The Weight of Concordance

0. Artifact: Mandate Header (Recovered)

CONCORDANT HEGEMONY NAVAL AUTHORITY
Office of Harmonization & Border Stability
MANDATE: CH-OHS-7H-T1
SUBJECT: Sector 7-H Civic Unit 12 ("Kharon") — Transitional Harmonization
APPOINTED ARBITER: High Arbiter Cassian Virex
COMPLIANCE TARGET: ≥ 95% Protocol Adoption within 12 days
CASUALTY TARGET: ≤ 0.8% Population Disruption Index
SPECIAL NOTE: Maintain formation doctrine. Avoid exotic system dependencies.
REFERENCE: Unyielding Line Principles

I

Applause was not required.

The Concordant Hegemony did not prefer noise, and it did not confuse noise with consent. Consent was volatile; it could be withdrawn. Noise was worse. Noise suggested the presence of feelings that could not be measured, categorized, or filed.

The ceremony on Kharon was silent, and therefore, by the standards that mattered, successful.

High Arbiter Cassian Virex watched from the bridge of the Legatus-class battlecruiser Final Authority, its hull a moving argument for inevitability. The ship did not drift. It advanced, even when stationary, by virtue of mass and declared purpose. The Hegemony's ships were built the way their laws were written: with redundancies, blunt strength, and an almost suspicious absence of ornament. "Systems fail," the training materials said. "Armor endures."

Below, in the capital plaza, the local delegation stood in a shallow arc. Their leader read the Articles of Harmonization from a tablet provided by a Concordant Liaison. A drone hovered at a respectful height, recording the words that would become the official beginning of this system's new life.

Cassian listened to the recitation with the audio routed through a private channel. The words were standardized, vetted, and translated into seven dialects to reduce interpretive variance.

"We acknowledge the authority of the Concordant Hegemony…"

Cassian's aide, Sera Kint, stood to his right with a thin slate of metrics hovering at her wrist. She was young enough to still believe that the world could be solved. Not in the naïve sense—Sera did not believe in goodness—but in the engineered sense: apply sufficient pressure in the correct places and the outcome becomes stable.

"The compliance curve is clean," she said. "Ahead of projection."

Cassian kept his gaze on the plaza. "Clean curves can hide slow fractures."

Sera's eyes flicked to him and back to her slate. "The fracture tolerance is generous. Curfew adherence at ninety-nine point six. Speech protocol adoption at eighty-seven and climbing. No significant kinetic incidents."

Cassian's expression did not change, but something in his attention sharpened, like a blade drawn a fraction from its sheath.

"Point four percent," he said.

Sera did not need clarification. "Nonadherence."

"How many bodies," Cassian asked, "compose that fraction?"

Sera's fingers moved. "Approximately forty-two thousand individuals."

A fraction large enough to contain a city.

Cassian watched the crowd in the plaza. No chants, no fists. Faces lifted toward the drone with the flatness of resignation. Some held their children too tightly. Some did not hold them at all, as if unsure whether touch was permitted.

"Break down nonadherence," Cassian said.

Sera expanded a layer of the model. "Most is practical: late curfew returns due to transit disruption. Small percentage is memetic: prohibited idioms in school recitations, unauthorized communal gatherings, informal mutual aid. The model predicts the memetic cluster will either dissipate or consolidate."

"And if it consolidates?"

Sera's tone remained gentle, as if describing weather. "Then corrective action reduces expected disorder cost. Minimal disruption. Targeted detentions. Reassignment of key nodes."

Cassian's eyes tracked the edge of the plaza, where the crowd thickened and thinned. In one corner, people stood too close together—not in panic, but in pattern. Their shoulders touched, heads angled inward. They were not watching the dais. They were watching a balcony three stories up.

"Zoom," Cassian said.

The drone image tightened. A woman stood on the balcony, hands resting on the rail. Not a member of the delegation. Not wearing Liaison colors. She held no sign. She did nothing.

Yet the cluster in the plaza watched her as if she were a point of gravity.

Sera overlaid association lines. "That's the node."

"It's a person," Cassian said.

"It's a node," Sera corrected softly. "A central one."

The overlay mapped threads from the balcony woman to a teacher, a clinic medic, a dock coordinator, and a poet whose last three posts had been quietly removed for language violations.

"A poet," Cassian repeated, tasting the word. It made him think of unnecessary risk.

