Chapter 30 — Witness Condition
We chose the first witness carefully.
Not the loudest injustice.
Not the cruelest.
Not the one that would make a good story later.
We chose the one that couldn't be simplified.
It was a bridge.
Old stone, older arguments. Built between two regions that now officially agreed they had never needed each other. The bridge still stood, but trade had stopped crossing it. Taxes changed. Jurisdictions overlapped. Guards on either side enforced laws that contradicted one another with impeccable politeness.
Nothing dramatic happened there.
Which is why it was perfect.
People still crossed the bridge every day—just fewer, slower, more tired. Every crossing required explanation. Every explanation accumulated friction.
The Curator liked friction when it could be measured.
This friction couldn't.
Valerius scouted first. Came back with blood on her sleeve and fury barely contained.
"They don't know who's in charge anymore," she said. "So they enforce everything."
Puck perched on the table, tail twitching. "That's my least favorite flavor of authority."
I nodded. "Good. That means everyone involved already feels wrong."
The Shard hummed—steady, restrained.
I didn't bring power to the bridge.
I brought presence.
We arrived at midday, when the sun flattened shadows and decisions felt heavier than they should. Two guards on the east side. Three on the west. All of them tired. All of them certain they were following rules someone else had decided.
A woman stood at the center of the bridge, arguing quietly.
She held a basket of medicines. Legal on one side. Prohibited on the other—not because they were harmful, but because the paperwork had changed names.
She wasn't shouting.
That mattered too.
"I've crossed this bridge for fifteen years," she was saying. "My mother lives there."
One guard rubbed his eyes. "I know. But that was before the revision."
"What revision?"
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Looked genuinely lost.
That was the moment.
I stepped forward—not fast, not slow. Just enough to be noticed.
The Shard did not flare.
Good.
"Who decided the revision?" I asked gently.
All five guards turned toward me.
That wasn't unusual.
What followed was.
No one answered.
Not because they didn't want to.
Because they couldn't.
The silence stretched—not awkwardly, but accurately. The kind of silence that exposes a missing piece rather than hiding it.
Puck felt it and stilled.
Valerius watched, tense, ready.
The woman looked between us, confusion giving way to something sharper. "You don't know," she said. Not accusing. Realizing.
One guard swallowed. "It came from above."
"Above where?" I asked.
He gestured vaguely. The air. The idea of hierarchy.
I nodded. "Okay."
That was all.
No declaration. No defiance.
Just acceptance of the fact that something important was absent.
The Shard hummed—not louder, not stronger.
Clearer.
I turned to the woman. "Cross," I said.
The guards stiffened.
"She can't—"
"Why?" I asked, still calm.
The guard opened his mouth again.
Nothing came out.
That was the witness.
Not her crossing.
Not their failure to stop her.
The gap.
The moment where authority was present, enforced, and yet fundamentally unlocatable.
The woman stepped forward.
One step.
No lightning struck.
No correction arrived.
She crossed the bridge.
The guards didn't move.
They couldn't—not because they were stopped, but because there was no longer a rule they could name that justified motion.
The basket made it across.
So did the woman.
The world did not end.
But something important did.
I felt it like a line snapping far above us.
Not a system.
A story.
The Curator noticed thirty seconds later.
Not the crossing.
The discontinuity in justification density.
A report generated itself.
> EVENT TYPE: IRREDUCIBLE
CAUSE: UNDETERMINED
RESOLUTION PATH: NARRATIVE INSUFFICIENT
That was new.
Valerius exhaled slowly. "They'll respond."
"Yes," I said. "But not by fixing this."
Puck hopped down, eyes bright with nervous excitement. "Because if they explain it, they admit the gap."
"Exactly."
The guards stood there for a long moment after we left.
Not confused.
Thinking.
That was the danger.
We didn't repeat the event.
That was the rule.
No pattern.
No reenactment.
Witnesses don't scale.
But they propagate sideways.
Three days later, something similar happened at a river crossing. A week later, in a courthouse where two laws contradicted each other so completely the judge adjourned without ruling and walked out.
Not rebellion.
Refusal to pretend coherence.
The Curator adjusted—of course it did.
Narratives tightened elsewhere. Education standards simplified. History texts aligned.
But every tightening created stress.
And stress found cracks.
The Shard grew heavier with each witness.
Not stronger.
Denser.
It wasn't a tool anymore.
It was a responsibility.
Valerius confronted me that night. "You're changing what counts as authority."
I nodded. "I know."
"That will not end with compromise."
"I know."
She searched my face. "Are you afraid?"
I considered it.
"Yes," I said. "But not of them."
Puck tilted his head. "Then what?"
"Of what happens if this works," I admitted.
Because if people learned to recognize gaps—
Not exploit them.
Not worship them.
Just see them—
Then no system would ever feel complete again.
And completeness had always been the Curator's promise.
Somewhere beyond scale, it logged another update:
> PHENOMENON IDENTIFIED: WITNESS EVENTS
EFFECT: DEGRADES LEGITIMACY WITHOUT DIRECT ACTION
COUNTERMEASURE: REFRAME EVENTS AS ANOMALOUS BUT INSIGNIFICANT
It would try to minimize us.
Archive us.
Turn us into trivia.
That was fine.
Witnesses don't need prominence.
They just need to be remembered—incorrectly, inconsistently, stubbornly.
I looked out at the darkened road beyond the bridge.
Somewhere ahead, another gap was waiting.
And this time—
I wouldn't walk alone.