Battery Crate purred like a cat that had learned policy. The LED stripe drew a sensible horizon across the ledger, thin, unambitious, stubborn. Kael woke with his hand already where plans live. Mira angled her shoulders toward the seam and let breath practice schedule. Nox rotated wrists and found weight where he had left it. Renn flexed ankles and counted corners without opening his eyes. Eli pinched copper into a question mark and smiled as if a wire had told him a joke. Liana stacked gauze until it looked like a small white wall and then made it shorter because pride is not sanitary.
"We do not need to be brave," Kael said.
"We need to be correct," Mira answered.
Nox: "And heavier than ladders."
Renn: "And on the dots."
Eli: "And grounded."
Liana: "And clean."
[System: Day Plan]
- Mission A: unlock Bio/Chem T1: Surface Disinfectant; draft wipe-and-wait protocol; stage kits at stair + clinic + A5.
- Mission B: unlock Energy T1: Pack Diagnostics; audit Battery Crate cells; tag headlamps; retire divas.
- Mission C: Info T1: Map Semantics v0.1 - shared symbols for dots, squares, elbows, dumb light, baffle, bar.
- Mission D: Ladder Denial v0.1 - rope cutouts, oil cloth, hinge hooks for roof edges; cache sand for grit.
- Mission E: A5 dorm v0.1 - first residents; Door Receipt inside; night watch route A1-A4-A5; Bar Team rotations.
- Contingency: expected "confession theater" by preacher at dusk; answer with public reading of Bread Receipts + Docket 001; no arguments.
- Reward: +1 PC disinfectant protocol, +1 PC diagnostics, +1 PC map semantics, +1 PC ladder denial, +1 PC A5 dorm active, +1 PC theater handled without blood.
PC available: 94.5.
Kael allowed himself the rare pleasure of spending points on boredom.
[System: Knowledge Acquired]
Bio/Chem T1: Surface Disinfectant installed.
Effects: +mix guidance (safe), +contact time discipline, +wipe sequence.
[System: Knowledge Acquired]
Energy T1: Pack Diagnostics installed.
Effects: +cell IR sense, +early failure warning, +tag/retire workflow.
[System: Knowledge Acquired]
Info T1: Map Semantics v0.1 installed.
Effects: +shared icon set; +legend discipline; +less yelling about where.
PC remaining: 91.5.
---
Disinfectant - wipe, wait, win
Liana read the node notes and edited them with a pen that had no patience for romance.
SURFACE DISINFECTANT v0.1
- Mix: per node; label bottle; no improvisation.
- Sequence: remove dirt -> wash -> rinse -> disinfect -> wait (full minutes) -> dry.
- Where: handles, rails, bar jaws, nurse shelf, tap, cart grips, public pens.
- Who: whoever touched it last signs receipt with function; we do not trust invisible work.
- Hands: gel before and after so that disinfectant is not asked to be soap.
She taped a WAIT card beside each bottle with a clock face drawn on it. "We will stop the day dying from yesterday's touches," she said. Aunt Mara approved by clicking her tongue like a metronome.
[System: Habit]
Disinfectant protocol posted; kits staged; WAIT cards placed. Effect: -infection, +clinic trust.
+1 PC.
---
Pack Diagnostics - headlamps learn humility
Kael pulled Battery Crate out like a drawer and listened to cells with the new sense the node put in his hands. One pack had internal resistance like a diva demanding applause. He tagged it with a red strip that said PART-TIME ONLY. Two headlamps had appetites bigger than their pay grade. He labeled them NIGHT ONLY and rotated them to Zone C. He wrote a small apology to electrons for years of abuse and then crossed it out because electrons do not read apologies, they read discipline.
Renn helped by pretending to be an assistant with a lab coat and no coat. Eli adjusted a bus lead with the kind of patience reserved for relationships. Nox nodded to the pack like a man nods to a bridge he is not sure will hold but respects anyway.
[System: Energy]
Pack Diagnostics implemented; divas retired; lamps tagged; runtime stabilized. Effect: +safety, +predictability.
+1 PC.
---
Map Semantics v0.1 - a language for corners
On butcher paper Kael drew a legend and Mira made it look inevitable.
- dot: stand until breath says go
- square: safe hold; look left
- elbow: turn with hand on pipe
- long line: corridor lane
- hatched wedge: baffle
- diamond: bar set
- open circle: dumb light
- cross: smoke can
- small crown: Blue poster hazard (annotate, do not erase)
- eye symbol: Seer line of sight; never draw to tempt fate
He hung the legend at the Public Board and at A3. He gave a copy to the west tower with a line at the bottom: MAPS ARE RECEIPTS. The map man kissed the paper with his eyes, which is not romantic if you know him.
[System: Semantics]
Shared icon set posted; legend discipline adopted. Effect: +coordination, +training speed.
+1 PC.
---
Ladder Denial v0.1 - because quiet seizures climb
They staged rope cutouts on roof edges where a ladder might hook: not a trap, an argument that ethics would accept. Eli oiled strips of cloth and fixed them over drainage lips to make metal bored with friction. Nox installed hinge hooks that would take a ladder's breath away when it tried to become a question at midnight. Renn filled two canvas bags with sand and placed them where hands could find weight in the dark. Mira chalked a rule on the roof hatch: IF YOU HEAR FEET THAT THINK THEY OWN YOUR SKY, BECOME THE WEATHER.
