Dawn rinsed the night out of the street.
Curfew's low note let go, and the siren drifted back up into weather. The Blue Lamp's ring dimmed from halo to memory on the mailbox. Canal smelled like wet stone and bread someone had thought about baking.
UNSEEN WORK, Kite had written in letters so large the Blue Lamp had baptized them last night. The words still shone on the Council Minutes board, rain beads clinging to each stroke like a promise with weight.
"Live in two," Nyx said, satin over wire. "Ambient only. No faces. Policy still sulking about dead air. The Saint wants you to make a mop look like a ritual."
Leon set the Civic Ledger on the laundromat's hood and tapped the cover once to steady himself, twice to warn the part of him that liked applause to sit down.
He held his pen over a clean page. "Unseen Work," he wrote. "Bloom trim. Lamp checks. Drain clearing. Grid balance. Wardens training."
Oren Dawes rolled a handcart up with a traffic signal UPS carcass and a coil of cable the color of old bruises. "We'll cut load-shedding into something a polite grid can survive," he said. "Lamp hiccups get new lungs."
Juno Park arrived with her case hugged close, hair pinned up, leaf-printed gloves tucked under one strap. She looked like a student who'd fallen in love with a problem. "Enzyme v.2 warmed and breathing," she said. "We can lace drains, not flood them. Glue the little ones with mercy."
Brutus stood in the clinic doorway like a wall that had agreed to be human. Sister Irena set the Blue Lamp on the mailbox and tied fresh armbands on a line—the blue circles stitched in the center catching the first thin light.
"Lamplighters," she said, voice steady. "Two by two. Hands visible. Bowl between."
Tamsin Quell flipped a bowl in her palm like a coin. Kite—a Blue Lamp armband still too big—stood on his milk crate and tapped the board with a pencil, official as a clerk. "Speak at the X," he whispered to himself, practicing, though there was no Council this minute to speak at.
"Dawnshield?" Leon asked without looking.
"Idling two blocks down," Nyx said, dry. "The banner's folded but the halo-cam's hungry. They'll show up to help if your mops get a spotlight."
"We'll give them a broom and a sign that says 'Thanks,'" Leon said.
He raised his voice just enough to carry. "Unseen Work starts now," he said. "Hands where the cameras can see them. Bowls up on any lens. Editor's Cut ready if anyone tries to turn a mop into an episode."
"Copy," Nyx said, almost pleased. "Ambient stenography. I'll trim the temptation out of the feed."
[Feed Mode: Ambient — Hands/Tools/Board only]
[Editor's Cut: Armed (meme filter)]
[Policy Fine (Dead Air) — Active: Favor −20% (1 episode left)]
[Glass Saint: "Observing."]
[Craft House: "Interested."]
They split along the street like water through channels someone had drawn neat with chalk at two in the morning.
– Bloom trim.
The vines had learned to be ribs; now they learned to be ribs with sightlines. Leon walked the green with Juno and Oren and a handful of Wardens with pruning shears, and the city felt like a patient that had woken up and needed its hair combed.
"Trim, don't scalp," Juno said. "Leave the seams—doors. Cut what would take a finger off in a panic."
Brutus held the panel as Leon snipped a tendril that had decided a mailbox handle looked like a throat. The vine recoiled like a cat taught to stay off the counter.
"Heat?" Leon asked.
Nyx's overlay popped soft in his periphery.
[Heat: Bloom 4/5 → 3/5 (trim pass 1)]
[Entropy: 3 → 2 (maintenance scheduled)]
[Trust: +1 (Order visible)]
[Glass Saint tipped +150 Favor: "Civics with shears."]
Saint'sChalice: The cut is as precise as the law. Continue.
RabbleKing: We are watching gardening.
Leon didn't answer chat he wasn't supposed to see. He set the clipped vine into a compost bin like a person removing a problem without taking it personally.
– Lamp checks.
Oren opened the hiccup packs like a surgeon opening a chest in a field tent. He swapped cells and soldered with a pen iron powered by an inverter he talked to under his breath like a stubborn dog.
"Blink on my count," he told the lamppost at the corner. "Honest hiccup. No lies."
The lamppost obliged—blink—two—three—four—blink. Honest. Not a show.
