The Directorate's first answer to Orr's result was not a denial. It was a delay notice sent to every city relay before sunrise, declaring the inspection incomplete because the suppression frame had suffered a "claimant-side contamination incident."
The notice named no concealed pulse, no shared-liability field, and no reason the frame had reacted only after Orr's own custody manifest bound it to the coalition's claim shares. It reduced a public measurement to a technical dispute and asked every broadcaster to wait for a sealed review.
Vasa read it in the hospital junction control room while Nox sat against the wall with one hand pressed beneath his ribs. The permanently sealed channel had bled through the night, leaving a dark line under the bandage, and the nineteen percent corruption sat behind his eyes like pressure he could not set down.
