WORLD OF FICTION (WOF)

The first thing Marek learned about the new meal form was that somebody had added a box marked IDENTITY RELEVANCE. He found it beneath the line for bread preference.

DARK / LIGHT / NONE / OTHER

Below that:

CURRENT DIETARY PREFERENCE MAY SUPPORT CONTINUITY COMPARISON.

Marek carried the form back to the kitchen clerk without filling anything in. She was cutting a loaf into thick slices and did not look surprised when he put the page on the counter.

"No."

The clerk glanced down. "Bread?"

"The box."

She read it. "That came from Housing."

"Then Housing can eat it."

"You still need breakfast."

"I know what I eat."

"Dark bread."

Marek pointed at the form. "Now apparently that is evidence."

The clerk stopped cutting. She had been the one who watched him move potatoes for his first paid meal and the one who later told him arguing with the Medical budget did not count as work. She knew better than to tell him the form was harmless.

"Wait here."

"I can walk."

"I meant don’t leave with my form."

She took the page through the service door. Marek sat at the nearest table because Bell had limited how long he could stand without the cane. The current wound history remained puncture, the dressing had stayed dry since the spearhead inspection, and none of that improved his opinion of chairs.

A worker from Housing arrived ten minutes later with three more forms. Yara came behind him carrying a plain archive folder.

Marek looked at the stack. "You brought friends."

The Housing worker put the pages down. "The continuity field was added to all recognised-person preference records after a review request."

"Whose review?"

"Story Custody."

"Remove it."

"I can remove it from your form."

"Remove it from the form."

The worker hesitated. "That is a system template."

Marek looked at Yara.

She opened her archive folder. "The template is being used for eleven current residents with historical Story relations."

"Do they know?"

"Unknown."

"Bad answer."

"Yes."

Yara had found the same field on housing-temperature preferences, clothing replacement requests, sleep-light settings, and food forms. None of the records automatically opened Story access, but Story Custody could request comparison if a later identity dispute existed. The practical data came first. The evidentiary possibility hid beneath it.

Marek tapped the bread box. "I like dark bread now."

"Yes," Yara said.

"Does that prove I liked it under the bridge?"

"No."

"Does opening my window prove I lived near a window?"

"No."

"Does wanting my boots where I can see them prove anything?"

"No."

The Housing worker shifted. "Current preferences can still support continuity when combined with other evidence."

"Can."

"Yes."

"Then ask before combining."

The worker looked at Yara. "That would require a separation marker."

"Make one," Marek said.

Housing did not have one. By noon, the problem had moved from the kitchen to a small administrative room because the clerk refused to keep a breakfast line waiting while three departments argued over bread. Marek brought the loaf with him.

Bell attended because some of the preference records came from Medical. Serah joined through a mechanical line, and Story Custody was not given a hearing plate. The forms spread across the table showed how ordinary information accumulated.

PREFERS WINDOW OPEN.

DARK BREAD.

SWEET BROTH REFUSED.

BOOTS VISIBLE FROM BED.

FEVER-POWDER SCENT ONLY BY CHOICE.

Each fact had a current practical reason. Together, they also resembled the beginning of a person profile.

Serah read the policy language. "Story Custody may request comparison of current preference evidence when historical identity remains disputed."

Marek tore a piece of bread. "It calls my breakfast evidence before anyone requests it."

"Yes."

"Can we stop that?"

"Probably."

Marek looked at the speaker grille. "You are banned from that word for five minutes."

Serah ignored him. "The record type can be changed. Current-care preferences can exist outside the evidentiary index."

"What is the cost?"

"Archive search will not automatically retrieve them."

"Good."

"It also means if you later want to use a current preference to support an identity claim, you would need to opt it in manually."

"Also good."

The Housing worker objected. "That creates two systems for the same information."

Bell looked at him. "Treatment already does that."

She showed the fever-powder note.

SMELL ONLY WHEN YOU CHOOSE.

Medical needed to know that Marek controlled the scent exposure. It did not need to make the choice searchable by Story Custody.

The Housing worker read the note. "But if the scent produces a matching memory—"

"Then the memory is documented under the rules for that treatment," Bell said. "The instruction on the packet is still an instruction."

