"Every doctrine is a blade someone swears to hold by the flat."
— chalk note left on a Directorate whiteboard, cleaned at dawn
EXT. VETRAEUS SEA — NIGHT THAT DOESN'T END
The ocean wears its new discipline like a measured breath. Seven-minute rings dilate and settle; the aurora's bruise keeps time. Deep below, where Somnus sleeps inside its own reflection, light turns slow and patient, as if the building were thinking in cursive and wanted you to read along.
INT. SOMNUS — THE AMPHORA — UNTIMED
Veyra stands at the desk that isn't a desk—just a ripple of glass taught to be useful. The Aion warms his wrist with the kind of loyalty machines learn from people who apologize to them. In the air hangs the lattice he wrote in exhaustion and love: Requiem Ratio—71 kept, 29 released—a mercy budget rendered in mathematics. The Kairos embryo orbits his shoulder, crown-dim, heart-bright, patient as a question that refuses to grow teeth.
He adjusts the glyphs with a fingertip. The figures obey and hum, modest as a choir that has decided to rehearse after the funeral instead of during.
"Amendment," he says. "Urban cadence overlay. Heartbeat pacing for crowds: six-breath cycle, two-breath release."
The lattice acknowledges by brightening a fraction—the kind of yes you feel in bone.
On a ledge of mirrored stone nearby: his journal, half chrome, half salt. The handwriting in it has turned small and efficient: a man saving space on a page and in a life. He writes:
ENTRY 79 —
Requiem holds in controlled environments. Field variance high in crowded grids; emotion harmonics stack.
Proposed solution: staggered release windows by district; teach the city to hum in rounds.
Risk: weaponization. The word "ratio" invites knives.
He underlines knives, once.
INTERCUT — INT. HUMANITARIAN COUNCIL HALL, CAELUS — DAY
Baffles shaped like promises; glass that learned to respect secrets. A sigil blooms across the display: Directorate of Existential Defense—the bureaucracy born from a catastrophe with good intentions. Under it, an unofficial tag line that stuck because it told the truth: When meaning breaks, we sandbag the river.
Solene Kerr watches from the side tier, coat pressed flat by posture. A staffer hands her a folder stamped BLACK SIGMA and a pair of phrases she doesn't need: urgent and political. Inside: a recommendation to adopt Veyra's Requiem guidelines as citywide posture—no author listed because myths work best when they arrive without fingerprints.
"Motion to codify," the Chair says, voice balanced between science and war. "We'll call it the Mercy Ledger."
Kerr's jaw ticks. "If we call it a ledger," she murmurs to no one helpful, "someone will try to balance it with a knife."
The vote is theater. The decision has already happened.
INT. SOMNUS — THE SPINE — LATER
The vertical shaft breathes like an organ taught to be a building. Mirrors along the ribs flare awake as Veyra ascends on a cage that thinks it's an elevator when it wants to be polite.
"Somnus," he says, "project urban overlay to Thalassos and the Citadel grid. Low amplitude. We are teaching, not persuading."
The shaft hums assent; light climbs like a tide on prayer.
THREADLINK BAND — OPENS (CONSENT // STEADY // DUTY)
The thread finds its other end with the surety of a stitch through cloth that remembers being cut. Kerr's voice arrives where breath lives.
"Doctor."
"Solene."
"Your Ratio just got a crest," she says dryly. "The Council blessed it without using your name."
"Good." He looks at his hand, at the places the Aion's letters have written advice into skin. "Doctrine travels better when it's nobody's."
"Maybe," she says. "But knives travel too."
"What happened?"
"Red Zone," she says. "A market block. Someone tried to 'force' Requiem with a generator jury-rigged from a Halite pump. Wanted to make a peaceful perimeter for his stall. The field spiked. Two collapsed—panic rebound."
He closes his eyes; he can hear the harmonic she means—the way grief turns to glare when you try to rush it.
