The scale on the table was a liar.
On one pan: five hundred people fed for a week. On the other: a thousand people for two days. Either way, someone's fourth day was a riot with a better soundtrack.
Leon pinched the scale's arm until it creaked and let go. It swung back to its false calm.
"We trade minutes, not lives," he said to the room and to the part of himself that wanted a clean answer. "But we trade them honestly."
The clinic office smelled like bleach, instant coffee, and wet coats. A paper map of the ward lay open beneath the scale, tape at the corners, pencil lines spidering the streets into corridors. The Blue Lamp on the desk cast a cheap, steady ring on the wall, turning faces into shadows with voices.
Sister Irena stood by the window with her chipped porcelain chalice, blue-lamp satchel slung crosswise. She had the kind of attention that makes a room behave. Brutus leaned against the doorjamb, filling it without trying, the clinic-blue patch freshly stitched onto his coat.
"Depot's dry by nightfall," Brutus rumbled. "Stockade skimmed the last shipment. Night Market hiked prices and closed early."
"We don't have the Merit to pay for a riot," Leon said. "And we won't pay with blood for a spike."
"Translation," Nyx purred in his ear, velvet over wire. "He wants to feed more, cheaper, and off-camera. The Audience yawns. The War King stretches. The Glass Saint is…interested in process."
Leon slid a finger along the map from the depot to a rectangle along the canal—an old school district pantry in a basement that had, last time around, flooded to the second step. The Tower's tilt had shifted runoff; this time the water would take the long way around for six more hours.
"School pantry," he said. "Stale crackers, beans, shelf-stable milk. A forklift on the loading dock with a battery I can hotwire. We can move a ton of calories with gravity and a tarp."
Sister Irena raised an eyebrow. "Without cameras on faces."
"Overhead angles only," Leon said. "No minors. No humiliation."
"Policy will penalize 'dead emotion,'" Nyx said. "We can buy a category bump if we deliver a 'wholesome' montage. I hate that word."
"We'll make something people can eat," Leon said. "Not a montage."
He traced a second line—the route from the pantry to the barricaded block. The Bloom would give them cover gates. The alleys were a throat when you wanted them to be.
"Brutus, doorways and carts," he said. "Irena, Blue Lamps at the corner of Canal and Iron Market, then at the clinic. Anyone with children goes under a lamp and gets served first."
"Without cameras," Irena said.
"Without cameras," Leon agreed.
Brutus lifted his chin toward the scale. "You moving that with the forklift too?"
Leon cracked a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "I'll take it apart and sell it for parts if it keeps the line orderly."
He closed the Civic Ledger over the torn strip of black cloth tucked in the margin—Quiet Choir's calling card—and slid the notebook inside his coat.
[Objective: Stabilize food supply — Avoid riot]
[Plan: Heist school pantry → Gravity run to Last City → Overhead feed only]
[Risk: Favor −; Policy fine; Rival content theft]
[Reward: Merit +; Trust +; Entropy +1 if Bloom reused for queue corrals]
"Ad-break in 07:00 if we move now," Nyx said. "We can land the payoff at minute twelve. The producers love shelves. There's a category for 'order'."
"Good," Leon said. "We need some."
They moved.
Outside, the Bloom's ribs held the street in a calm not found elsewhere in the ward. The siren hiccuped and then ran steady, as if it had found its key. Rain combed the air in thin teeth.
They reached the school in seven minutes, the last block done at a jog short enough to look like a walk on the overhead. The building was brick and Romanesque, the kind that made you feel guilty for chewing gum. The basement door wore a municipal chain. Leon flicked it with two fingers and listened to the padlock answer. He had signed that lock's purchase order five years ago and remembered the model.
He slid a shim into the throat, wiggled the spring, and popped it. The door yawned.
The air in the stairwell had the old, sweet-stale smell of a gym closet. He heard, beneath the drip of condensation, the breath of a full room—shelf-stable breathing.
"Nyx," Leon said, "overhead only. Dead the face cams. No reaction shots."
"You underuse your toys," she sighed. "But fine. Overhead it is."
The pantry was a grid of steel racks: crackers, beans, pasta, sauce, shelf milk with cartoon cows that looked painfully sincere. In the corner: a forklift with a manual override and a battery case the size of a suitcase. A roll-up door faced the loading dock and the canal.