"Language shapes behavior," Sera said. "Behavior shapes stability."

Cassian watched the woman turn her head. For an instant her gaze aligned with the drone lens. Cassian had the irrational sensation—an old reflex from old wars—that she could see through the distance and the armor and the abstractions, and see him.

Then she stepped back into the building.

The ceremony concluded. The delegation dispersed. The drone bowed and lifted away.

The plaza remained quiet.

The kind of quiet that makes planners proud.

The kind of quiet that makes historians nervous.

"Prepare a descent package," Cassian said.

Sera's posture remained perfect, but something—respect, perhaps, or mild alarm—entered her tone. "Arbiter, our mandate does not require planet-side presence. We have compliance."

"Our mandate requires harmony," Cassian said. He could hear the irony and refused to flinch from it. "And harmony isn't measured only by silence."

Sera inclined her head. "As you wish."

Cassian watched the Concordant Knot unfurl above the plaza, white field and black sigil. It lay flat against the air, refusing even the smallest ripple.

A perfect symbol.

A warning.

II

Planetfall smelled like disinfectant.

Kharon's capital had been scrubbed for the ceremony: banners aligned, streets cleared, public transport rerouted so the delegation could arrive without interruption. Concordant crews were efficient and, more importantly, eager to demonstrate that their efficiency was a form of care.

Cassian descended with an escort that was minimal by doctrine: a small security detail, a Liaison team, and Sera with her slate. He did not bring shock troops. Shock troops are for after.

They moved through a corridor of clean walls and curated signage. The city had already begun learning its new vocabulary.

HARMONY OFFICE — GRIEVANCE INTAKE
COMPLIANCE COUNTER — CIVIC REASSIGNMENT

The people inside waited in orderly lines, holding papers that looked suspiciously like prayer.

Cassian paused at a wall display showing a cheerful diagram of resource redistribution. A citizen could submit a request. A request would be assessed. Needs would be met.

The diagram did not show what happened to the requests labeled noncompliant.

Sera stood beside him. "The Harmony Office is functioning above target. Intake throughput is excellent."

Cassian watched a young man step up to the counter, speak quietly, and receive a printed token in exchange. The token had a number. The number was not a promise. It was a record.

"Who runs this office," Cassian asked.

"Transitional Civic Administrator Leina Oros," Sera said. "Local. Cooperative. She requested appointment to maintain continuity."

Cassian turned. "Bring her."

Leina arrived without haste. She wore a neutral suit and the expression of someone who had learned to stand still while knives moved around her. Her hands were visible. Her eyes were steady.

"High Arbiter," she said, and bowed precisely the correct amount.

"Administrator Oros," Cassian replied. "Your ceremony was exemplary."

Her mouth made an almost-smile that did not reach her eyes. "We prefer to do things correctly."

Cassian studied her face for the brief moment allowed by protocol. "Correctness," he said, "is a valuable preference."

Leina's gaze shifted—subtle, but Cassian caught it—toward the Harmony Office interior, toward the lines of citizens, toward the wall of curated diagrams.

"It keeps people alive," she said.

Sera's slate pinged with a minor alert. She dismissed it with a flick. Cassian saw the same alert in his peripheral: memetic nonadherence, clustering.

Cassian gestured toward a side room.

Leina followed without visible resistance.

Inside, the room was bare except for a table and two chairs. A drone hovered near the ceiling, recording. The Hegemony did not rely on memory.

Cassian sat. Leina remained standing until he gestured. She sat.

"This is a routine debrief," Cassian said.

Leina nodded. "Of course."

"Your compliance metrics are strong," Cassian said. "Yet we observe a small pattern of nonadherence."

Leina's eyes did not flicker. "Patterns are everywhere."

"Some patterns are benign," Cassian said. "Some are structurally destabilizing."

Leina folded her hands on the table, palms down, a gesture of contained force. "And what is destabilizing," she asked, "is determined by your model."

Sera's voice was mild. "Determined by outcomes."

Leina looked at Sera for the first time. "Outcomes for whom?"

Sera did not respond. She was not built for that line of questioning.

Cassian leaned forward slightly. "There is a network," he said. "Mutual aid. Unregistered gatherings. Unauthorized idioms. A poet."

Leina's expression remained composed. But Cassian saw something beneath it: not fear, not anger—recognition.

"You call it a network," Leina said. "We call it… people."

