WORLD OF FICTION (WOF)

The trust repaired Marek's window while he was at breakfast. He returned to the converted bakery office and found new glass in the frame, a stronger latch, two blankets on the cot, and a small heating plate beneath the wall.

Nothing responded to names or Story pressure. Nothing looked dangerous.

A white envelope rested on his pillow. Housing had not opened it or signed for the terms.

PRESERVATION SUPPORT GRANT.

The Housing work slip had already been filed. It listed ordinary glass, ordinary wool, and a nonresponsive heating plate, each item described as if no dispute existed. Only the payment line connected them to the trust.

Marek opened the window first. The new latch stopped after four inches, so he forced it farther until the stop pin bent.

Only then did he open the envelope. The Continuation Escrow Trust offered to fund medical treatment, housing repairs, existing-record searches for Mira Vale, continuity-safe memory stabilisation, replacement armour, and food during recovery.

The first page contained no direct requirement for Story access. The condition waited on the third, and nothing on the cover warned that accepting ordinary support also accepted evidentiary use.

ALL MEMORIES, RELATIONS, AND IDENTITY EVIDENCE RECOVERED THROUGH GRANT-FUNDED SERVICES SHALL ENTER SUCCESSION REVIEW.

Marek carried the entire envelope to Medical. Bell was replacing supplies in the treatment room when he arrived, and she read the clause before reading the funding list.

"No."

Marek leaned on the cane. "You decide?"

"I decide what treatment I provide. You decide what funding you accept."

"Did Medical ask for the grant?"

"No."

"Who allowed the window repair?"

Bell checked the work log. "Housing says the order arrived through ordinary maintenance."

"Paid by?"

She opened the account line. "The trust."

Marek looked back toward the bakery corridor. "If I refuse, do they remove the glass?"

"They may request reimbursement."

"From me?"

"From the Errata."

Achebe arrived carrying a budget slate before Marek could send someone for her. Housing had already forwarded the reimbursement dispute.

"The trust froze the ordinary charge after paying it," she said.

Marek held up the grant. "Meaning?"

"If we reject the grant, the repair moves onto the living-subject budget."

"What does that cost?"

Achebe read the current allocation. "One Kestrel support inspection or half the western training-wall repair."

Bell looked at her. "You brought the comparison."

"He asked what it costs."

Marek unfolded the paper on the treatment table. The Errata benefited from his recognised presence because Story Custody had stopped trying to create automatic representatives. The institution also spent resources every time he refused access.

The trust had found a pressure that did not lock his door. It touched everyone else's.

Marek asked Achebe to show him the actual budget line rather than summarize it. She did.

The living-subject account had enough room for his current treatment only because two planned repairs had not yet begun. Moving the window charge there would consume part of the remaining reserve before the next Kestrel inspection.

"What is memory stabilisation?" Marek asked.

Bell answered from the treatment side of the room. "A process using current body reports and historical evidence to reduce wound-history changes."

"Will it return memory?"

"Possibly."

Achebe tapped the grant's third page. "The trust-funded version would permit the recovery system to compare any returned material against the successor profile."

"So it gets Mira."

"It gets any relation the treatment identifies."

"Ordinary version?"

"Slower," Bell said. "Less precise. No succession access."

"Cost?"

Bell glanced at the budget slate. "High."

"What happens if I wait?"

"The wound may keep shifting between puncture, cut, and burn. We can treat what your body reports now, but unstable histories may scar differently."

"Memory?"

"Some impressions may weaken."

Marek thought of a cold room, a coughing girl, and a bakery window.

You'll be late.

The trust did not threaten to erase Mira. It offered a faster answer while time remained uncertain.

That was enough pressure.

Elias arrived with Senka and stopped outside the Medical line. A sealed registration box rested in his hands.

Marek looked at him. "Why are you here?"

"Achebe requested a source objection."

"I did not."

"I know."

"Then leave."

Achebe spoke before Elias moved. "The grant also names Elias's historical account as a matching source."

Marek looked at him again. "Did you accept?"

"No."

"Would you?"

"No."

"Why?"

Elias took long enough that Marek saw the answer forming in the wrong order. Marek did not help him reorder it.

"Because the trust would learn from what I remember and what you recover."

"That is about your candidate dispute."

"Yes."

"Not me."

"Also you."

"Which came first?"

Elias did not answer quickly enough. The delay answered enough for Marek.

Marek pointed toward the corridor. "Wait outside."

Elias did. There was no wounded expression and no attempt to make obedience impressive.

Marek returned to the grant. Serah joined through a mechanical line so she could answer without turning the treatment room into a hearing chamber.

No claims plate opened with the connection.