"Brutus," Leon said, "palettes here and here. Leave the bottom shelf for milk."
Brutus didn't waste agreement. He grabbed the forklift's lever, tested the battery, and grunted. "Enough to lift twice," he said.
Leon found a pallet jack, oiled the bearings from a can he shook like a rattle, and wedged a piece of scrap wood under the dock plate to keep the lip from bouncing. He peeled tarps from a crate, shook off mouse droppings, spread two like sails.
Sister Irena set the Blue Lamp in the pantry doorway, the bowl shade making a soft ring on the concrete. "We will not film anyone who takes less than they need," she said, not to Leon, not not to him.
"Copy," Nyx said. And softer, to Leon: "We still need a spike. War King is yawning in all caps."
"Tell him to take a nap," Leon said. He set his shoulder to a pallet of beans and heaved. The pallet jack squealed, then rolled.
Brutus took the forks under the second pallet and lifted with a whine that sounded like a smoker's cough. The forklift's battery meter shivered.
"Two lifts," Brutus repeated. "Then it dies."
"We only need one," Leon said. "Gravity pays the rest."
He toggled the roll-up door halfway. The canal beyond was quiet but for rain and a creak like a throat clearing downriver. The dock tilted enough to make a man cautious. He angled the pallet jack, locked the wheels, and looked at Brutus.
"On three," he said.
They pushed.
The pallet jerked, skated, and then went—heavy, obedient, riding down the dock on a growing roar like applause behind glass. Leon ran alongside, one hand steadying, the other on the jack's handle, eyes on the zipline path he'd chalked on the concrete with a stub. At the dock's edge, the pallet hit the lip—and the two tarps, stretched taut over a guide of pipe Leon had bolted loose, grabbed the load like a sail and translated drop into glide.
The ton of food slid on canvas and oil down a narrow, controlled slope of tarps and plastic crates into a waiting cart below without exploding into charity confetti.
[Audience: 34,009 → 36,120]
[Novelty: +]
[Favor: +250 (Craft House lurkers)]
[Notoriety: +1]
chat_Arbit3r: He just made gravity a volunteer.
Saint'sChalice: Economy of motion. Acceptable.
"Again," Leon said. Brutus lifted the second pallet. The forklift coughed, lifted, held. Leon guided, Brutus guided, Sister Irena kept the doorway clear. The second glide was cleaner.
By the time they stacked the pallets in the cart, rain had cut fine lines into the canal's skin. On the far side of the yard, a white van nosed across a puddle and took the light prettily on its flank. Gold wings on the doors. Halo-bright lapel cams. A microphone on a boom like a fishing pole out the passenger window.
"Dawnshield," Nyx said, with the voice she used for a rival at the party. "They smell food and story."
Kade Wolfe stepped out of the van as if a stage hand had placed his foot and lit it. The jacket was white. The smile had perfect symmetry. The halo-cam on his lapel washed him in a light that made rain look like confetti.
"Architect," he called, friendly as a loan. "Need a hand?"
Leon's stream ticked down a notch like a heart learning it had missed a beat.
[Audience: 36,120 → 34,888]
[Favor: −300 (War House shifts to Kade)]
[Producer Note: "Collaborations improve stickiness."]
"Ad-break in 03:00," Nyx said. "He'll spike on twelve whether you pair or not. He brought a child."
"Of course he did," Leon said.
A girl no older than ten stood at Kade's elbow, hair braided, cheeks scrubbed pink, holding a rain-damp cardboard sign that read HERO in marker. Her eyes sold hard. Leon's mask fogged for half a breath—anger—then cleared.
"Minor filter," he said. "Hard lock."
"Locked," Nyx said, something like gratitude hidden under irritation.
Kade gestured to his crew, and they flowed, practiced, toward the dock with boxes that looked like they had been packed on purpose for this moment: rice in sealed bags, tins with labels turned outward, bottled water with condensation. He looked into Leon's overhead cam and smiled. "We're all on the same side," he said, and his mic caught rain like applause.
Leon didn't answer him. He turned to Brutus. "Walk the cart," he said. "Doorways, then the alley throat. Sister Irena, Blue Lamp at the corner. I want the lamps seen, not faces."
"Copy," Irena said.