Tamsin walked the corridor she had learned in three nights the way some people learn prayer. Bowl up at the corners, lamp between, pace steady. Kite ran behind her with a box of bulbs like a drummer learning what beat does besides keep time.
[Corridor Status: Clinic Line — Stable]
[Trust: +1 (Clinic/Shelter)]
[Merit: +10 (Maintenance)]
[Trickster: −50 Favor ("Where is the pie?")]
– Drains.
Leon led the team to the alley they had taught to be a throat. The mattresses leaned against brick like muffled teeth; the enzyme domes breathed under mesh; the drain at the far end had learned to keep its voice down. Juno checked v.2's hue and smiled like a person who'd guessed right.
"We lace, we don't pour," she said. "Here." She ran a ribbon along the curb, so thin it looked like oil until it breathed. "There." A fine line at the throat's swallow.
Sister Irena watched, skeptical and kind. "You are gluing God's mistakes," she said.
"I'm giving them a place to stop," Juno said. "And us a way to eat later."
"Eat?" Brutus asked.
"Blueprints," Juno said. "City ecology sees sustained chitin capture; it coughs up a recipe. Bio-Foundry unlocked with boss-class sample. Or so the essays say."
Leon nodded once. "We'll make it true," he said. He set his palm over the mesh and felt the enzyme breathe like a small animal somebody had decided should live.
[Blueprint Hint: Bio-Foundry — "Boss-class chitin required."]
[Craft House tipped +150 Favor: "Sustainable harvest under siege."]
[Saint'sChalice: Future purchased with restraint. Acceptable.]
– Ombuds.
Kite taped a note over the two chained boxes at the Night Market arch: COMPLAINTS and THANKS. Matron Feroce stamped receipts with her little brass loop. People dropped folded paper like offerings. Murmur plucked one from THANKS and one from COMPLAINTS and read them under their breath like a priestess guessing a weather pattern.
"Thanks: 'Blue Lamps let my kid sleep,'" Murmur whispered to themselves, smiling with only their eyes. "Complaint: 'The Bloom swallowed my sign.'"
"Trim," Leon said. "We pay in shears."
Matron Feroce's mouth ticked. "Holidays posted at dawn," she said. "Vendors who honored lamps are circled. Those who didn't get my stare."
"Your stare is policy," Leon said. "I'll write it down."
– Wardens.
Brutus took a dozen people into a half-circle in front of the laundromat and turned doorways into doctrine. He stood hands open, presence tall, voice level.
"You can put a man on his back without breaking what he needs," he said. "You turn a wrist like a faucet—feel that?—and you take his balance like a donation. You do not humiliate. You do not perform."
A teen with a busted lip—last night's boy—stood with his palms up and learned how not to be knocked down without learning to enjoy the lesson. He smiled once by accident and then stopped, embarrassed.
"Good," Brutus said, and didn't smile back so the kid wouldn't feel like it was about him.
[Training: Dominance Without Injuries — Session 1]
[Passive: Public Presence (Wardens) +]
[Trust: +2 (Enforcement)]
[War House: −100 Favor ("Paper dojo.")]
Dawnshield turned the corner with mops.
White jackets, halo-cams at polite angles, boxes with labels designed for camera eyes. Kade's smile had a wattage you could measure against a wall.
"Architect," he said, friendly as a loan officer, stopping just outside the ring of lamplight like he wanted credit for respecting a boundary. "We brought hands."
Leon didn't turn his face. He glanced at Nyx.
"Editor's Cut waiting," she said, a cat's paw hiding claws. "If he tries to wedge his brand into your breath, I cut it."
Leon raised his voice one notch. "Unseen Work is a dignity zone," he said. "Hands only. No faces. Those who want to help, help. If you want to perform, the Market sells bread."
Kade's assistants faltered. Kade didn't. "We can demonstrate proper technique for the audience," he said to his halo-cam.
Leon tapped his pen once on the Ledger and pointed at the ombuds boxes. "You can put your technique in Complaints or Thanks," he said. "Citizen press will sort."
Nyx's note kissed the edge of Leon's sight.
[Editor's Cut: Applied — Outside brand overlays trimmed from feed]
[Public Notice: Dignity Zone — No Faces; Hands Only]
[Craft House: +100 Favor: "Technique without performance."]