"What if I accept only the window?" Marek asked.

"The agreement treats partial use as acceptance of the evidence condition unless each service is severed before delivery."

"The window is already delivered."

"Yes."

"Then they claim I accepted."

"Only if you retain the service after receiving notice of the condition."

Marek looked toward the bakery office. New glass kept out the worst of the cold, the stronger latch worked, the blankets were warmer than the old Medical wool, and a heating plate would make sleeping with the rib wound easier.

The trust had chosen ordinary comforts because refusing comfort could be made to look unreasonable. None of the items resembled a custody instrument.

"Can we buy the services from them without the evidence condition?"

"The trust may refuse," Serah said.

"Ask."

She submitted the request. The answer came immediately.

PRESERVATION SUPPORT IS NOT AVAILABLE WITHOUT CONTINUITY REVIEW.

Marek folded the grant until every paper edge matched. He set it beside the treatment tray instead of keeping it.

"Remove everything."

Bell said, "The blankets can be replaced from Medical."

"At whose cost?"

"The Errata."

"Everything costs the Errata."

"Yes."

"Because I exist."

Achebe answered before Bell could. "Because we are housing and treating a person."

Marek looked at her. "That sentence sounds better."

"It is also more expensive than calling you an asset."

No self-pity entered her voice, and no request for gratitude followed. The accounting remained ugly even after the category became correct.

"Remove it," Marek repeated.

Housing workers arrived with a paper inventory and removed the trust blankets, heating plate, and strengthened latch one item at a time. Marek watched each object leave.

He asked whether any hidden maintenance charge remained attached to the room. The worker showed him the cleared account before closing the form.

They did not break the window. The new glass had replaced a cracked pane that could not be safely restored, so the Errata reimbursed the cost instead. Facilities installed a manual latch that opened halfway and contained no remote stop.

The expense moved onto the living-subject budget. One Kestrel support inspection shifted to the following afternoon.

Amadi objected. Achebe showed her exactly why.

Amadi accepted the delay and entered it publicly rather than allowing Marek's care to disappear inside a general shortage. The Kestrel counterbrace stayed installed at resting pressure, and the occupants were informed that the inspection had moved before anyone scheduled another load transfer.

Marek saw the cost attached to the choice. He disliked that too.

Bell offered the ordinary version of memory stabilisation. It used no Story systems, no historical prompts, and no names supplied by Medical.

A weighted wrap around Marek's ribs gave the wound a consistent physical boundary. Current-pain markers sat within reach, and Bell asked Marek to choose smell, touch, and sound cues from objects already available to him.

Marek selected dark bread, cold window air, the metal pay strip, and fever powder scent. Bell opened a standard packet.

The sharp medicinal smell entered the room. Marek saw blue thread tied around a wrist, a flour mark on one cheek, and a girl saying, "You'll be late," without coughing.

Then the image changed. The girl was older, then younger, then absent.

Bell covered the scent packet. The room returned to bread, stone, and antiseptic.

"What remained?"

"Blue thread."

"Certain?"

"No."

"Current emotional response?"

Marek glared at her. "Annoyed."

"Recorded."

The ordinary treatment produced less than the grant promised. Bell repeated the sequence once with the bread and once with cold air, stopping each time Marek said the impressions were becoming less distinct rather than more.

No one tried to force a stronger memory by increasing the scent or adding the name Mira as a prompt. The result remained with him.

No succession report opened. No fifth trace moved. Nobody compared the image to the successor profile.

Before Marek left Medical, Achebe showed him the revised living-subject budget. The cost of his treatment remained listed under Medical and Housing rather than ASH–31, while the delayed Kestrel inspection appeared on a separate line with the reason attached.

Nothing had become free simply because the trust was refused.

The trust sent one final invoice after the ordinary treatment record had already closed.

WINDOW GLASS REIMBURSEMENT RECEIVED.

GRANT DECLINED.

RECOVERY OPPORTUNITY REDUCED.

Marek crossed out the last line.

RECOVERY METHOD CHOSEN.

The trust rejected his correction. Achebe entered it into the Errata record anyway.

By evening, Marek returned to the bakery office. The new glass remained, the blankets were ordinary Medical wool, the heating plate was gone, and the window opened halfway through a manual latch Facilities had installed after removing the trust-funded mechanism.

Cold air entered. On the sill sat a packet of fever powder purchased from the ordinary living-subject budget.

Bell had written one instruction across the front.

SMELL ONLY WHEN YOU CHOOSE.

Marek placed the packet beside the sealed spearhead beneath his cot. The trust could offer faster answers and make those answers cheaper, warmer, and easier to reach than the slower method Marek had chosen.

It could not buy the right to own what those answers changed.