The minute hand reached noon, and the East Gallery took on the hush of a shop that knows a gauge is about to be set. The chain across the posts vibrated faintly with air, the anti-grapple skirt showed its scratches like a ledger, and the rope with its fresh blue number lay across the stanchions as if it had always been part of the floor plan.
"Reconvene," the City-Admin clerk said into the small mic on the crate. "Venue with watchers exterior, cart at rope, view-only inventory. City-Admin present. Nightshade present. Admin present. Proposed: co-seal request."
The Nightshade clerk lifted a violet strip on his clipboard with the clean confidence of a man deploying stationery as strategy. The liaison beside him had a smile meant to outlast other people's rules. The truck idled three meters off the lip—exact on paper, economical on sincerity.
A woman in a City-Admin coat with a narrow judge's pin stepped to the rope, took in the curtain and the grille and the men, and then set her gaze back on the rope knot as if it were a witness. "Scope," she said.
"Rope knot and evidence table," the Nightshade clerk answered promptly. "Emergency co-seal under Twelve-B-minor, with City-Admin present."
"And nothing else," the judge said. "No equipment, tools, fixtures, or floor. Adhesive only. No current. No embedded readers."
"Agreed," the liaison said, the word smooth over a rough plan.
"Ground rules," the City-Admin clerk went on, and read them as if they had never been read before: view-only, no attachments, watchers exterior, cart at rope. He stacked his earlier pages, squared their corners, and tapped the top sheet once.
Admin placed three printed photos on the crate, each stamped and initialed: a junction plate labeled LEVEL TWO-A with a cut tap tidy as a surgeon's stitch; a second plate TWO-B with the same neat surgery; and a close shot of the bus pigtail he had cut and capped at the generator. "Exhibit E," he said. "Junction taps cut and capped; generator local and stable."
"Entered," the clerk said. The judge studied the photos without affection, tracing routes in her head, and then let the paper be paper again.
The Nightshade cart hummed at its mark. A tech lifted a white calibration wand the size of a screwdriver. "Air sniff," he said. "From the rope. No entry."
"From there," the clerk confirmed.
The tech eased the wand forward until the beveled nose crossed the line by a thumb's width. Ash watched the last centimeter, not the hand: a recessed micro-clip tucked into the bevel with a sliver of filament beside it, a small principle disguised as plastic.
"Hold," Ash said. He took the wand between two fingers, rolled the nose toward the light, and let the clip show its teeth.
The judge didn't raise her voice. "Remove the clip."
The tech pinched at air, performed surprise in the cheap theater way, and laid the clip into the Nightshade clerk's palm. The City-Admin clerk wrote WAND—HIDDEN CLIP—REMOVED and drew a short line under REMOVED that somehow increased the weight of the word.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Probe intercept: calibration wand micro-clip removed at rope. Difficulty: simple (higher-tier item). +10 Mechanic XP / +15 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
"Again," the judge said. The wand came to the rope without hardware hiding in it. Numbers scrolled on its screen; they mattered to the tech and to no one else.
"Elevated particulates at the seam," the liaison announced, making smoke out of sand.
"From your own dust," the clerk said. "Next."
An "air sampler" on legs rolled up: a mild fan with a snout and a coiled tube the operator promised not to snake under the lip. He set it at the rope and, with his free hand, tore a small sachet, flicking fine abrasive dust toward the seam—glitter with an agenda.
"Seam broom and magnet sheet," Ash said.
Nono opened a compartment. The broom was a board with bristles; the magnet was a flexible sheet that preferred metal to arguments. Ash drew the broom along the interior threshold in a straight, unremarkable pass that sent the dust back where it came from. He slid the magnet sheet along the lip; it gathered fines with a tug he could feel through glove.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Countermeasure: seam broom + magnet sheet deployed. Difficulty: simple (higher-tier item). +10 Mechanic XP / +15 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
"Operator," the judge said without looking at the man. "Do not throw anything at my venue again."
"Logged," the City-Admin clerk added, writing ABRASIVE DUST—ATTEMPT—WARNED in neat capitals.
Admin lifted a hand. "Request distance clarification for exterior hardware. We've documented attempts to make an anchor out of the lip."
"Three meters from the lip," the judge said. "All tools off and stowed. Drone no lower than lintel height."
"Within limit," the liaison said. The truck rolled back the length of a careful sentence. The drone rose and sat at the lintel like a cat that had agreed to keep its paws off the counter, for now.
