Chapter 24 — First Contact Is Never Clean
Elric did not invite us inside.
He walked alongside us.
That alone told me more than any speech could have.
People who led you somewhere already believed they were ahead of you.
People who walked beside you were still negotiating the shape of the road.
We moved through the village slowly. Too slowly for panic. Too openly for secrecy.
Nothing exploded.
Nothing corrected itself.
That was the most unsettling part.
Villagers glanced up as we passed—some curious, some wary, some relieved in the way people are when something unnamed finally gains a shape they can look at. A woman sweeping her porch paused, frowned at her broom, then continued as if she'd decided not to question why it now had three bristles fewer than yesterday.
Residue, managed.
Elric noticed my attention. "You're filtering," he said quietly. "Good. If you don't, the place gets loud."
I stopped walking.
Valerius's hand drifted closer to her rapier—not threatening, just prepared.
"You can feel that?" I asked.
Elric nodded once. "Since last winter. When the census came."
Puck's ears snapped upright. "Oh. Oh no. That's never a good sentence."
"The Curator's census?" I asked.
"Yes," Elric said. "They didn't call it that, of course. They called it a reconciliation of records. Asked everyone to state their names, households, durations of residence."
"And?" I pressed.
"And when I answered," he continued calmly, "the numbers didn't like me."
I felt the Shard stir.
Recognition.
"You didn't get erased," I said.
"No," Elric agreed. "They adjusted the question instead."
We resumed walking.
That was worse.
"They're letting inconsistencies persist," Valerius said. "On purpose."
"Yes," Elric replied. "They're growing a sample set."
I exhaled through my nose. "Great. We're data now."
Puck muttered, "I hate being empirical."
We reached a low stone building near the center of the village. Not a temple. Not a hall. Just… communal. The kind of place that existed because people needed somewhere to argue about roofs and bread.
Elric stopped there.
"This is as far as I take you," he said.
I raised an eyebrow. "You're not coming in?"
He smiled faintly. "If I do, they'll classify this as a meeting. That escalates the language."
Smart.
Annoying.
Effective.
"Then why bring us here at all?" I asked.
"Because," he said, meeting my eyes, "you need to understand something before you decide what you are."
The Shard hummed—low, attentive.
Elric gestured to the village around us. "We're not margins because we want power. We're margins because the world stopped agreeing with us—and we didn't disappear."
I felt that land deep in my chest.
"You," he continued, "are different. You interfere."
Puck crossed his arms. "Hey, he prefers the term 'engages.'"
Elric smiled briefly. "Then here is the engagement."
He reached into his coat and withdrew a folded page.
Not paper.
Index material.
The same texture as the Curator's records. The same weight of authority pretending to be neutral.
My stomach dropped.
"You shouldn't have that," Valerius said sharply.
"I know," Elric replied. "That's why it keeps trying to leave me."
The page twitched in his hand, edges blurring.
I stepped forward without thinking and steadied it—just enough. Not seizing. Not altering.
Acknowledging.
The Shard resonated cleanly.
"What is it?" I asked.
"A provisional classification," Elric said. "Draft. Not finalized."
I unfolded it.
My name was already there.
Not in ink.
In context.
> SUBJECT: ARTHUR HALE
STATUS: ANOMALOUS INTERFACE NODE
BEHAVIOR: NONCOMPLIANT, NONDESTRUCTIVE
RECOMMENDATION: OBSERVE. DO NOT INTEGRATE (YET).
My throat went dry.
"They're watching," Puck whispered.
"Yes," I said. "But they're hesitating."
Valerius looked at Elric. "Why show us this?"
"Because," he said simply, "the moment they stop hesitating, this village becomes a footnote."
Silence settled.
Not heavy.
Deliberate.
I folded the page and handed it back.
"What do you want from me?" I asked.
Elric didn't hesitate.
"Teach us how not to echo," he said. "Before the world decides we're noise."
The Shard pulsed once—deep, steady.
Not warning.
Not command.
Choice.
I looked at the village. At the imperfect calm. At the people living inside parentheses the universe hadn't closed yet.
Then I nodded.
"Alright," I said. "But we do this my way."
Puck grinned nervously. "Oh good. He's starting a curriculum."
Valerius exhaled slowly. "This will draw attention."
"Yes," I said. "But not the kind they're used to."
Somewhere beyond records and revisions, the Curator adjusted its posture.
The interface had stopped being theoretical.
And the system was about to discover—
Some problems don't scale.