[System: Perimeter]
Ladder Denial v0.1 installed; sand caches placed; roof signs posted. Effect: +anti-seizure, +sleep.
+1 PC.
---
A5 dorm v0.1 - first residents
Two south families arrived with the patience of people who had learned to be poor in time as well as money: a woman named Suri with a boy who counted screws by touch, a man named Dalen with a grandmother who walked like a law that refused repeal. They read the rules and nodded in the places rules hope for. Liana checked their hands and their eyes and their lungs. Aunt Mara assigned bunks with a fairness that would embarrass a judge. The boy counted washers on the Pebble Curtain and fell asleep in the middle like a small locksmith.
Mira posted a Door Receipt inside A5 with the new date. Kael added A5 to the night route: A1-A4-A5 and back, with squares between for rest, with the Mobile Bar cached behind the inner door. Nox wrote BAR TEAM ROTATIONS on a scrap and listed pairs: Nox+Mira, Eli+Renn, Kael+Stripe (clinic nights), Tom+Isa (training rounds).
[System: Shelter]
A5 dorm v0.1 active; residents inside; night route posted; Bar Team rotations set. Effect: +capacity, +order.
+1 PC.
---
Bread Receipts - read into a crowd
The rumor arrived first: confession theater at dusk, trade a mirror for forgiveness, trade a receipt for bread. Kael did not sharpen his tongue. He sharpened his paper. At shoulder, he and Stripe stood at the clinic corner and read Bread Receipts out loud like scripture written by ovens. Aunt Mara read the part about kneading and made the crowd laugh at words that sound dirty and are holy. Tom read the line about "witness as function" with the gravity of a bureaucrat at a coronation.
People listened because bread is a language and receipts speak it fluently. When the preacher's boys set their folding table and waited for nouns to purchase people, there was no one left to buy. They packed the table without ceremony because folding legs hate narrative.
[System: Theater Handling]
Confession theater starved by public Bread Receipts; no debate; no blood. +discipline.
---
West request - dummies and a rumor back
The west tower sent a polite sweep and then two flashes: NEED TWO MORE DUMMIES. Kael sent hold and then two words in mirror code that made Renn grin: ON WAY. He and Eli built two in twenty minutes with the practiced speed of men who like lying correctly. They delivered on the 11:00 shoulder. The west sent back a rumor: Blue had tried to make a "mirror bonfire" and burned three dummy boards while the real relays slept face-down. The rumor tasted like victory and tinfoil. Kael logged: do not celebrate where Seers can learn pride from human laughter.
---
The afternoon - packs, pipes, and postcards to the future
Pack Diagnostics told Kael a headlamp wanted retirement full-time. He wrote THANK YOU on it in pencil and placed it in a bin labeled MUSEUM, because museums are receipts for future children. He imagined a day when a boy would point and say, "They used light that ate batteries," and someone would answer, "They learned better."
Renn painted the Map Semantics legend tiny on a scrap of plastic and tied it to his mirror cord like a saint would tie a charm. He is not religious. He is practical about invisible things that save his life.
Mira rotated knives: two on hook, one on bench, one asleep in a drawer with a note on it that said DO NOT TAKE ME WITHOUT LEAVING A MESSAGE. People obeyed. They like leaving messages. It makes them feel like they exist on paper.
---
Dusk - ladders and litanies
The first ladder came early, not brave, just bored, from the west roofline where a drainpipe invites anyone who wants to pretend to be rain. The hinge hook caught it gently and then not. The man on the top rung made a small, surprised sound that had nothing to do with courage and everything to do with physics. He did not fall; he reconsidered. Renn slid a sand bag two feet and the ladder's feet changed their mind about friction. The man stepped down and found ground with the respect of a pilgrim. Stripe watched from the clinic and did nothing with her mouth.
The second ladder came later with more theater. Two Blue with arm bands held it like a cross, followed by a boy with a bag of nails and the expression of someone hired to make a scene. They set the ladder against the long brick near the clinic gutter because the gutter had once been a stage and they had missed the last performance. Eli oiled the cloth above, the drip invisible; Mira cut the rope cutout with a motion that looked like blessing and was not. The ladder slid three inches with no music. The boy with nails swore in a way that made the nails look embarrassed.
Kael stepped into the square where sound has to ask permission. "Tickets," he said, and Tom appeared like a paragraph. ATTEMPTED SEIZURE BY LADDER - RESTITUTION: 2 WATCH + 1 DOOR AUDIT. He placed the ticket in the boy's pocket because he believed in a future where the boy would transform into a clerk with a decent pen.
The preacher arrived with a horn and a list of litanies that once worked on crowds before the city learned to read. He recited forgiveness like a coupon. Stripe held up a Bread Receipt and read who kneaded, who baked, who carried. The crowd answered AMEN with the polite silence of people who had already eaten.