He put both hands on the cart handles and felt weight and leverage. Kade spoke toward his cam as if narrating Leon's day. "What a relief to see a plan," he said. "Together, we can—"
Leon walked the cart out and down the chalk route.
Kade's van followed at a polite distance, catching angles. A white drone described a neat circle above the school and found the light. Leon didn't look up.
He hit the alley throat where the Bloom had left a soft seam, and the vines shivered and eased, making a door. Brutus stepped through, then turned and filled the doorway with his coat and his hands visible, the clinic-blue patch catching the Blue Lamp's glow like a badge for a different kind of law.
"Queue here," Leon called without calling. "Two per family, one for singles. Children under Blue Lamps. No faces on camera."
He had no tickets, so he cut them out of what he had: yellow caps from milk bottles snapped from their rings. He pressed them into palms with the pen click of a promise.
"Due Rations," he said, testing the shape, planting a law. "Due Rations now. We pay back later."
Sister Irena set the Blue Lamp on a mailbox like a chalice; the plastic bowl rain-shade wept blue down the sides. People sorted themselves by that light the way starlings learn to turn at the same time.
Kade's van idled at the alley mouth. His crew grouped in a hero's half-circle, boxes at the ready. They didn't cross the soft line where Brutus stood. Light from the halo-cams hit the rain and made a curtain.
"Architect," Kade said, amplified and genial. "We can distribute efficiently. We do this every day."
"We pass laws here," Leon said, not loud. "And we keep receipts."
He handed cans to a woman with a toddler asleep on her chest. She took them like a person taking weight off a body part that had been hurting for a long time.
Nyx's voice traced numbers on the back of his skull. "Favor dipping," she said. "Trust climbing. Craft House humming. War King—bored."
"Good," Leon said. He put a box of pasta into a teenager's arms and watched the girl make herself bigger around the weight without knowing she was doing it.
Kade found an angle that included his smile, the cart, and the Blue Lamp's ring. He held up a bag of rice like a trophy. "We're live here at Canal and—"
Leon turned his overhead cam five degrees. The bag left frame. The Blue Lamp stayed. Kade's lapel light looked for a face that wasn't there.
chat_paperwall: He's ghosting the hero.
RabbleKing: Show the kid or I'm out.
"Let him have his spike," Nyx said softly. "He'll go away when the ad turns."
"He can stay," Leon said. "He just doesn't get to own the edit."
Hands found rhythm. Palms touched plastic and tinned metal; fingers curled and let go. Brutus became a public presence that made people unafraid to stand in a line because the line looked like dignity instead of supplication. Sister Irena's lamp made an island you could step into.
A boy with a busted lip stood at the edge of the Blue Lamp ring, eyes on the cart, not on Leon. He reached, then pulled back, then reached again. Brutus touched the boy's wrist lightly. "Hands where the cameras can see them," he said, voice a quiet bell. "You get your two. No rush."
The boy nodded like he'd been seen in a place other than a feed. He took two cans with both hands and did not look at Kade at all.
[Merit: +35 (Distribution — orderly)]
[Trust: +3 (Clinic District)]
[Favor: −200 (War House), +150 (Craft House)]
[Entropy: +1 (Bloom — Queue Corrals engaged)]
The vines rippled down the block, leaving waist-high guides that made it easy to queue without being cattle. It wasn't a wall; it was a suggestion that turned into behavior.
"Repeat Edict," Nyx said. "Bloom Heat 2/5. Also: Entropy +1. You're accruing debt."
"I see it," Leon said. He added it in the Ledger with a single stroke that turned into two names in the margin to remind himself what debt felt like when you paid it late.
Kade's crew distributed three boxes to three photogenic recipients in three angles. Each recipient held the bag at chest height. Each looked grateful with their eyes. Kade nodded to his camera like a man signing a book.
Then the ad-break hit his feed. You could feel it in the way his smile dimmed by half a watt like a light on a brownout. His crew held their poses for two beats too long, then reset.
"Leon," Nyx said, almost laughing for real, "you stole his minute twelve. With beans."
"Put it on a memo," Leon said. He palmed two caps into a woman's hand and said, without looking at her, "Give one to your neighbor who can't stand this long."
She closed her fingers over the caps like heat.
A ripple moved against the Bloom. Not burrowers—this was human. A knot of men in leather jackets had decided they were tired of lines. Two shoved at the vine guides and tried to shoulder to the front.