"People are capable of destabilizing themselves," Cassian said.

Leina's lips tightened. "People are capable of saving themselves when systems fail."

Sera's fingers moved across her slate. "We have options for minimal correction."

Leina's gaze returned to Cassian. "Correction," she said softly, as if tasting a bitter word. "You mean removal."

Cassian did not deny it. Denial is for those who think language changes reality.

"Yes," Cassian said. "Removal of key nodes reduces disorder probability."

Leina sat very still. "And what," she asked, "is disorder?"

Cassian held her gaze. "Any behavior that increases the cost of stability."

Leina's voice lowered. "Then hope is disorder."

The drone hummed quietly overhead.

Cassian felt the room become heavier. He had expected defiance. He had not expected accuracy.

Leina continued, measured. "High Arbiter, you have already won. Your fleet is in orbit. Your officers are in our streets. We are complying. So tell me: what precisely are you afraid of?"

Sera's answer came immediately. "Future violence."

Leina looked at Sera and then back to Cassian. "You cannot model what you are creating," she said.

Cassian's expression remained controlled, but inside him something shifted. A thought that had always been present moved closer to the surface: that the Hegemony's greatest vulnerability was not rebellion, but the long-term brittleness of enforced peace.

He stood. "You will provide me a list," Cassian said. "Of individuals likely to organize memetic nonadherence."

Leina's hands did not move. "No."

Sera's eyes sharpened. "Administrator—"

Cassian raised a hand. Sera stopped.

Leina met Cassian's gaze. "I will not choose who gets removed," she said. "I will not become the instrument of your correction."

Cassian's voice remained calm. "Your refusal will be noted."

Leina nodded once. "Everything is noted."

Cassian turned and left the room.

In the corridor outside, Sera fell into step beside him.

"We can obtain names through surveillance correlation," she said. "We don't need her."

Cassian kept walking. "We need something else from her."

Sera glanced at him. "What?"

Cassian paused at the wall display again. The cheerful diagram of resource redistribution. The tidy arrows and labeled boxes. The illusion of inevitability.

"We need to know," Cassian said, "whether this is resistance… or a symptom."

Sera's brow furrowed slightly. "What's the difference?"

Cassian looked at the lines of citizens in the Harmony Office. "Resistance can be removed," he said. "Symptoms return."

III

That night, Cassian reviewed the model.

He did it the way he did everything: methodically, without drama, with the patience of someone who understood that impatience is a form of bias.

The resistance network was not violent. That was the problem.

Violence is legible. Violence gives you justification. Violence gives you the satisfying clarity of responding to an obvious wrong.

What Cassian saw was redundancy.

Multiple medics. Multiple teachers. Multiple channels for distribution. The network was designed—not consciously, perhaps, but structurally—to survive decapitation. Remove one node and another activated. Arrest the poet and a dock coordinator began speaking.

The model labeled it memetic contamination.

Cassian labeled it resilience.

Sera stood behind him, watching the projections.

"We can execute minimal correction," she said. "Seven primary. Fourteen secondary. Quiet detentions. Reassignment. The network collapses into noise."

Cassian did not look away from the lattice. "And then what?"

Sera blinked. "Then compliance continues."

Cassian tapped a log line and expanded it.

A deprecated entry surfaced—an old doctrine reference, buried under newer policy layers.

Conditional Cultural Persistence Protocol (CCPP)
Status: Deprecated / Not Repealed
Invocation Conditions: Cultural instability within tolerances; predictive harmony threshold met; limited self-determination permitted under compliance oversight.

Cassian stared at it.

He had never seen it invoked. He suspected most arbiters did not know it existed.

Sera leaned in. "That's legacy. It's not used."

"It's not repealed," Cassian said.

Sera's tone hardened slightly. "Because it's irrelevant."

Cassian read the conditions again. They were strict. They demanded stability. They demanded measurable thresholds. They demanded oversight. It was autonomy, yes—but autonomy inside a cage of metrics.

Still: it was a crack in the wall.

"Why was it deprecated," Cassian asked.

Sera's expression made a subtle shift. "Because it introduces variance."

Cassian's voice was quiet. "So the Hegemony knows it can work."

Sera did not answer.

Cassian understood her silence. The Hegemony's fear was not that the Protocol failed, but that it succeeded unevenly. That some worlds would earn dignity while others would be corrected more harshly. That Arbiters would become inconsistent. That the machine would become human.