"Proceed to co-seal," the judge said. "City-Admin will apply a plain wafer to the crate; Nightshade may apply a violet strip to the rope knot and crate. Both visible. Both auditable."
The Nightshade clerk lifted a fat applicator pen. Under its clear tip waited a violet wafer and a tiny LED that had no glue to explain it. The City-Admin clerk held up a paper wafer with a printed number and a blue rope strip that already lived on the record.
"Inspection," Ash said. He raised a loupe and the judge extended her hand for the pen.
"Give him the pen," she told the clerk.
The applicator changed owners. Up close, the wafer's face showed a faint cross-hatch; turn it, and a hairline trace ran from the backer into the pen body. Ash eased the tip shield. A passive coil crouched behind the wafer where only adhesive should live. The LED would blink when proximity woke the coil and the coil would say hello to whatever reader pretended to be a wall.
"Your wafer is a reader," Ash said.
"Anti-tamper," the Nightshade clerk replied, smooth and ready. "Logs a break."
"City-Admin wafers exist for that," the judge said. She handed the pen to the City-Admin clerk. He peeled the wafer half back with a thumbnail and showed the etched antenna like a spiderweb someone had tried to hide under paint.
"Logged," he said. "Remedy: Nightshade applies a plain violet strip supplied by City-Admin. Ink and glue only."
"Approved," the judge said.
The City-Admin bag produced a violet that was only color. The Nightshade pen retired to the cart as if it had done nothing wrong. They proceeded in order. The clerk pressed blue across the rope knot and read the number; Admin echoed it into his pad. Nightshade pressed the plain violet beside the blue and read that number; Admin echoed again. The judge watched the knot with machinist's attention. At the crate, the clerk set the plain wafer on clean wood and read; the plain violet went beside it; numbers read again; Admin repeated both into his pad and wrote CO-SEAL (PLAIN) on the margin for the record.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Venue: co-seal applied (rope + crate), passive tag removed. Difficulty: mid. +50 Mechanic XP / +100 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
"Ground rules stand," the judge said. "No tools at the lip. View-only inventory. Bench remains snapshot-sealed. Throughput per interim."
Admin slid the Level Two photos back into the pouch and set the small copper whisker bag beside them, a footnote that insisted on being visible. The City-Admin clerk drew a box around STATUS QUO CONTINUES and, under that, wrote NOON SESSION—CO-SEAL (PLAIN).
The drone held at the lintel in a sulk that pretended to be compliance. Nono wiped the broom and rolled the magnet sheet back into its sleeve; tools that have done their job deserved to be put away properly. The chain across the posts settled into its usual hum, a pitch that rooms learn when they intend to keep their shape.
"Motion," the Nightshade clerk said. "Inventory at the shop, immediate."
"Denied," the judge answered before his second syllable could collect friends. "Venue only. View-only at rope. Written objection at twelve-thirty."
The liaison's smile re-calculated and came up short. The inspector stared at the crate the way a man looks at a locked drawer and pretends it's a window.
"Any further motions?" the judge asked. There were none worth paper. "Then signatures."
The co-seal acknowledgment went round. Nightshade signed with a grip that looked like he meant to bruise the clipboard and thought better of it. Admin signed and set his stamp with a quiet authority the room had learned to respect. The City-Admin clerk signed last and pocketed the pen without comment. The liaison reached for a smile and set it down again.
Overhead, the drone dipped a quiet handspan below the lintel, enough to make Nono ping a lower tone. A small dropper pod under the drone's belly opened like an eyelid and let down a gray fleck on a hair of filament. It swung toward the rope knot, finding the bare inch of crate top just beside the wafers where ink met air and plausible deniability lived.
"Drone," the judge said.
"Within limit," the liaison said at the same time, the rhythm of the words prepared.
Nono pinged again. The fleck arced, the filament trembled, the crate's inch of wood waited like an invitation someone had forgotten to rescind. Ash stepped into the geometry, choosing an angle that would deny the fleck a place to land without brushing blue or violet. He tracked the arc and the wind that wasn't wind and brought his palm up to meet the little future falling out of the drone.
"Objection," the liaison said, "to interference with—"
"Don't speak," the judge told him, tone level.
Ash positioned his hand where the fleck wanted to be and offered it a different plan.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Venue: overhead micro-tag attempt detected. Risk: high. Recommendation: interdict without disturbing seals.