Ash set the square of evidence tape under the falling bead and let adhesive do the honest work men refuse. The microgel met the tape, spread a neat circle, and stopped a finger-width above the blue number. He turned his wrist so gravity would not make a new argument, sealed the square into a pouch Nono presented, and wrote MICROGEL—MIRROR RIM—FALL TOWARD KNOT—CAPTURED MID-AIR, time and place.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Probe intercept: microgel bead captured with evidence tape (no seal contact). Difficulty: mid. +50 Mechanic XP / +100 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
The liaison found his voice where men keep it when they plan to lose. "Accidental release," he said quickly. "Documenting only—"
"Logged," the City-Admin clerk said, pen already finishing 'ACCIDENTAL' RELEASE—DURING DOCUMENTATION with quotation marks that meant they would not be lonely later.
The judge did not raise her tone. "Nightshade," she said, "you are now one attempt from contempt. Your next contact—attempted or successful—removes your personnel from this venue until sixteen-hundred."
The liaison tried a shape for his mouth that would fit a new city. It didn't.
"Proceed," the clerk said, turning the page. "Any further documentation necessary?"
"Laser scan of the knot," the Nightshade clerk offered, immediate. He lifted a palm-sized rangefinder with a tiny IR grid window and a logo nobody had paid to license. "From the line. No contact."
"Hold for inspection," the judge said.
Ash took the tool by the strap and rolled the emitter to the light. The window showed a faint checker diffuser not for eyes, for detectors—a modulated grid meant to paint the knot with pattern so a camera could recover depth with help from a friend that listened to returns. The friend is always a sensor, and the sensor always wants to be inside the rumor of a seal.
"Directed light across the rope," Ash said. He didn't add the rest. He didn't need to.
"City-Admin will document," the judge said. "No directed light from Nightshade across the rope, visible or invisible. Clerk?"
"Rule added," the clerk said, writing NO DIRECTED LIGHT ACROSS ROPE (VIS/IR). He underlined NO and then placed the IR letters in a little box like you do when you have learned a source of trouble's favorite size.
The City-Admin clerk put a ball-head camera on the crate, lens at rope height, and took three still photographs and one short clip. He read the blue and violet numbers before and after into the mic like coordinates that the day would obey. "Copies will be provided to both parties," he said, and did not offer to explain how generosity differs from permission.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Venue: knot documented (City-Admin camera). Difficulty: simple. +10 Mechanic XP / +15 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
Admin's radio spoke with a roof that had found vocabulary. "Roof Two," came down. "Grays moved off hatch line. We've bagged one bead cord, one file, one micro-saw blade. They are supervised at the east parapet. Hatch stays quiet."
"Logged," the City-Admin clerk said. He wrote TOOLS BAGGED (ROOF) and the list, then drew CHAIN-OF-CUSTODY: FACILITIES → ADMIN with arrows because sometimes pictures keep men honest. Admin stamped OVERSIGHT on the line like a period.
"Numbers," the clerk said softly, and read the blue and violet again. "unchanged." He ran the RF wand over rope, crate, hatch, and let the wand be bored. "Negative."
The liaison found a new noun. He lifted a violet slip on his clipboard and held it so the camera could see. "We request the number be read again for clarity," he said, the way one says reset when the scoreboard is inconvenient.
"Read," the judge said.
The clerk read the violet. The liaison's finger traced his paper as if tracing made facts mutual. Ash's eye stayed where habits keep it: on microprint. The violet on the rope carried a grid of tiny letters CITY-ADMIN CO-SEAL PLAIN at 45°, the way City-Admin had decided. The liaison's copy had a grid too—CO-ADMIN CITY with a spacing off by one in ten.
"Copy is wrong," Ash said. He didn't point at the liaison; he pointed at the grid and the step. The City-Admin clerk raised his loupe, saw it, and wrote NIGHTSHADE COPY—MICROPRINT INCONSISTENT (OFF-STEP).
"Remedy," the judge said without reaching for displeasure. "Nightshade will attach their copy to our page and stop asking paper to pretend."