Marek ate another piece of bread. "My breakfast does not need a backstory."

Nobody argued with that sentence. Yara proposed a new record marker:

CURRENT PREFERENCE — CARE/DAILY USE ONLY.

NOT ENTERED INTO HISTORICAL IDENTITY COMPARISON WITHOUT CURRENT CONSENT.

Serah changed one word.

"Specific consent."

Marek looked at the grille. "Why?"

"Because current consent could be read as your general Story-access refusal or acceptance. Specific makes this decision separate."

Yara amended the line.

CURRENT PREFERENCE — CARE/DAILY USE ONLY.

NOT ENTERED INTO HISTORICAL IDENTITY COMPARISON WITHOUT SPECIFIC CURRENT CONSENT.

The Housing worker still disliked maintaining separate categories. "What if a person wants the comparison later and forgets what they excluded?"

Yara answered before Marek did. "Then we tell them what exists and ask."

"That slows review."

"Yes."

The worker looked at Marek’s bread. "Everything here slows review."

Marek nodded. "You are learning."

The first test of the new marker was his meal form. The continuity relevance box disappeared.

DARK / LIGHT / NONE / OTHER

Marek marked DARK. The preference entered the kitchen system and nowhere else. The clerk received the result before the meeting ended. She sent a runner back with a second loaf and a note.

THIS ONE IS CURRENTLY DARK BREAD.

TRY NOT TO TURN IT INTO A RELATIVE.

Marek read the note twice. Bell laughed once. Yara took a copy only after asking whether the note should enter the administrative record.

"No."

Yara handed it back. The separation marker exposed another problem. Housing had already indexed three days of Marek’s current preferences before the correction.

Serah checked the existing record. "We can remove them from future identity comparison."

"Delete them?"

"No. Housing and Medical still need the practical entries."

"Can Story Custody keep a copy?"

"Not if the comparison index is cleared before use."

"Has it used them?"

The mechanical line went silent while Serah checked. Marek stopped eating.

"No recorded comparison request," Serah said at last.

"Recorded?"

"Do you want me to verify system access logs?"

"Yes."

That took longer. The answer came back clean enough to matter and limited enough not to become reassurance. Story Custody had indexed the fields automatically, but no identity comparison had run against Marek’s historical record, successor profile, ASH–31 archive, or current city response.

Yara removed the fields from the comparison index while leaving them in current-care records. She printed a before-and-after list so Marek could see exactly what changed. No one asked him to trust that an invisible deletion had happened.

Before leaving the administrative room, Marek asked one more question. "Does this apply to Elias?"

Yara checked the record types. Elias’s Medical restrictions, preferred food, and ordinary housing choices were already stored outside Story evidence because his active disputes used a different source category. Marek found that answer irritating for a reason he could not immediately name.

"So the author got privacy by accident."

"By system architecture," Yara said.

"Same thing with better handwriting."

The Housing worker wrote down another review item: preference separation would be checked across all recognised-person categories, not only Marek’s. His complaint had started with one bread form. It had found a template problem instead.

The change affected the other ten residents too. That created the next argument. The Housing worker asked whether Marek’s objection should automatically remove everyone’s preferences from comparison. Marek said no before Yara could answer.

"I am not consenting for them."

"Then their forms stay indexed."

"Until they are asked."

"That may take days."

"Then ask them."

Housing sent plain notices. No response option defaulted to yes. By evening, seven people opted out, one opted in because he wanted current handwriting preferences compared to an old Story record, two asked for explanation before choosing, and one had not replied.

Different answers. The new marker survived them. Marek returned to the bakery office with dark bread under one arm and his cane in the other. The spearhead box still sat on the bread rack under the thirty-day physical-evidence terms.

He placed the loaf beside it. For a moment, the arrangement looked absurdly suggestive: evidence from his past beside the food he liked now. Marek moved the bread to the windowsill.

Then he stopped. That was exactly the kind of behavior somebody could turn into another line if he let himself start living around the archive. He moved the bread back.

Not beside the spearhead. Not away from it. Where the plate happened to fit.

The window was open halfway. His boots remained visible from the cot, and the room smelled faintly of bread because that was what he was eating. No one recorded what any of it meant. Marek finished the first slice while it was still warm.