Cassian's mind produced the old lesson: consistency is mercy.

And yet.

Leina's words returned: You cannot model what you are creating.

Cassian opened a private drafting window and began writing an invocation of CCPP, carefully matching the threshold language, pinning the autonomy to measurable output, designing it like a bridge that could hold the weight of doubt.

Sera watched him write.

"Arbiter," she said, "this will delay redeployment."

Cassian's fingers paused. "Yes."

Sera stepped closer. "There is a fire in Rimward Corridor Theta. Uhlan patrols are requesting reinforcement. If we delay, other systems will suffer."

Cassian looked up at her.

Sera's gaze was steady. Not cruel. Convicted.

The Hegemony's internal logic was always the same: your mercy here has a cost elsewhere.

The cost was real.

Cassian returned his gaze to the draft invocation. The cursor blinked like a pulse.

He did not delete it.

He saved it as Appendix.

IV

The sabotage was small.

That was deliberate.

A Concordant patrol craft—light, unremarkable—was found drifting just outside the city's orbital lane with its guidance array stripped. No casualties. No explosion. No spectacular violence.

A message was carved into the metal housing, visible only if you knew where to look:

WE ARE NOT SILENT.

Sera brought the report to Cassian at dawn.

"They've escalated," she said.

Cassian read the report once, then again. The act was symbolic. A provocation. A forceful statement designed to demand response.

"Who benefits," Cassian asked, "from forcing us to demonstrate?"

Sera's answer was immediate. "They believe we're constrained by optics. They believe we'll hesitate."

Cassian looked at her. "Will we?"

Sera's expression did not change. "We should not."

Cassian turned to the window overlooking the city. The streets were clean. The lines at the Harmony Office were longer. Compliance was rising. Silence was deepening.

The sabotage was the first visible crack.

It did not frighten him. It clarified the choices.

His terminal chimed with an incoming directive.

FROM: Office of Harmonization & Border Stability
SUBJECT: Rebalancing of Arbiter Discretion — Sector 7-H
CONTENT: Due to emerging instability, Arbiter discretionary authority is reduced. Compliance Demonstration authorized. Execution window: 18 hours. Objective: immediate stabilization.

Cassian read it without expression.

Sera exhaled through her nose, something like satisfaction. "They've given us the clean solution."

Cassian's mind did what it always did: it began planning the operation as if it were surgery on a living city.

He called in the tactical board. Officers filed in: disciplined, loyal, efficient. They were good people, in the narrow definition the Hegemony allowed: they did their duty without self-indulgence.

Cassian spoke.

"We will execute a Compliance Demonstration," he said. "No mass casualty. No martyrdom. Psychological impact must be total."

A tactical officer nodded. "Targets?"

Cassian pointed. "Power relays. Comms towers. One public square—empty, pre-evacuated. We will produce a visible display of reach. We will not break the population. We will teach it physics."

He turned to Sera. "Identify the memetic nodes."

Sera's slate displayed names.

Cassian looked at them—teacher, medic, dock coordinator, poet, balcony woman.

The Hegemony's model demanded removal. The directive authorized it.

Cassian's eyes rested on the dock coordinator.

He saw, not the person, but the function: distribution.

If he removed the node, the network collapsed—temporarily.

If he spared it, the network might persist—quietly.

A deviation. A micro-variance.

A crack.

Cassian felt the weight of his Appendix draft in his private terminal, like a sealed envelope he could not open.

He made his decision without outward sign.

"Detain the balcony woman," Cassian said. "Detain the poet. Detain the teacher. The medic and dock coordinator remain under monitoring."

Sera's gaze flicked to him. "Why those exceptions?"

Cassian's voice remained calm. "We require medical continuity and supply continuity to maintain stability metrics."

It was a true statement.

It was also a lie by omission.

Sera studied him. For a moment Cassian thought she might challenge him.

She did not.

"The demonstration," she said, "will be flawless."

Cassian nodded. "It must be."

V

The Hegemony did not do spectacle.

And yet the demonstration, when it came, felt like the opening of a door in a quiet house: sudden, impossible to ignore, reshaping the entire interior without breaking anything you could point to.

At 03:14 local time, comms towers went dark in coordinated sequence. The city's public channels fell silent and then returned under Concordant routing. A single square—evacuated under the pretext of maintenance—was struck by a precision orbital pulse that turned pavement into glass.