The liaison's smile learned a new way to be small.
"Any further motion," the clerk said, not hungry.
"Static safety check at the rope," the liaison said, finding a new moral. "To ensure no charge can build up on the seal assembly. ESD compliance. We'll clip a strap to the rope's post and touch—no contact with the knot."
Hale's face did not learn a new expression. "No clips," he said, and it felt like a ruling even before the judge said it.
"Hold for inspection," the judge said, as if anyone could stop a clip's habit of wanting to be a bite. The Nightshade tech raised the strap—a coil of clear with a metal alligator that had learned hunger. He put it in Ash's hand.
Ash looked at the teeth and then at the jaw pivot where the manufacturer had set a tooth island to pierce through paint. He turned it for the judge and the camera. "Piercing tooth," he said. "No strap with teeth in this venue."
"Logged," the clerk said, and wrote ESD STRAP—PIERCING JAW—REJECTED. He added NO CONTACT in margin—another little box to show someone where the walls are.
"City-Admin will present a static reading from our meter, from outside the rope," the judge said. The City-Admin clerk produced a case, lifted a field meter with a horn, and made two quick readings near rope and crate. "Ambient within normal," he said, showing the digits to both parties. No one clapped.
Silence is a kind of progress. It lasted three seconds.
The Nightshade liaison moved like the next noun might bite his hand if he didn't feed it a rule first. "Mirror," he tried again, and held up City-Admin's clean one now, because that box had been checked. He angled the head like he meant to show the camera the knot. He did show the knot. He also showed his wrist as it brought the mirror to the line, and the ESD strap clipped to his sleeve, daisy-chained through two other items the way men chain excuses. The strap's tail hung free and near the post.
"Stop," the judge said.
The liaison stopped—but people like him have parts that don't. His assistant, lingering where watchers had been reduced to zero and disliking math, leaned a shoulder and coughed a cough men use to turn attention. Between thumb and forefinger he palmed a second ESD clip, clear plastic over a jaw with a pierce tooth, and let his hand drift down, looped toward the rope's post as if the world were a place where men do not see.
Nono pinged.
Admin said, "Record," because that is what he is. "Attempt to clip ESD to rope post."
Ash did not raise the Stag. He raised a rag, because a rag speaks the right dialect. He wrapped two fingers in cloth and set them under the jaw so when the clip fell it would not teach the post a new song. His other hand slid across the rope's shadow; he let the web of his thumb pin the hinge before the tooth could find paint.
"Release," the judge said, and the liaison's assistant performed knowing the word and struggling to learn the meaning. He let go. Ash turned the clip inside the rag and presented it back to gravity, which is the right court for some objects. It went into a pouch that had been waiting to be honest. ESD CLIP—ATTEMPTED BITE AT POST—CAPTURED received a time and a position.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Probe intercept: ESD clip (piercing jaw) captured before contact. Difficulty: simple (higher-tier item). +10 Mechanic XP / +15 Basic Mechanical Repair XP.
"Nightshade is now at a final warning," the judge said, tone smooth as a lathe. "Any further attempt to contact the rope or crate and your team observes from outside only for the remainder of day."
The liaison was ready with a word. He found none. He nodded because nodding is free and sometimes it looks like a plan.
"Proceed to signatures," the clerk said, stacking what the day had made. He set the co-seal acknowledgment, the interim with its clarifications, the roof entries, the RF negatives, and the evidence list for today. The judge signed with the kind of hand that convinces rooms there will be a later.
"Numbers," she said. The clerk read blue and violet once more. "Unchanged." He let the camera watch his pen underline unchanged.
The liaison's eyes cut to the rope like volume had a number he could sneak under. His fingers, idle for five seconds too many, found productivity in the seam of his jacket. A clear strap tail emerged like a thought that had not been invited. It led to a clip he had kept folded against his cuff. He moved this hand while the other signed, a small magic men practice when they want paper and plastic to perform a duet.
Nono pinged—a quick, high tick that meant close and now.