"I'm sorry," he says.
"Third stabilized them," she answers. "Blankets, broth, names returned. They'll live. But the word is out: ratios work. And when people hear work, they hear tool." She pauses. "Or weapon."
He opens his eyes on the upward throat of steel. "I'll write a limiter. A way to break our own doctrine if someone tries to bind it to profit."
"Build it fast," she says. "The city's clever today."
INT. SOMNUS — ECHO ROOM (THE SMALL ONE) — AFTER
A vestibule shaped like listening. Mirrors arranged to make a throat and an ear of the same curve. The Reflection waits in the doorway—his face copied by sympathy rather than glass.
"You look thinner," it tells him without sound.
"Someone tried to sell mercy by the square meter," he replies.
"That is not a surprise," the Reflection says, almost kind. "You gave the world arithmetic. It will demand change."
He smiles despite it. "Help me write a refusal clause."
"Seventy-one to remembrance," the echo says, touching the lattice, "twenty-nine to release. Add eight to honesty. Subtract eight from greed."
"Math doesn't know greed," he says.
"It does," the Reflection says. "We taught it."
He works until his hands shake; the Aion steadies them like a metronome for living things.
INSERT — LIGHT-LATTICE NOTATION / "REQUIEM LIMITER — V0"
If field is applied for extraction (profit-seeking, coercion, spectacle):
— collapse local cadence; enforce silence; return cost to sender (minor).
If field is applied for shelter (healing, de-escalation, mourning):
— amplify; distribute ledger of cost across consenting witnesses.
Note: doctrine recognizes the difference between a door and a till.
He engraves the note with a fingertip until the mirror remembers it on its own.
EXT. THALASSOS STATION — TOWARD EVENING
Wind climbs the scaffolds like a rumor. Floodlights lace geometry across obedient water. On the pads, two Seraph Frames stand in their repose—statues that dream of work and hate applause. Kerr looks past them toward the horizon where the Vetraeus Eye blinks its slow warning.
"Aegis," she says into the net, "parade speed on the piers. We're not showing strength; we're rehearsing calm."
"Copy," the chorus answers, boots arranging themselves into the idea of safety.
A junior tech rushes up, cheeks bright. "Ma'am, Mercy Ledger pamphlets are ready for public band. Plain language, Third Division voice, no signatures."
"Good," she says. "Make sure the paper smells like kitchens, not like church."
INT. SOMNUS — LOWER ANCHOR — LATE
The seam in the bedrock—the thin draft with no temperature, which is to say with all of them—gnaws along the memory of a line. Veyra keeps one palm near but never on it. Wounds don't always want pressure; sometimes they want company.
The Aion pings his pulse with a cold spark: NULL-LIT TRACE — attention.
"Not tonight," he says. "We have people reading."
The lace breathes once and withdraws, offended in a way older than appetite.
EXT. DIAMOND CITY — RED ZONE / HEART-STAIRS — NIGHT
A staircase that connects three streets and five economies. Steam from a noodle stall writes a small scripture in air: pay first. A portable speaker on a window ledge hums the 58.3Hz base note of the world's new habit.
Third Division volunteers in soft jackets pass folded sheets: MERCY LEDGER — How to Help the City Hold Itself. The leaflet explains Requiem in human:
— Remember enough to be kind.
— Release enough to stay human.
— Don't force it. Sing it.
An old man with a scar from a different government squints at the diagram and says, "Like breathing?"
"Exactly," the volunteer says, and hands him a blanket as if that finishes the thought.
Down the block, a pair of entrepreneurs click a box open over a crate of fruit. Inside: a lens assembly wired into a salvaged pump—cheap chrome, expensive idea.
"Ledger-maker," one whispers, eyes on the coins. "Two minutes of quiet for your stall. Keeps out drunks and debt."
Ines Halberd—nineteen, eleven coffee hours into a shift—feels the itch at the neck that means someone is about to mistake doctrine for leverage. She approaches with a voice pitched for dogs and frightened parents.