The pulse was visible from every district.

No one died in the square.

That was part of the lesson: the Hegemony could choose death and had chosen restraint.

Restraint can be more frightening than cruelty.

Cassian watched from the bridge as the city's metrics changed in real time. Compliance surged. Unauthorized gatherings dissolved. Protocol language adoption ticked upward like a heartbeat stabilizing.

Sera's slate displayed a clean curve. She looked almost reverent.

"Harmony," she said softly.

Cassian did not answer.

He thought of Leina.

He requested a meeting.

Leina arrived two hours after the demonstration, escorted by Liaison guards. Her face was composed, but her eyes held a new emptiness—an understanding that the future had been narrowed.

Cassian met her in the same side room where the debrief had occurred. The drone hovered overhead, always recording, always making the moment official.

Leina sat. Cassian sat.

"You have complied," Cassian said.

Leina's mouth moved in something like a smile. "We have always complied, High Arbiter. We have complied in every way you can measure."

Cassian held her gaze. "There was sabotage."

Leina's eyes did not widen. "Yes."

"Was it yours?"

Leina's voice remained level. "No."

Cassian believed her. She was not reckless. She was not violent. Her defiance was structural, not kinetic.

Cassian leaned forward. "The nodes have been reduced," he said. "You will find certain individuals… unavailable."

Leina inhaled slowly. "You mean removed."

Cassian did not deny it.

Leina's fingers tightened on the table edge. "Do you feel anything," she asked quietly, "when you do this?"

Sera would have answered with doctrine.

Cassian answered with honesty—partial honesty, because full honesty is dangerous in the Hegemony.

"I feel," Cassian said, "responsibility."

Leina laughed once, a small sound without humor. "Responsibility to whom?"

Cassian's gaze flicked to the drone overhead, and then back to her. "To stability," he said.

Leina's eyes narrowed. "Stability is your god."

Cassian's voice remained calm. "Stability is the only condition under which people can live without fear."

Leina's expression softened, unexpectedly. "And do you think," she asked, "we are not afraid now?"

Cassian said nothing.

Leina leaned forward. Her voice dropped. "You think you have taught us physics," she said. "You have taught us something else."

Cassian waited.

"You have taught us," Leina said, "that your restraint is not mercy. It is confidence."

Cassian felt the truth of it strike him like cold air.

Leina sat back. "You will get your numbers," she said. "Your curves. Your compliance. And one day you will wonder why it feels like living in a room where no one speaks."

Cassian stood. The meeting was done. There was nothing more the protocol allowed.

Leina stood as well.

At the door, she paused, and looked at Cassian with something like pity.

"You spared two nodes," she said quietly.

Cassian's expression did not change.

Leina's eyes held his. "That was a mistake," she said. "Or a confession. I haven't decided."

Then she left.

Sera stepped into the corridor beside Cassian.

"She noticed," Sera said.

Cassian did not look at her. "Yes."

Sera's voice was mild. "It won't matter. Compliance is locked."

Cassian stared down the corridor where Leina had disappeared.

He thought of the dock coordinator and medic, still free, still functioning.

He thought of the Appendix draft saved in his terminal.

He thought of the Concordant Knot lying flat against the air, refusing to ripple.

"Locked," Cassian repeated softly, and in his mind the word did not sound like success.

It sounded like a door.

VI

The Hegemony filed success the way it filed everything: with clean headings and measured adjectives.

Cassian's after-action report was immaculate. He described the sabotage as a minor escalation. He described the demonstration as a necessary stabilization technique. He described the detentions as targeted and minimal.

He did not describe what he felt.

He attached a supplemental document.

Not the full CCPP invocation.

Not a direct challenge.

A footnote.

A reference.

A sealed appendix.

Artifact: Report Excerpt (Redacted)

AFTER-ACTION REPORT: CH-OHS-7H-AAR-04
SUMMARY: Compliance Demonstration executed within window. Immediate stabilization achieved. Protocol adoption increased to 96.2%.
NOTES: Memetic contamination reduced via targeted detentions. Infrastructure disruption within acceptable thresholds.
FOOTNOTE 7: Consider review of deprecated protocol CCPP for limited variance preservation under strict oversight. See sealed Appendix 7-H.
STATUS OF APPENDIX: Submitted.

Cassian knew what would happen.

The appendix would be flagged. Archived. Buried. Not because it was wrong, but because it was dangerous.