Ash moved under the rope instead of across it, angle set so that his wrist would lift the post with a gram and his palm would arrive between clip and blue. The clip's jaws opened on their little spring. The pierce tooth flexed forward, impatient, aiming for paint as if paint were a decision. He set the ragged fingers under the jaw and his other hand over the hinge, trapping motion before motion could name itself.
"Don't bite," Hale said, and he didn't have to raise a rifle to make the word heavy.
The liaison looked down his own sleeve as if it had betrayed him. "ESD," he said, too late to be helpful.
"Release," the judge said.
He did not. His fingers tightened the way men's fingers do when they decide to be smarter than rooms. The jaw tilted a breath toward blue.
Ash turned his wrist a quarter and used the hinge as a fulcrum; the jaw's teeth met cloth and not rope. He faced the clip's back to the camera so the pierce would be obvious later, and tilted so that if it slipped, it would fall toward rag and floor, not up and into numbers.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Venue: ESD clip at knot—jaw trapped; seal at risk (high) if released. Recommendation: strip clip into evidence without contact to rope; log contempt warning.
The City-Admin clerk's pen had already written ESD CLIP—ATTEMPT #2—AT KNOT—JAW TRAPPED—NO CONTACT with a relish a pen has no right to, but which this one had earned.
Admin said, "Nightshade, this is your final act today inside this rope," because sometimes words give people a way to tell themselves the truth.
The liaison's fingers trembled—not because he was brave, because men's hands sometimes remember shame before their brains negotiate it. The hinge freed a shade. The jaw relaxed a millimeter that mattered. Ash rolled the clip into the rag and cuffed the rag around it like a jail that doesn't need metal. He set the bundle in a waiting pouch, zipped, and set it with its family on the crate.
The rope kept its blue. The knot kept its violet. The crate kept its plain. The room kept its shape.
The judge breathed once as if rooms get to do that through people. "Nightshade," she said softly, "you are now outside. You will observe through the grille. Your clerk may remain to receive copies and to sign. Nothing else."
The liaison nodded again, smaller. He took his arm back like a man who had remembered it was rented.
"Signatures," the City-Admin clerk repeated, because repetition is a kind of lock. The judge and Admin made their marks. The Nightshade clerk—not the liaison—took the pen, signed where the boxes asked, and did not pretend the pen was heavy.
"RF," the judge said.
"Negative," the clerk answered, wand steady. "Numbers, unchanged."
The liaison cleared his throat, and it came out as a word that was not a noun or a verb. He stepped back one step—the step of a man who had learned which side of a line kept rooms alive.
They were an inch from done when the City-Admin clerk lifted one last page: CONTEMPT WARNING—VENUE CONTACTS. He turned it for the liaison's eyes with the politeness of a door that still opens for you, one last time. "Acknowledge," he said.
The liaison's hand twitched, not toward the pen—toward his cuff where reflex lives. Nono pinged a small sound like a title card. The judge turned her head a fraction; Hale did not. Ash's palm rose a half-inch under the rope because sometimes a room needs to feel a hand it trusts.
The liaison's fingers stopped. He signed as if the page were a truce he had negotiated with a mirror.
"Adjourn," the judge said. "Fourteen-thirty for objections; sixteen-hundred for the next session. Venue remains sealed. Cart and drone remain at street. Nightshade observes from outside."
The Nightshade clerk gathered his clean mirror, his empty strap case, and his dignity into a single rectangle of behavior. The liaison turned to go and then, as if the day could not allow itself to be simply concluded, he let his cuff hand drift down as the pen returned—small, innocent, the way men try to teach themselves to be gentle when they are holding teeth.
Nono's ping found a higher octave. The clip he hadn't surrendered had found a way to be seen again, a last, ridiculous animal. The jaws spread toward the knot like a yawn learned in the wrong school.
Ash went under the rope, rag ready, hand angling to take the hinge instead of the head. The clip's tooth came forward a breath, hunger rehearsed, and he set the ragged fingers between intent and number.