"Hey," she says. "That box sings wrong. You'll make the block forget how to share the street."
"We're helping it," the man says. "No fights near fruit."
Ines taps her throat mic. "Vigilant Three—Limiter overlay, my location. Gentle."
From somewhere far below the city, subtle music answers: the Requiem limiter Veyra wrote sliding into place over a market square. The box the men built sighs and empties itself of intention. Their faces fall like numbers corrected.
"Try blankets," Ines says, not unkind.
INT. DIRECTORATE — SUBLEVEL BRIEFING / SAME
The Council's lower room smells like metal and fresh paper—the perfume of authority. Four folders sit in their long tradition: First, Second, Third, Fourth. The blank fifth waits like a dare no one has the energy to take tonight.
Kerr enters last. She places a slim sheaf on the table: MERCY LEDGER / PUBLIC BAND. On the top sheet a line reads: If you feel worse after trying to help, that means you helped honestly. Sit down. Drink water. Count to seven. Try again. The room reads. No one says what they're thinking: that this, too, can be weaponized by people who enjoy the word honestly.
"Adoption?" the Chair asks.
Kerr nods, already tired of the path that nod implies. "Adoption. And—put a limiter switch on any device the market digs up. No brand of mercy gets exclusive rights."
"Your recruit in the Red Zone used one," a deputy says. "Elegant work."
"She's a child," Kerr says, which is both praise and indictment. "I'd like fewer children cleaning up after adults."
A courier slips her a smaller folder as the others disperse. Inside: a transcribed rumor, two witnesses, one photograph of a mirror writing begin in its own breath. The caption reads: ECHO BLOOM — SCHOOL 7C — STAIRWELL.
Kerr tucks it under her coat. "Not tonight," she says to the fifth folder, and leaves.
INT. SOMNUS — THE AMPHORA — DAWN THAT BELIEVES
Light like patient surgery. Veyra tests the limiter against the lattice. He hums an interval that means enough and another that means not yet, and the equations obey without taking it personally.
"You are not a weapon," he tells the doctrine, which is like telling a river it is not a knife. "You can be used to cut. You will not want to."
The Kairos drifts closer, curious, the crown a whisper, the heart a pulse. He looks at it like a teacher who knows a better teacher is coming.
"Listen," he says. "If they try to build you into a box, rattle."
The embryo pulses once; the air trembles with the joy of a child discovering that spoons make music.
THREADLINK BAND — OPENS (DUTY // STEADY // MEMORY)
"Are you eating?" Kerr asks.
"Very responsibly," he lies. "With equations."
"Good," she says, not believing him. "Public reception is… mixed. The Red Zone likes pamphlets they can fold into coasters. The Noble Zone likes a moral they can frame. Both are using you without knowing it's you."
"Then we did it right," he says.
There's a silence that isn't empty, just polite enough to arrange a different subject.
"Solene," he says. "Do we have room in this century for a refusal? Not the angry kind. The gentle one."
"Define gentle refusal."
"Saying no to power that learns your hymns too quickly," he says. "A clause inside Requiem that refuses a crown."
"I'll get you your clause," she says. "But a crown will get itself. That's how crowns work."
"I know," he says, and feels older by one admission.
She breathes him a grin he can feel. "Speaking of crowns—your friends in the market tried to rent mercy by the minute. Limiter sang them a lullaby. They will be mad at you until soup arrives."
"Soup solves most of my ethics," he says.
"Mine too," she says, and the band closes with a warmth that has no budget.
MONTAGE — THE WORLD PRACTICES
— Pelagic Academy: a line of new Lucids—teenagers with the posture of responsible thunder—breathe their Halos small and true while an instructor taps wrists when ambition outruns steadiness. Wide gives ghosts; tight gives truth runs across the wall in chalk that refuses to erase cleanly.