Dangerous things in the Hegemony were not always illegal.

Sometimes they were simply… inconvenient to consistency.

Sera entered his office as he finished the report.

"They're pleased," she said. "High Command."

Cassian nodded once.

Sera's posture remained perfect. "You should be pleased as well."

Cassian looked at her. "Are you pleased?"

Sera did not hesitate. "Yes."

Cassian considered her answer. He believed her. That was the frightening part. She was not lying. She was not cruel. She was simply aligned.

"Then you will do well," Cassian said.

Sera smiled, a small expression. "So will you."

Cassian's terminal chimed.

FROM: Office of Harmonization & Border Stability
SUBJECT: Promotion & Reassignment
CONTENT: In recognition of exemplary performance in Sector 7-H, Arbiter Cassian Virex is promoted. New assignment pending. Appendix 7-H received.

Cassian stared at the line: Appendix received.

Not reviewed. Not considered.

Received.

Filed.

Silenced.

He closed the terminal.

Outside the viewport, Kharon rotated quietly, a world now wearing the Hegemony's vocabulary like a uniform.

Cassian thought of the spared nodes. He wondered whether he had introduced possibility, or merely delayed collapse.

In the Hegemony, doubt was allowed only as a private form of discipline.

Cassian practiced it faithfully.

VII

The promotion ceremony took place aboard the Final Authority.

It was brief.

It was dignified.

It contained no applause.

A senior officer affixed a new insignia to Cassian's uniform. The metal was cold, heavy, and perfectly shaped. Symbolism, like everything else, was engineered.

Sera stood among the officers, watching with bright attention.

Cassian accepted the insignia without expression.

The officer spoke the standardized commendation: "For restoring harmony with minimal disruption."

Cassian nodded.

The words "minimal disruption" echoed in his mind. He thought of the public square turned to glass. He thought of the poet removed. The balcony woman detained. Leina's empty eyes.

Minimal, the Hegemony would say, because it had not used its full capacity for harm.

Cassian returned to his office after the ceremony and opened his private terminal.

He searched for Appendix 7-H.

The entry existed.

STATUS: Archived / Restricted / No Action.

Cassian sat very still.

He could have pushed. He could have appealed. He could have insisted.

But insistence in the Hegemony is a kind of rebellion when it challenges the machine.

Cassian knew the cost of rebellion. He knew who paid it.

Instead, he did what he had been trained to do: he made the most strategic move that was still legal.

He wrote a second note.

Not a demand.

A question.

He addressed it to no one in particular, as if it were meant for the future rather than the present.

If CCPP is never invoked, why is it not repealed?

He saved the note privately.

Then his terminal chimed again.

NEW MANDATE: CH-OHS-12Q-T1
SUBJECT: Sector 12-Q — Emerging Instability
APPOINTED ARBITER: High Arbiter Cassian Virex
EXECUTION WINDOW: 10 days
NOTE: Maintain formation doctrine. Avoid exotic dependencies.

Cassian stared at the mandate.

A new system. A new anomaly. A new quiet beginning.

He stood, straightened his uniform, and prepared to depart.

At the doorway, Sera appeared.

"Congratulations," she said. Her voice was sincere.

Cassian nodded. "Thank you."

Sera hesitated—an unusual thing for her. "You did what was necessary," she said, as if offering comfort.

Cassian looked at her and saw, suddenly, the kind of future she would build if left unchallenged: a galaxy of clean curves, stable metrics, and human beings who had forgotten what it meant to speak freely in a room.

"I did what was permissible," Cassian said.

Sera's brow furrowed slightly. "Is there a difference?"

Cassian held her gaze.

"Yes," he said quietly. "There is."

He left without further explanation.

Outside, the Hegemony fleet held formation—slow, heavy, inexorable. The Unyielding Line made the universe feel smaller simply by moving through it.

Cassian walked toward the waiting shuttle.

Behind him, Kharon continued to turn.

Compliance achieved.

Harmony deferred.

And somewhere—beneath the silence he had enforced and the possibility he had spared—something was counting.

Epilogue Artifact: Sealed Appendix Stub (As Found)

APPENDIX 7-H
TITLE: Conditional Cultural Persistence Protocol — Applicability Review
AUTHOR: High Arbiter Cassian Virex
CLASSIFICATION: Restricted
ACTION: None
NOTE: Archived for historical completeness.