[War House: −50 Favor: "You denied me a montage."]
chat_Arbit3r: He ghosted the hero again.
Saint'sChalice: A mop made into a rite. Continue.
Kade's smile held half a beat too long. He bowed slightly, because bows were part of his brand. His crew put their mops into the water without glancing at the lenses, because they were not helpless people and because the bowl and the sign and the mood of the street had made performance feel silly.
They mopped. It looked good. Nobody clapped.
Mae ran the first Due Rations line of the day at the Bloom seam like it was a real thing and not a theory—two per family, one per single, Blue Lamps first. She marked tallies in neat columns. The teen with the busted lip handed out caps to people who had forgotten their fingers counted. Sister Irena stood the Blue Lamp where faces would have been tempted to be and made the bowl into a small law.
[Law in Action: Due Rations]
[Merit: +15]
[Trust: +2]
[Greed House: −100 Favor ("Price discipline.")]
Leon made a circuit with the Ledger and his pen. He wrote the names of three people who had made Unseen Work look like what it was: a covenant. He underlined Unseen Work once, then more lightly again, a habit that balanced sternness with mercy in ink.
Under the street, scritch-scrape made a quiet sermon. The drain in the alley breathed like a patient resting between episodes. Juno checked her domes and hummed a bar of a song that made regret productive.
"Grid," Oren said, listening to the lamppost's blink. "Honest. She's holding."
A courier slipped under the Bloom seam with a blue envelope sealed with a peeled, cheap sticker that had pretended it was wax. He held it up like a man offering a snake and let Leon take it without making it into a show.
Nyx made a small disgusted noise. "Policy Office memo," she said. "Habitual dead air. Bolded thrice. I would love to set it on fire and blame the War King."
Leon cracked the envelope. The language was bureaucratic without being competent. He read the bolds: ENCOURAGE LIVE EMOTION. AVOID DULLNESS. PROMOTE COLLABORATIONS.
He folded it once, then twice, and slid it into the Ombuds box labeled COMPLAINTS.
Murmur plucked it out with two fingers and pinned it to a board with a thumbtack. "Public reading later," they said. "We'll bleep adjectives."
"Ad-break in 02:00," Nyx murmured, amused. "We can sell a mop if you make it look like a vow."
Leon raised his voice just enough to catch the corner of the street that didn't like being caught. "Unseen Work keeps our receipts from turning into ghosts," he said. "We cut vines to keep doors honest. We fix lamps so kids can walk with bowls for faces. We clear drains so the street doesn't cough blood when we're trying to pass a law."
He didn't smile. He didn't look at a camera. He set his pen on the Ledger and let the tip blur into a little dot that would be a habit if he let it.
[Editor's Cut: Elegant Montage — Locked]
[Glass Saint tipped +400 Favor: "A vow in small gestures."]
[Audience: 36,402 → 37,010]
[War House: −50 Favor ("Still no blood.")]
They cleared drains.
Not the glamour version. Oren lifted grates with a hooked bar, and sometimes the smell made a person turn their head and pretend it was the rain. Juno's lace did its work on roaches the size of thumbs, the size of matchboxes—little armored verbs that decided to stop being verbs long enough to make future nouns.
Sister Irena blessed nothing with words. She passed Juno hose clamps and held gloved hands in place when someone had to thread a bolt by feel.
At the far drain near the subway vent, gravel danced in a ring like filings around a magnet. The scritch under the street turned to a thought and then to a decision.
"Soon," Oren said. He didn't raise his voice.
Leon knelt and felt the grate with his palm. He could feel the street thinking. It didn't think like a person; it thought in pressure and pipes and what fit and what didn't and what hurt.
He stood, left his handprint in rain briefly, and turned to the people.
"Unseen Work done," he said to the board, to the bowls, to the jars. "Lamplighters briefing in ten. Wardens training at noon. Market Holidays posted after bread. Tribunal enforcement continues tonight."
He looked at Kade without looking at him. "We sweep before we sing," he said. "We keep our receipts."
Nyx's voice leveled into the tone she used for windows opening. "You have a small honey minute," she said. "The Saint's watching Juno's hands; Craft House is humming; War House is yawning into its pillow. If you want to buy something that looks like a wall, now is the time."
