Chapter 245: Local Unverified Persons
The registry opened like a collar.
```
CERTIFIED REQUESTER REGISTRY ACTIVE.
TEMPORARY CERTIFICATION AUTHORITY:
SOVEREIGN SAFETY / CONTINUITY JOINT REVIEW
LOCAL UNVERIFIED PERSONS:
EXCLUDED FROM ELEVEN CONTACT.
VIOLATION RISK:
PANIC ROUTING
FALSE HARM
UNTRAINED DIRECTION
```
Rina read the last three lines twice.
Then she laughed once, dry and ugly.
"They listed their own crimes as ours."
Sant had already started the objection. He looked older every time the civic screen refreshed.
"Grounds?"
"Harm defines the witness," Rina said. "Certification defines the office. Those are different things."
"Good."
"Also, they can choke on `untrained direction`."
Sant typed that sentence in cleaner language.
Three marks pulsed under the eastern districts.
Aldgate.
Old Cannery.
Ward Nine laundry blocks.
All three were route-poor, comm-poor, and full of people who had spent the last night surviving because no official truck could reach them.
The registry assigned requesters in under ten seconds.
```
ALDGATE:
CERTIFIED REQUESTER 02
OLD CANNERY:
CERTIFIED REQUESTER 07
WARD NINE:
CERTIFIED REQUESTER 14
```
Soma pulled the route map and put the certified requests beside local conditions.
Certified Requester 02 told Aldgate to move toward Charter Hall.
June’s bookshop relay answered before Rina reached for the line.
"Charter Hall’s back stair is gone," June said. "The front is glass, and the crowd line runs straight under the old tax arch."
Certified Requester 07 told Old Cannery to use the riverwalk.
The cannery mirror showed black water over the rail.
Certified Requester 14 told Ward Nine to gather at the laundry court.
Tali struck the table with two fingers.
"Laundry court has the gas main under it."
Caleb stood behind Rina with his hands empty and visible. No broadcast. No marker. No title. He watched the registry put clean voices on dirty routes.
"They get people killed with good grammar," he said.
Sefa looked at the three marks.
"Good grammar was always one of their knives."
Kim’s text blinked on Soma’s dead phone.
```
CERTIFICATION TRAINING BUILDS ACCEPTABLE SENTENCES.
ACCEPTABLE SENTENCES BUILD CHAIRS.
```
Nobody had time to answer her.
Aldgate’s eleven mark moved first.
It turned toward Charter Hall.
June rang the bookshop bell so hard the relay camera shook.
"June, Aldgate bookshop," she said. "Harm is certified route through broken stair and glass crush. Wanted direction is hold tax arch, open bookshop cellar, move people through stacked shelves to Green Lane. No custody."
The registry stamped over her words.
```
LOCAL UNVERIFIED PERSON.
CONTACT BLOCKED.
```
The Aldgate mark kept moving.
Sam’s hand tightened around the Record case.
"The block is on the civic layer," he said. "Maybe the thing still hears her."
"Maybe gets people dead," Tali said.
Rina opened the public mirror.
"June, say it again. Make it less pretty."
June understood at once.
"Tax arch breaks heads. Bookshop cellar is open. Go Green Lane. I am here. No custody."
The Aldgate mark flickered.
The registry stamped again.
```
CONTACT BLOCKED.
```
The mark slowed anyway.
Cassius started laughing, then coughed until blood spotted his sleeve.
"The registry can block office routes," he said. "Stone still hears a bell."
"Good enough?" Caleb asked.
"Barely," Rina said.
The Old Cannery mark chose the riverwalk.
On the cannery mirror, people saw it before the room did. A line of workers in aprons and soaked coats started waving their arms at the camera. The riverwalk rail vanished under a surge of black water, came back up, then vanished again.
No sound.
No clean local line.
Certified Requester 07 repeated the instruction with a calmer voice.
```
PROCEED TO RIVERWALK MUSTER.
ASSISTANCE ROUTE EN ROUTE.
```
The eleven mark dug under the waterline.
That one would open the wrong wall.
Tali scanned the map.
"Nearest local mouth is Marn Pace."
Rina stared at her.
"She is in a field stretcher with half her leg in splints."
"She is forty meters from the cannery truck relay and she knows what a bad slogan costs."
Soma called her.
Marn Pace answered with her face gray and her voice full of pain medicine she was fighting.
"If this is about my resignation, use the written channel."
"It is about the cannery," Rina said. "You are local to their relay truck?"
"I can see it."
"Then you are closer than Certified Requester 07."
Marn looked off-screen. Someone tried to tell her to lie back.
She shoved their hand away.
"Tell me the words."
"Your own name. The real harm. The direction that saves bodies, not the clean route."
Marn’s mouth tightened.
