By the second day the question had a life of its own.
Aldric never had to say the thing. That was the craft of it. AldricCorp Media did not run a single frame calling Caleb a monster, a kaiju, a threat.
They ran the clean exam footage, the 1.2% washout reading, stamped and sealed by a Defense Force lab, and they set it next to the magistrate's refusal to look closer, and they let the city do the arithmetic. A man cleared as human. A court that would not examine him. A broadcast no one was allowed to watch.
The feeds asked it gently, a dozen ways an hour. What is he. Why is he shielded. Who decided you were not allowed to see.
Caleb watched it move through the city like weather.
The corner where his mother bought fish had a public screen, and the screen had the question on it when he walked past. Two men by the stall went quiet, looked at him, and looked away too fast. A delivery kid he had tipped a hundred times took the credits at the door without meeting his eyes.
