Sundown turned the rain from wire to gauze. The Blue Lamp's ring made a small halo on the laundromat wall, steady as a pulse. The Bloom's ribs held the block like fingers around a cup you didn't want to spill.
"Tribunal live in three," Nyx said, satin over wire. "Ambient only, per your rule. No faces—hands, pens, board. Ad-break at twelve. Land the verdict clean and the Saint will pour."
Leon set the Civic Ledger on a crate and tapped the cover once to steady himself, twice to warn the part of him that liked applause to sit down. Juno's enzyme case sat beside it, domes breathing under mesh like pastries he'd have to explain later. Down the alley, the quiet pocket they'd made out of mattresses and stolen silence held steady; the drain did not sing yet, but the bones of the street remembered how.
[City Tribunal — Ward 4, Last City]
[Charges: Predatory tolling; Coercion at barricade]
[Defendants: Latch, Hew, "Cousin A," "Cousin B"]
[Procedures: Jury Lottery; Witnesses; Restitution vs Confinement]
[Feed Mode: Ambient (Hands/Board only). Minor Filter: Hard.]
Kite climbed his milk crate and tapped the cardboard that read SPEAK AT THE X. He set a battered steel salad bowl on the crate's edge and rattled the bottle caps inside—numbers scratched in with a nail. "Jury Lottery," he announced, small and professional. "Twelve hands. If your cap matches, you serve."
Mae raised a jar labeled THANKS and another labeled COMPLAINTS and set them on the crate as if flanking the board with two small gods. Sister Irena lifted the Blue Lamp and set it on the mailbox like a chalice; its ring cut faces into anonymity without making them feel erased. Brutus took the clinic doorway and made patience look like a post.
Across the block, under a CLEAN TRIBUNAL banner, Kade's halo-cam shone on a verdict pose he'd practiced in a mirror. Leon did not look. He could feel where his mask would fog.
"Draw," he said.
Kite plunged a hand into the salad bowl with a solemn flourish and pulled out a cap. "Eight," he said. A woman with dishwater hair raised a hand with a matching cap. "Two," he said. A janitor with a mop handle sanded smooth lifted his. "Twelve." An anchor-tattooed vendor tapped her number against the crate like a gavel.
Twelve hands with numbered caps stepped forward and put palms on the board. No faces. No speeches. Leon felt the street's breath change—the sound a room makes when it recognizes fairness by scent.
"Ad in twelve," Nyx murmured. "Polls off by your rule."
"Polls off," Leon confirmed. "This is not content."
Latch stood to the side with a mop, hands on the handle like a raft. He looked at the floor more than the board. Hew stood behind him, blocky, zipped to the throat, hands visible by reflex now. "Cousin A" and "Cousin B"—leather jackets that didn't fit right—shifted on their soles and, for once, didn't look for a camera to tell them who they were.
"Charges," Mae read, marker in hand. "Predatory tolling at the Canal line. Coercion. Blue Lamps surcharge." She wrote in block letters, rain beading on plastic.
"Evidence," Leon said. "Receipts."
Matron Feroce stepped forward with a ledger the color of a night market under her shawl. She set it on the board and flipped to a page of prices written in a hand that had never lied to itself. "Median posted this morning," she said. "Milk caps. Tinned peaches. Rice. No surcharge for Blue Lamps. We honor lamps."
A woman with a baby under a coat placed two cans on the crate and a Blue Lamp sticker diaphanous as onion skin. "He taxed the sticker," she said to the board, not to any lens.
"Witness noted," Mae said. "Hands only."
Nyx's voice ticked in his ear, not sardonic now, just counting. "Craft House is humming. War is asleep. Trickster is already bored and moving a pie into position."
Leon tapped the Ledger. "Jury," he said. "You will decide restitution labor vs confinement. No blood. No ransom."
Sister Irena spoke for the law as if it were a person she loved but wouldn't let get away with anything. "Mercy with receipts," she said. "We will not film the face of anyone who cries."
Kite folded his hands around the salad bowl like prayer. "Say it again," he said, because a kid's job is to make sure the line becomes a refrain.