"Marn Pace, Kingsline medical line, local to Old Cannery relay truck. Harm is certified route into flooded riverwalk and wall breach under occupied packing floor. Wanted direction is hold river wall, open inland loading door, move people to brick stairs. No custody."
The registry stamped her too.
```
LOCAL UNVERIFIED PERSON.
CONTACT BLOCKED.
```
Marn showed her teeth.
"I am the signed Restoration packet officer for the bad template you used five minutes ago."
Soma whispered, "That is true."
Marn leaned closer to the camera.
"You liked my signature when I made Caleb a mouth. Use it now while I am ashamed enough to be useful."
The registry froze.
The Old Cannery mark stopped under the river wall.
Marn repeated the request, slower.
"Hold river wall. Open inland loading door. Move people to brick stairs. No custody."
The cannery camera shook.
A loading door tore inward from its hinges, then stopped before it hit the first row of workers. Hands pulled people through. The river wall held.
Marn closed her eyes.
Rina gave her three seconds.
"Stay alive. We need your testimony."
Marn opened them again.
"I earned worse."
"Earn useful instead."
Ward Nine had no Marn.
Certified Requester 14 kept calling the laundry court safe.
The Ward Nine mirror showed the court from a window above it. A cracked mural. Three laundry carts. A gas warning stripe half-covered by mud. People were already moving toward it because the certified voice sounded like law.
The mark under Ward Nine turned with them.
"We need a local mouth," Rina said.
Soma shook his head.
"No named line. No relay. All we have is the window mirror."
Elara moved before anyone else saw the small print.
Her fingers dragged across the Motion 77-C-9 footer and tapped one line.
```
LOCAL UNVERIFIED PERSONS MAY BE OVERRIDDEN BY CERTIFIED REMOTE WITNESS
WHEN PANIC CONDITIONS PREVENT RELIABLE SELF-REPORT.
```
Sefa’s face changed.
"They made fear proof against the frightened."
Caleb bent over the Ward Nine mirror.
People below were still moving toward the court. A woman with one shoe carried a plastic crate against her chest. Two men dragged a mattress with somebody on it. A boy in a yellow raincoat kept pointing at the gas stripe while adults pulled him along.
Caleb tapped the screen.
"Him."
Rina followed his finger.
"Yellow coat?"
"He sees the stripe."
"He’s a kid."
"He’s local."
Rina grabbed the mirror channel and pushed her voice through the window speaker at the lowest possible gain.
"Yellow coat. Point at the danger and name it if you can."
The boy froze.
Everyone around him looked up.
Certified Requester 14 spoke over them.
```
PROCEED TO LAUNDRY COURT.
```
The boy pointed harder at the stripe.
His voice came through the dirty window mic, high and furious.
"Gas."
One word.
The registry tried to stamp it.
The eleven mark stopped before the stamp landed.
Rina kept her voice level.
"Name if you can."
"Pip."
"Pip what?"
"Pip Daro."
"Pip Daro, Ward Nine window. Harm is gas under laundry court. Wanted direction?"
Pip looked at the adults. One of them finally looked down at the stripe and went white.
"Away," Pip said.
"Which way?"
He pointed with his whole arm.
"Blue stairs."
Tali checked the map.
"Blue stairs are ugly but open."
Rina fed it back clean.
"Pip Daro, Ward Nine. Harm is gas under laundry court. Wanted direction is blue stairs away from gas. No custody."
Pip repeated it like he was mad at every adult in the city.
The Ward Nine mark turned from the laundry court.
The gas main stayed buried.
People moved toward the blue stairs.
Soma let out air through his teeth.
Sant filed the challenge with shaking hands.
```
COUNTERFILING:
CERTIFICATION CANNOT OVERRIDE LOCAL HARM WITNESS.
EVIDENCE:
ALDGATE BELL.
OLD CANNERY FIELD REVERSAL.
WARD NINE MINOR LOCAL WITNESS.
```
The registry answered at once.
```
UNLICENSED CONTACT EVENTS DETECTED.
ENFORCEMENT REVIEW OPENED.
SUBJECTS:
JUNE, ALDGATE BOOKSHOP
MARN PACE, RESTORATION FIELD RESCUE
PIP DARO, WARD NINE
RINA, FIELD RELAY
SANT, CIVIC FILING
```
Sam read the list.
"They put the boy on it."
Caleb’s silver stayed quiet.
His voice did too, which cost him more.
Rina took the marker from his hand and wrote over a fresh card.
```
LOCAL PEOPLE ARE NOT ILLEGAL MOUTHS.
```
She held it up herself.
The mirror network copied it in windows, on cardboard, on a hospital whiteboard, on the back of a food crate, on the side of Marn Pace’s field stretcher.
The registry marked every copy as evidence.
Outside the evidence room, sirens started moving toward Aldgate.