with sackcloth "robes" painted with crowns, two with poles, two with bags and tape. No preacher. A different voice spoke: flat, managerial, bored with nouns because it loved lists. "Confiscation Court. Turn over illegal mirrors, illegal hoses, illegal ledgers, illegal signs. The Crown will inventory and return as needed."
"Inventory this," Nox muttered, not as an invitation.
Kael stood at A1's periscope, watching lines. He sent diagonal friendly to Stripe and then no more. Mira, Eli, Isa, Tom took their posts: Mira near RN-6 shadow, Eli by the laundromat cut, Isa at the elbow, Tom halfway to clinic with a stack of tickets and a face that looked like he had always wanted to be this kind of clerk. Renn climbed and took the roof hatch at the laundry, to be rain on someone else's plans.
The bag men came first, going for the clinic gutter where DRY GRAY waited. Stripe put her hand on the chalk square and an eyebrow on the man. He smirked, which is a mask men wear when their stomachs want permission. He reached anyway. Stripe let him touch the cord and then smiled because cords are invitations only if you know their language. He pulled on not-the-second hold and nothing happened. He felt silly. Good. He pulled the second hold out of sequence, and the cord did what cords do when disrespected: it tightened in the wrong place and did nothing at all.
"Equipment malfunction?" he said to his partner, embarrassed the way only men are when a string fails to understand them.
"Inventory later," Stripe said. "No seizure. This is a weather project."
At RN-6, Mira watched two Blue approach low like thieves of ideas rather than things. She let them be clever for three steps because she respects craft. On the fourth, she flipped a stone with her toe and revealed a shin line that had pretended to be sleeping. They decided to be tall, which is rude when lines exist. The first caught. The second bent to help the first and caught on his wrist because Mira had tied two languages into one lesson.
Eli stepped from the laundromat cut with a ticket book and a boredom that was almost violence. "Confiscation without warrant," he said quietly. "Ticketed to thirty watch minutes payable at stair elbow. Signature as function, not name." He tucked the ticket into the first man's pocket the way nurses once tucked thermometers under tongues.
"Who do you think you are?" the man hissed.
"A function," Eli said. "Not a noun."
The managerial Blue arrived with two more, one on a pole watching for mirrors. He waved his hand like erasing a chalkboard. "Seize the boards. Tear the signs. Grab the hoses," he said, as if he were telling a forklift how to love him.
Kael saw where the pole was pointed: the dummy mirror on the low wall. He allowed the man to triumph. He watched the other two drift toward the clinic's real relay board, and he saw Stripe step to reach them with boredom. Neck, wrist, square. They stopped as if encountering an explanation. She rebuttoned the cover and said "school project" without malice.
"Smoke if they form," Kael said to nobody with his mouth and to the cords with his hands. He pulled BITTER SIGNAL with a steady arm. RN-6 coughed a taste that made mouths undecided about their loyalties. The line of Blue wavered. Civilians backed up, frowning at their tongues as if betrayed by taste buds. Mira waited at the rope arm with patience. Nox stood up into the alley like a problem that did not belong on paper.
The managerial Blue called, "Hold ranks," but this crowd did not have ranks. It had people. They held receipts from yesterday. They did not want to give up mirrors today if it meant looking foolish tomorrow. One woman in a yellow parka scolded the bag man for littering when he dropped a torn receipt. Which is how law begins: with someone tired of bending to a stupid version of order.
"Take their ledger," the manager said, pointing toward A1 as if pointing at a noun could move it.
Kael smiled without lips. "Try," he said to the room.
Two men tried the stair. Pebble Curtain sang. Isa flipped WATCH to DONE with a snap that sounded like a door deciding to save a life. Tom stepped into the elbow square and held up a ticket book like a priest. "Breach of neutrality," he said. His voice shook and then did not. The men paused because there's always a pause when paper stands up.
The manager waved again. A Seer stepped into the far end of the street.
It came like geometry. It looked at the clinic awning, at the laundry roof hatch, at the dumb light sleeping twelve meters beyond the RN-6 funnel, at the tenement window where A4's work square existed. It raised its hand an inch, and two nearby shufflers changed vectors like obedient rumors.