Brutus stepped into their path and let his hands be seen. "Back of the line," he said. No heat, no echo.
One man sneered. "You think this is your wall, big man?"
Brutus tilted his head. "I think it's a suggestion," he said. "And I'm very persuasive."
The man made the mistake everyone makes once. He put a hand on Brutus's chest.
Brutus took the hand in both of his, gently, as if it were a baby bird. He rotated at the wrist and elbow as if he were turning off a faucet, and the man found himself kneeling without pain, his eyes confused to be so near the pavement. Brutus stepped back and spread his hands. "Back of the line," he repeated. He didn't look at the camera. He didn't look at the man's friends. He looked at the Blue Lamp.
The man stared at his own hand, scalp prickling with shame not from exposure but from the absence of it. He stood and went to the back.
[Public Presence (Brutus): +De-escalation radius applied]
[Trust: +1]
[War King tipped −100 Favor: "Nurse's hands."]
[Glass Saint tipped +300 Favor: "Dominance without injuries. Clean."]
"Wardens," Leon said quietly. "We'll need more of him."
"Recruitment application," Nyx said. "We can brand it. I'm thinking—"
"Quiet," Leon said. He worked the cart again. He kept the rhythm steady. He looked at his map in his mind and saw the glide path he'd set for an entire block.
Kade's crew finished their three boxes and drifted toward another angle. Kade tried one more time, smile at half-power. "Architect," he said, jovial over grit. "A word for the feed?"
Leon angled so that his mask showed light and his voice went into the alley, not toward the halo. "We're naming our laws tonight," he said. "You can watch."
Kade's jaw ticked—a private flinch—and then smoothed. "We'll be there," he said, and means it like someone whose PR team has already made a calendar event.
The cart rolled to empty. The last two caps went into the last two hands. Someone cheered softly because anything louder would have been vulgar. Sister Irena lifted the Blue Lamp and blew rain off the plastic bowl as if it were a candle between rounds.
"Due Rations," she said, testing it as a prayer. "It will hold if we keep faith."
"It will hold if we keep receipts," Leon said. "Faith too. But receipts first."
He put his hands on the cart and let his knuckles find the ache of having done a small right thing. The vine guides eased back into the wall, polite as clothes hanging themselves. The rain went fine enough to feel like a mist.
"Your Merit," Nyx said, almost grudging. "Is handsome."
"Good," Leon said. He swallowed and let his throat feel like a place where rain had been living. "We'll need it."
A ping, metallic and petty, popped in his ear.
[Challenge Posted — War House Bulletin]
[Open Duel Bounty: Brutus Hale]
[Terms: One-on-one, on-camera, first blood. Payout: 3,000 Favor + War House multiplier. Time window: 24 hours.]
The bulletin painted itself in hard red across Leon's peripheral vision like a rash you couldn't ignore. Beneath it, in smaller print than dignity, a line of chat hearts and flame emojis did the work of a room that had never seen patience.
Nyx's tone went cool as an OR light. "They are making him a content chew toy," she said. "If we refuse, War House sulks. If we accept, we bleed on camera, and your Warden brand dilutes."
Brutus read the line—he could tell by the way the big man's jaw did its math—and looked at Leon, not like a subordinate, not like a client, but like a pillar checking the wall it holds.
"Say no," Sister Irena said, before Leon could. No velvet, no sugar. "Say no now, before you learn to enjoy the crowd."
Leon looked at the Blue Lamp's ring on the mailbox and at the boy with the busted lip counting two cans again just to feel their weight, and at Kade's van's taillights blooming red like pretty warnings at the end of the block.
He tapped his pen once against the Ledger in his coat pocket. The mask fogged on the inside and cleared as his breath remembered its work.
"War King can post all the bounties he wants," Leon said. "Brutus doesn't perform for him."
"Cliff it," Nyx whispered, delighted. "Say the next part on the Council floor."
Leon nodded once, as if to himself, and said to Brutus, "We'll write it down. We'll make it a law you can carry."
Brutus nodded back. "Hands where the cameras can see them," he said. "Even when they want fists."
Leon pushed the empty cart toward the school, and the vines folded open to let him pass, and somewhere under the city, something deep clicked once, like a machine arming.
He didn't look up to see if the Tower approved.
He had a Council to run and a bounty to refuse with a clause.