"No minors on camera," Leon said. "Blue Lamps pass first. Jury Lottery. No ransom."
Brutus lifted his open hands. "Hands where cameras can see them," he said. "That includes ours."
A tiny drone crept into the ring of lamplight like a bug that had learned how to be forgiven. It carried a pie tin. Someone had iced a smile in pale blue. Trickster. The drone buzzed toward the board with the hunger of a meme.
Brutus stepped forward the exact amount that lets a machine's script find a different outcome. He lifted his palm and let the drone kiss it, then curled his fingers and set the pie on the crate with a gentleness that insulted no one. He didn't flip it into Latch's face. He didn't turn it into slapstick. He pointed at the THANKS jar with his chin.
"Auction," Kite said, prompt as a cue. "Clinic fund."
People laughed softly, with relief. Caps went into the jar. Trickster's chat sulked.
[Trickster Attempt: Humiliation Insert — Neutralized]
[Public: +Goodwill]
[Glass Saint tipped +150 Favor: "Elegance in refusal."]
[Trickster: −100 Favor ("Spoilsport.")]
"Proceed," Leon said.
Mae turned the marker toward "Evidence" again. "Escrow clause posted this morning," she said, tapping the printed card: Emergency Requisition Escrow. "Gouging voids contract. Seizure permitted with receipts." She added a line under it: Blue Lamps surcharge = gouge.
Latch lifted his chin without lifting his eyes. "We drew the line," he said to the board. "We called it law."
"Then you understand what a law is," Sister Irena said. "And the weight of drawing lines."
Hew cleared his throat like rocks shifting in a bucket. "I sweep," he said. "I can say that much."
"Jury," Leon said. "Hands in favor of confinement?" One hand lifted—hesitant, then dropped. "Hands in favor of restitution labor with oversight?" Hands rose like the first birds in the morning.
"Ten aye," Kite counted. "Two abstain."
"Pass," Mae said, and wrote: Restitution Labor — Latch + 2 ("Line Painters") + Hew (Sweep) — 20 hours clinics/alleys; Training with Wardens; Public Receipts.
[Verdict: Restitution Labor (20 hrs), Oversight: Wardens]
[Trust: +3]
[Merit: +15]
[War House: −100 Favor]
[Glass Saint tipped +300 Favor: "Civics with restraint."]
"Ad in 00:30," Nyx said. "Land it on the rim."
Leon nodded. "Latch," he said, voice uninflected. "You will sweep clinics and knock paint off the word TAX. You will bring witnesses to the next Council. You will set the mop down when a Blue Lamp walks."
Latch didn't look at a camera that wasn't looking at him. He nodded once, mop handle hitching like a breath.
"Cousins," Leon said. "You will repaint your own door. Not with red. With water. You will be seen not performing."
They didn't flinch; they paled. Being unseen was worse than humiliation to men who had learned to live through an audience. They nodded, slow.
Hew lifted his hands. "I don't talk much," he said. "I sweep. I can find the gum."
"We'll need you," Mae said. "Clinic floors lie for no one."
The ad washed over the block like a polite hand pulling a curtain and put teal lanterns and rain on copper in the place of the board for a minute we had all agreed to ignore.
When the feed came back, the marker had made two more lines:
– No Ransom: Draft to be put to vote.
– Lamp Theft = Clinic Betrayal: Formalized.
Murmur—voice of rumor, fingertips mic'd—slid in beside the board like a shadow adopting a job. They lifted the recorder so it saw only hands and ink. "Citizen press council," they said to the board, not to Leon. "We'll cut minutes for people who can't stand and don't like crowds. Ambient only."
"Not ours," Leon said.
"Not yours," Murmur agreed, pleased.
The ground under the ring gave the slow shrug of the patient thing under the street. The drain in the alley scritched, then shut up as if remembering it had an entrance queued.
"Maintenance," Oren said, like a man checking a pulse. He pointed at the board. Mae wrote UNSEEN WORK in letters so large the Blue Lamp's ring baptized them. "Bloom trim, lamp checks, drains," she said. "Entropy is three. We pay now or later."