"Show me options," Leon said.
[Edicts/Boons Available (Favor: 2,450; Merit: 120)]
– Edict: Sluice Gate (Favor 800 + Ether 200): Reroute street runoff; +Security (Drains); Side-effect: draws burrowers if left open
– Law: Lamp Theft = Clinic Betrayal (Merit 40): Codify theft penalties; +Trust
– Project: Grid Balancer (Favor 1,200 + Craft 2): Stabilize lamppost hiccups; −Entropy
– Boon: Clean Cut (Saint-aligned, Favor 900): Next operation gains Elegance multiplier; policy fines halved for 1 episode
"Grid Balancer," Oren said, pointing at the option like a surgeon asked which instrument he'd like to use to stop a bleed.
"Lamp Theft," Sister Irena said. "Put mercy in the box and teeth in the rule."
Leon looked at the drain and at Juno's domes and at the Bloom's ribs and at the lamppost's honest blink. He listened to the ledger in his coat and to the part of him that liked applause trying to get indignant about a mop.
"Grid Balancer," he said. "Then Lamp Theft."
"Buy," Nyx breathed, pleased.
[Project: Grid Balancer — Purchased]
[Effect: Hiccup stability +; Lamp uptime +; −Entropy 1]
[Craft House tipped +200 Favor: "Infrastructure romance."]
[Trust: +1]
[Law: Lamp Theft = Clinic Betrayal — Passed]
[Effect: +Trust (Clinic Corridor); Enforcement protocols updated]
[Merit: −40 (spent)]
[War House: −50 Favor ("Paper again.")]
[Saint'sChalice: A law dressed in humility. Continue.]
Matron Feroce stamped the Market Holiday schedule with her loop. "Vendors who honored lamps," she said, tapping names, "get first dot. Those who didn't get the stare and a second chance."
The stare was policy. Leon wrote it down.
Dawnshield's crew mopped without angles for a while. Kade tried once more to catch a face. The bowl caught him instead. He pivoted with grace and sold his smile to another lens down the block that wanted a verdict instead of a corridor.
"Lunch in three," Nyx said. "Then Wardens. Then your bones."
"Bones," Oren echoed, eyes on the grate.
Juno shouldered her case and flexed her leaf-printed gloves. "I'll nap for nineteen minutes," she said. "Wake me if the drain decides to confess to murder."
"Bring coffee when you repent," Mae said, without looking up from a tally that made a line of names into a plan for the afternoon.
Leon wrote two more names in the margin of his ledger—people who had made the morning better without asking the camera to admire them. He underlined Unseen Work lightly, then more lightly again.
"Leon," Nyx said, her voice softening like porcelain cooling. "Your Audience stabilized. The Saint liked your mop. Craft House wants a schematic. Trickster sulked and threw a pie at Kade's banner. War is still asleep."
"Good," Leon said.
The grate at the subway vent made a sound like a string tuned up a step.
He looked at the alley they had turned into a throat and at the mattresses and the domes and the way the Bloom's ribs had learned to be still without becoming dead.
"Afternoon," he said quietly, to no one and to everyone. "Brutus, doorways. Tamsin, bowls. Juno, warm water. Oren—" he glanced at the grid— "call the panel by its first name."
"It likes 'Etta,'" Oren said. "She'll behave if you tell her she's pretty."
"We'll make her pretty," Leon said. He tapped the Ledger once to anchor and did not tap twice.
Then the street sent a polite knock through the soles of everyone's shoes, like someone very large in a narrow bed clearing their throat to ask if the room could be rearranged for them.
Nyx inhaled. "Bones," she said. "Tonight or we get volunteers without clipboards."
Leon looked at the UNSEEN WORK on the board and the jars and the bowl and the mop. He breathed and let the mask fog and clear like a small, stubborn prayer.
"We mop," he said. "Then we hunt."
[Unseen Work Complete (Phase 1)]
[Heat: Bloom 3/5 → 2/5]
[Entropy: 3 → 1]
[Trust: +5]
[Merit: +25]
[Cliff: Afternoon Wardens training; evening hunt — alley as throat engages apex; Bio-Foundry unlock teased]