"Seer," Renn breathed in the roof hatch. He drew his mirror but kept it sleeping. He adjusted his angle by inches because inches are the difference between giving a Seer a religion and giving it indigestion.
"DRY GRAY now," Kael said. He pulled the clinic cord on the second hold. The gutter coughed a gray veil that turned the corner into oatmeal. The Seer did not enjoy becoming porridge. It tilted its head and stepped left. Mira let it, then flipped the rope arm two fingers, and RN-6's shelf-wing dropped a little, narrowing the world so the Seer would have to fold a shoulder to keep his lines. Seers hate compromise.
The manager tried a new plan: "Grab a hostage." He pointed at the woman in yellow. A Blue reached. Nox's pipe arrived before his fingers did. It did not break bone. It placed itself between a hand and a woman and said in iron, "You do not." The crowd exhaled the way crowds do when a rule appears from physics itself. The Blue stepped back because pipes are nouns he understood.
Eli slapped a ticket to the Blue's chest with the barest entertainment. "Attempted coercion," he said quietly. "Sixty watch minutes. Payable now or permission to leave withdrawn." He smiled because sometimes bureaucracy is a blade with kindness written on it.
The Seer, offended by soup, approached the veil with hunger and science. It tried to find edges. Kael tugged BITTER again and the taste in the air sang uglier. The Seer paused. It lifted a hand and the two shufflers behind it bumped into each other and then did it again, confused by a flavor that made bodies argue with orders.
"Collapse funnel on me," Kael said.
Mira's hands moved. The shelf-wings came in. RN-6 became a letter that meant No. The Seer decided not to read it. It stepped back. It turned its head toward the water tower, then away. It left, as if bored even by its own offense.
The manager found himself shouting at people who were now reading tickets and receipts to each other and laughing, which is a weapon. He swung his hand at the clinic again. Stripe raised hers, and the crowd surprised itself by copying her rather than him. Hands went up; not in surrender; in "we are not moving for your nouns."
Kael looked at the ledger without opening it and made a decision with his spine. "Capture," he said. "One leader. Clean."
Mira stepped. Nox moved with the weight of a verdict. Eli pulled a cord with a flick that made BITTER hiss a little more along the alley's ankle. Renn dropped from the hatch with a broom handle that had never swept a floor in its life and found a shin that needed to consider carpentry.
The manager turned to run and met a square that Mira had drawn yesterday because she had known that a man like this would prefer that direction. He almost stopped because chalk is a polite command. Nox provided an impolite one by placing his pipe just in front of the man's next step and letting physics suggest a conversation with ground. The man took the suggestion. He met the idea of pavement. He reconsidered his nouns from a lower angle.
Mira knelt and put two zip ties around wrists with the exact pressure that says we are not enemies, we are correcting you. "Court-in-the-Hall," she said. "Public. Work, not pain."
The crowd became a ring because people like circles when watching justice, even if they pretend they don't. Isa read the ticket with the solemnity of a librarian. Tom flipped WATCH to DONE and then back again for the rhythm. Stripe witnessed without smirking, which is its own discipline.
"Sentence," Kael said, because sentences belong to days.
"Six hours of watch minutes and three hinge checks under supervision," Isa said, voice steady. "Also: return two seized papers, apologize to the woman in the yellow parka for reaching."
The manager opened his mouth to create nouns and closed it because his tongue tasted like BITTER and his eyes saw a pipe and his wrists felt like zip ties and his chest felt like a small, new law he did not know how to break without learning to be better.
"I apologize," he said, in a voice he did not like because it belonged to him and not to a crown.
The crowd exhaled and then became air again. Blue collected Blue and left, one limping, one reconsidering his relationship to paper. The dummy mirror rested in a sack, triumphant in its uselessness. The relay boards slept. The clinic gutter coughed twice and then forgave itself for drama.
[System: Raid Outcome]
Confiscation attempt repelled; one leader captured and sentenced to work; no civilian blood; Seer denied; assets intact.
+discipline.
---
A scratch and a lesson
Back at A1, Tom washed a thin scratch on his forearm from a bag hook that had not been friendly. It was shallow but honest. Aunt Mara tsked and cleaned it with a strip of cloth boiled earlier because preparation is the mother of not dying. Eli made a note: antiseptic gel would make this easier when he had glycerin and stubbornness.