"Motion," Sister Irena said. "Unseen Work tomorrow."
"Second," Leon said. "Unseen Work, two hours after dawn. Wardens training in the afternoon."
Brutus lifted his hands. "Dominance Without Injuries," he said. "Doorways, not punches. Bring your cousins."
Someone in the back laughed—one of the cousins, uncertain. Latch didn't. He had found a thought he liked better than performing.
Nyx's voice clicked. "Policy Office memo landed," she said, amused. "'Habitual dead air' with bolds. I put it in the Ombuds box with a ribbon."
"Thanks," Leon said. "They gave us their tells."
He turned to the enzyme domes, kneeling briefly to check Juno's wire. The enzyme breathed under the mesh like a thing that knew its job. "We'll need your ethics on the table," he said to Juno without looking up.
"Bring coffee," Juno said, leaf-printed gloves flexing. "I get sharper when I'm repentant."
Matron Feroce passed through with her ledger and a small brass stamp she used on receipts: teal loops that looked like patience written on loop. "Insurance Pool signers," she called. "Put your names down while your hands are warm."
"Announcements," Leon said, straightening. "Night Market—Market Holidays posted at dawn. Blue Lamps routes published nightly. Corridor stays dark by choice. Ombuds box here—Complaints and Thanks. We read both."
Kite held the jar of blue buttons at shoulder height. "Blue is for lamps," he said with the authority of a boy who had found a job for his hands. "Laws are for people."
"Same thing," Sister Irena murmured.
A tremor rolled beneath, the sound of a city remembering its old pipes. The Bloom's leaves slicked as one. The lamppost hiccuped on Oren's beat, honest.
"Last," Leon said. "Public comment on No Ransom."
A woman in a nurse's sweater—wet cuffs, steady wrists—set her palms on the crate. Her voice did not wobble. "No Ransom," she said. "If someone is taken, we don't pay with another. We count and we don't sell."
Mae wrote NO RANSOM in block letters, then underlined it once, then more lightly again, a habit that made sternness feel like mercy in ink.
"Vote next session," Leon said. "Tonight, we live like it's already a law."
Nyx's metrics slid in the corner of his eye like well-behaved insects. [Trust: +5] [Merit: +20] [War House: −150 Favor ("Paper cuts.")] [Glass Saint tipped +400 Favor: "Civics as theater done properly."]
Leon let the weight of the Ledger find his forearm. He looked toward the alley without turning his face. The drain breathed in a way you only hear if you've promised to listen.
"Adjourn," he said.
"Second," Sister Irena said, in the tone people use to bless a table.
The crowd breathed out. People put caps into THANKS or COMPLAINTS as if their hands knew where they belonged.
Across the block, under a word that promised CLEAN, Kade's verdict landed on a child's small shoulder like a borrowed hand. Nyx muted Leon's mics a heartbeat before his mouth could move.
Brutus stepped to Latch and held out the mop like a pact. Latch took it. Hew found a bucket without being told, which is what made men like him useful. The cousins looked at the pie on the crate and, after a moment, began to take bids with a surprising dignity.
Oren's head tilted. "Bones," he said. The drain scritched in the alley like a pencil trying the first letter of someone else's name.
Juno pulled her gloves tight. "You'll want warm water on my word," she said, half-smiling, half-regretting that she liked her work as much as her ethics.
Nyx's voice smoothed into the sound she used for a hook. "Leon," she said. "Tremor spiking. War stirred. The Saint is alert. If you want to introduce your hole to its king, the stage is set."
Leon tapped the Ledger once to anchor and once more to warn himself. He touched the Blue Lamp's ring with a fingertip like a man checking a pulse that had agreed to keep going.
"We mop," he said. "Then we hunt."
The ground answered with a careful roll, as if something large had turned in a narrow bed and decided to sit up.
[Cliff: Roach apex approaches the quiet alley; Unseen Work at dawn; Wardens training; No Ransom next session]