Chapter 13 — Cross-Reference
I dreamed of shelves.
Not bookshelves—not really. These were wrong. Too tall. Too narrow. They stretched upward into a ceiling that kept revising itself, rearranging beams so nothing ever quite lined up. Labels slid along their spines like insects, letters reordering whenever I tried to read them.
Somewhere deep in the stacks, something turned a page.
I woke with the Shard humming like a held breath.
Dawn crept in reluctantly, light seeping through the trees in pale, diluted strands. The fire had burned down to coals, still warm, still real. That mattered more than it should have.
Valerius was already standing watch. Puck sat on a branch above me, tail wrapped tight, ears flicking.
"You drool when you're anxious," he said.
"I do not."
"You indexed your own sleeve."
I wiped my mouth and sat up. My head felt… filed. Thoughts arriving in neat, uncomfortable order. I hated it.
"They're still watching," I said.
Valerius didn't turn. "Yes."
"That wasn't a question."
She finally faced me. "Observation window hasn't closed."
"How long does it stay open?"
Valerius considered. "Until you become predictable. Or too costly."
I rubbed my face. "Great. I'll aim for neither."
We broke camp quickly. No fire relit. No unnecessary disturbances. Even Puck stayed quiet, which was unsettling in its own special way.
As we moved deeper into the forest, I noticed something subtle—and worse than resistance.
The world remembered me.
Not in detail. Not consciously. But paths hesitated before letting me pass. Branches shifted just a little too late. Stones seemed to settle after I stepped on them, as if recording the pressure.
I wasn't fighting reality anymore.
I was being cached.
"Arthur," Valerius said quietly. "You're leaving a pattern."
"I'm not using margins."
"I know."
That was the problem.
We reached a break in the trees near midday—a low ridge overlooking a shallow valley. From above, the land looked ordinary. From inside my skull, it felt annotated.
I froze.
The Shard pulsed once.
Then twice.
Warning.
"No," I whispered. "You don't get to do that now."
Puck dropped down beside me. "Too late. Something's wrong in the boring way."
A shape stood in the valley.
Not a person.
Not a creature.
A structure.
A tall, thin obelisk of pale stone, no markings, no inscriptions. It hadn't been there yesterday. I knew that with the certainty of someone who remembers not remembering.
Valerius swore softly.
"That's not Curator," I said.
"No," she agreed. "That's derivative."
My stomach twisted. "Someone else noticed."
We approached slowly.
The closer we got, the heavier the air became—not pressure this time, but relevance. Like the place wanted us to understand it.
The obelisk hummed faintly.
Not Shard-hum.
Something cheaper.
Imitative.
I circled it carefully, eyes narrowing. The surface wasn't smooth—it was layered, like compressed paper. When I brushed it with my fingertips, the layers shifted.
Words surfaced.
Fragments.
—margin unstable—
—subject retained autonomy—
—classification pending—
I jerked my hand back.
"They copied me," I said.
"They tried," Valerius corrected.
The obelisk cracked.
A fissure split its side, widening as something inside pushed outward. Light leaked through—not bright, not dark. Neutral. Blank.
A figure emerged.
It looked like me.
Not exactly. Close enough to be insulting.
Same height. Same outline. But its features were unfinished, as if someone had stopped sculpting halfway through. Its eyes were flat planes of reflected light.
"Arthur Hale," it said.
Its voice had no echo.
"I am Reference Instance One."
Puck made a strangled noise. "Oh, absolutely not."
The copy tilted its head. "You exhibit deviation," it said calmly. "Deviation must be bounded."
Valerius moved between us instantly, blade up. "Step back."
The instance ignored her.
I felt the margins tighten around my thoughts—not responding to me, but to it.
"That thing can't use margins," I said.
"No," Valerius replied grimly. "But it can predict them."
The instance raised a hand.
The ground beneath my feet stiffened—not resisting, not blocking.
Anticipating.
I stumbled.
"See?" it said. "Margin behavior inferred."
Anger flared—sharp, dangerous.
The Shard surged.
Not outward.
Inward.
I understood.
The copy was built from residue.
From what I'd already done.
So I did something new.
I stepped forward—
And did nothing.
No margin. No withdrawal. No cleverness.
Just a punch.
My fist connected with its jaw.
The impact was solid. Real. The instance staggered back, surprised.
Its expression flickered.
"Unindexed response," it said.
"Yeah," I snapped. "That's called being human."
It lunged.
Valerius intercepted, blade slicing through its arm. The cut didn't bleed—it deleted. The limb unraveled into drifting strips of pale notation.
The instance screamed.
The obelisk shattered.
Light collapsed inward, imploding with a sound like a book slamming shut.
Silence followed.
I stood there, breathing hard, knuckles throbbing.
Puck stared at me. "You punched a footnote."
"I'm escalating my academic misconduct," I muttered.
Valerius sheathed her blade slowly. "That wasn't the Curator."
"No," I agreed. "That was someone trying to become it."
I looked at the ruins of the obelisk.
Residue reacting to residue.
Replication.
Fear crawled up my spine.
"They're not just watching anymore," I said. "They're learning."
The Shard hummed—steady, resolved.
Not fear.
Challenge.
I clenched my fist, pain grounding me.
"Good," I said quietly. "So am I."
And somewhere, far beyond the forest, a record updated itself—
Noted.
Cross-referenced.
Flagged for follow-up.