[System: Perimeter + Theater]
Ladder attempts denied by hooks/oil/sand; tickets issued; litanies starved by receipts. +discipline.
---
Ambulants figure eight
Two ambulants arrived walking in a slow figure eight as if trying to teach themselves geometry by repetition. They drifted toward RN-7, then away, then back. Mira timed the shin line to their rhythm the way a drummer anticipates a beat. When they arrived at the pinch, the line was not there. When they stepped back to reconsider being monsters, the line was there. They tangled in their own lesson. Nox placed his pipe where ankles consider the meaning of life. They left offended by arithmetic.
Liana watched, fascinated and uneasy. "They are learning," she said.
"So are we," Kael said. "We will always be more bored than they are. Boredom is our weapon."
---
Night route - A1 to A5 and back
The first official route ran on the 23:00 shoulder: Kael+Stripe on clinic nights. They carried the ledger page that doubles as a pass. A1 slept with discipline. A4 breathed like a dog that had decided to trust. A5 held Suri's boy who dream-counted washers and Dalen's grandmother, whose breathing sounded like an old bellows that had decided to last another winter. They checked Pebble Curtains, latch straps, Mobile Bar cache. They signed Door Receipts and wrote small notes: SQUEAK AT BOARD 2-LEFT - PAD TOMORROW. They turned the sleep-light hood and kept darkness from learning gossip.
On the way back a whisper came from beneath the long brick. Not Blue. Not Seer. A voice that wanted to tell secrets to the wrong ears. "Give us your mirrors," it said, as if negotiating with walls. The wall did not answer because it had learned policy. Kael did not answer because he had learned that policy is louder when it does not perform.
They reached A1. Battery Crate purred approval like a cat stamping a form.
---
A boy, a broom, a decision
Renn found the boy with nails alone near the laundry door later, eyes wide, hands empty of any job. He looked fourteen and exhausted by performance. "Do you actually get bread?" Renn asked, gentle as corners allow. The boy shrugged. "Sometimes," he said. "Mostly they make me watch them be loud."
Renn handed him a broom. "Sweep the elbow," he said. "Bring this receipt back signed by your own hands." The boy swept like a person taught to carry weight only for show discovering that work tastes better when it counts. He brought the receipt back. He smiled with his mouth closed like someone who did not want his friends to see him be happy about bureaucracy. That is the first sign of salvation.
Kael logged: recruit candidates emerge from theater when given honest props.
---
Quiet Court - what climbed and what did not
- Surface Disinfectant unlocked; WAIT cards posted; high-touch wiped and signed.
- Pack Diagnostics unlocked; divas retired; lamps tagged; runtime stabilized.
- Map Semantics v0.1 posted; legend adopted; west copy delivered.
- Ladder Denial v0.1 installed; two attempts denied; tickets issued.
- A5 dorm v0.1 active; first residents; night route A1-A4-A5 begun; Bar Team rotations posted.
- Bread Receipts read publicly; confession theater starved; preacher's litanies failed to buy minds.
- West delivered two more dummies; mirror bonfire rumor burned dummies, not relays.
- Ambulants tested RN-7; denied by rhythm; lesson noted.
- Boy with nails swept elbow; receipt posted; possible recruit.
- Doctrine: repeated.
[System: Audit Complete]
+1 PC (disinfectant), +1 PC (diagnostics), +1 PC (map semantics), +1 PC (ladder denial), +1 PC (A5 dorm), +1 PC (discipline), +1 PC (doctrine).
Total PC: 101.5.
Advisory: With 100+ PC, next tier opens gradually: Engineering T1 Mobile Bar v0.2 (single-person set), Energy T1 Pack Guard (low-voltage cutoff), Bio/Chem T1 Field Dressings, Info T1 Corridor Economics (throughput planning). Threat horizon: Blue to formalize "inventory squads" with clipboards; preacher to shift to confession caravans; Seer to test new lines at A5; ambulants pairing with runners. Recommendations: begin Mobile Bar v0.2 prototype; pad Board 2-Left in A5; draft Recruit Protocol v0.1 (from theater to chores); prepare "Ladder Courtesy" handout explaining why ladders die here and how to live without them.
Mira leaned on the wall and let her eyes close for the minimum legal rest. "We are making ladders irrelevant," she said.
"We are making ladders fill out forms," Kael said.
Nox patted the Mobile Bar like a dog that had learned new tricks but still liked the old ones. "Tomorrow we teach it to be set by one person," he said.
Eli clicked his tongue at the heliograph pivot until it apologized for rubbing. "Tomorrow we send a postcard to the west with our legend," he said.
Liana washed her hands, then the pen string, then the pen, then the table. "Tomorrow I want dressings," she said. "My hands like to be clean when they hurt people back into being whole."
Renn set the broom against the elbow like a flag and wrote a receipt for the cat's gutter patrol as promised. The child laughed in his sleep in the A4 dorm because somewhere in a dream the Pebble Curtain counted itself and got the answer right.
Kael placed his palm on the ledger. "We do not need to be brave," he said.
"We need to be correct," answered the doors, the dots, the squares, and, somewhere out there, a ladder that had learned manners.