Kael underlined BIO/CHEM T1 - Antiseptic Gel on the options list and did not spend yet because improvements are bought with calm, not adrenaline.
Mira checked A4's Pebble Curtain; it had three new pebbles because curtains get ambitious when they work. Nox reset RN-6, checked the rod, rewound BITTER with fresh fuse, because anger wants ritual to become duty and then it rests.
Renn leaned out the roof hatch and told the sky it had done a decent job and could go now.
---
Court-in-the-Hall - the first docket
They read the docket at the elbow because law belongs where ankles pass.
DOCKET 001
- Case: Confiscation without warrant (Blue "manager"). Evidence: ticket, witness marks (Stripe, Isa), pipe shoulder log, cord pulls logged. Sentence: 6 watch hours + 3 hinge checks + apology. Status: accepted.
- Case: Attempted coercion of civilian (Blue lieutenant). Evidence: ticket, crowd witness, pipe presence. Sentence: 2 water runs + 1 receipt posting (clinic corner). Status: pending collection.
- Case: Vandalism of receipt (unknown). Evidence: torn receipt near clinic curb. Sentence: pending - convert to "double post" order (replace with two receipts). Status: executed by Eli.
Mira flipped WATCH to DONE and back again for ceremony. The child clapped once and hid his hands because he likes rules and likes breaking applause rules, too.
[System: Governance Update]
Court-in-the-Hall v0.1 executed; first docket posted; sentences in work minutes issued. Effect: +legitimacy, +neighbor cooperation.
Stripe stood with her stripes quieter than usual. "You are making something that does not like crowns very much," she said. "I think I like it."
"We are making doors," Kael said. "Crowns can use doors if they ask correctly."
---
Quiet Court - the night that almost made law bleed
Battery Crate hummed its approval of a day that had not wasted electrons. The LED stripe thinned itself and decided to be modest.
- A4 fortified (strap, shim, catch, curtain).
- Court-in-the-Hall v0.1 drafted and executed; tickets printed; docket 001 completed (partial).
- Line Relay v0.1 tested to south tower; heliograph "shoulder-only" rule posted.
- Smoke cords staged; BITTER at RN-6, DRY GRAY at clinic; remote pulls proved effective.
- Confiscation attempt repelled; leader captured and sentenced; no civilian blood; Seer denied by geometry and taste.
- Doctrine: repeated.
[System: Audit Complete]
+1 PC (A4 fortify), +1 PC (Court mobile), +1 PC (line relay test), +1 PC (smoke staging), +1 PC (raid handled), +1 PC (discipline), +1 PC (doctrine).
Total PC: 74.5.
Advisory: With 74+ PC, unlocks recommended: Bio/Chem T1 Antiseptic Gel (for wounds, morale), Energy T1 Charge Control (protect Crate), Engineering T1 Masonry Drill Discipline (faster anchor installs). Threat horizon: preacher will return with a story about courts; Seer may test edges independently; Blue may pivot to "inventory by night" with smaller crews. Recommendations: unlock Antiseptic Gel; draft Mirror Seizure counter-story (we surrendered a dummy as tithe to peace - keep rumor alive); seed two more dummy mirrors south; train Eli on Door Receipt audits and hinge checks (sentence supervisor).
Mira leaned her head back against the wall and let her eyes close without surrender. "We did not sing," she said. "We made the hallway do it."
"We let paper talk," Eli said, pleased with his own conversion to this new religion that hated preachers. "It speaks better than horns."
Nox cracked a knuckle and smiled at the noise. "We will need another pipe," he said. "This one is becoming famous and fame breaks things."
Renn balanced the broom handle on one finger and pretended to be a statue dedicated to corners. The child put a receipt at its base like a flower. Aunt Mara pretended to scold and actually blessed something with her eyes.
Kael set his palm on the ledger. "We do not need to be brave," he said.
"We need to be correct," the house answered.
Outside, confiscation became rumor and rumor became smaller when receipts sat on walls like bricks that could read. Inside, law walked without shouting and pipes stood as paragraphs with muscle. The Seer, denied a night's geometry, found another street to impose itself on and left the block to its studies. A4 slept. RN-6 breathed. And the Souverain that will be wore a seed under the ribs of a man who counts screws before he counts crowns.