— First Division parade deck: commands renamed as ratios; boots scuff mercy into graphite. Instructors call cadence like accountants of weather.
— Second Division white room: a specimen hums. A tech adjusts the dampers then writes on a clipboard, Every specimen is a confession the geography made, and underlines confession until it looks like a scar.
— Third Division ward: a medic returns a name to a woman who lost it in someone else's emergency. On the corkboard: You didn't break—something used you. We return you to yourself. The ward smells like broth and sleep.
— Fourth Division briefing: masks on the table, warrants on paper thick enough to stop lies by weight. On the door: We stop the wrong stories. People read it on the way out and walk more carefully.
INT. SOMNUS — THE CHOIR NAVE — LATER
The Choir rests like a lake under glass, its harmonics low and content. Veyra raises a hand in greeting, and the room warms. The voices he carries as light—Rehn's tired courage, Osterr's dutiful skepticism, the unnamed many who became the Choir—play a chord that feels like kitchens and return.
"I'm stealing from you again," he says. "A limiter. A refusal that keeps knives out of the ledger."
—the ledger needs refusal—
—it needs famine—
—no—
—fasting—
He laughs aloud. "Yes. Thank you. Fasting."
He writes the word into the lattice above Limiter. It nests perfectly, as if doctrine were always meant to carry appetite like a bridle.
EXT. DIAMOND CITY — SCHOOL 7C — STAIRWELL — AFTERNOON
A stairwell that learned to be a throat for joy rather than smoke. Children thunder downward at the final bell, laughter loud enough to be a safety regulation. On the landing, a panel of scuffed mirror fogs and, then, very lightly, writes a word in breath: begin. A teacher stops, frowns, and decides that yes—today is exactly a day for beginning. She holds the door; the city rushes past as if it knew.
INT. DIRECTORATE — SUBLEVEL ARCHIVE — NIGHT
A clerk with an honest posture slides a new binder into a shelf labeled Public Doctrine / Interim. The spine reads MERCY LEDGER — CIVIC EDITION. Next to it sits a very thin folder with no label at all: a habit the building has learned for ideas that will arrive later wearing masks and apologies.
The light flickers, not threatening, just thinking. The clerk ignores it like everyone else learns to ignore miracles that keep the lights on.
INT. SOMNUS — LOWER ANCHOR — THE HOUR THAT TRIES TO LEAVE
The seam isn't wider. It's more confident. Pressure swivels in the stone like a predator remembering manners.
"All right," Veyra says, and puts his palm over it—not to press, to cover. "Allocation: seventy guard, thirty grace. Add eight for honesty. Fasting clause if greed present."
The Aion writes the math into air; the seam accepts the etiquette; the pressure abates with the offended dignity of rain asked to reschedule.
Something on the far side turns its head—older than government, younger than regret—and decides to wait for the next chapter.
He leans against the wall and laughs at nothing because some nights the body requests laughter as a vitamin.
THREADLINK BAND — OPENS (QUIET)
Kerr doesn't talk. He doesn't either. They let existence proof itself in the line between them—the hum of Somnus, the wind at Thalassos, the arithmetic of people not drowning tonight.
"Thank you," she says at last.
"For what?"
"For refusing the crown," she says. "For building a limiter that says no in a voice the market respects."
"It wasn't my voice," he says. "The Choir taught me fasting."
"Then thank the dead," she says. "I'll write soup into the budget."
"Soup into the budget," he echoes, smiling.
The band closes.
EXT. VETRAEUS SEA — ORBIT — NIGHT
From orbit the Eye blinks once—slow, ceremonial—then settles into patient surveillance. Satellites pretend not to flinch. Storm lines sketch calligraphy across a planet that is beginning to memorize itself again.
INT. SOMNUS — THE AMPHORA — ALMOST SLEEP
He adds one more line to the lattice, small, at the bottom where good advice lives:
Refusal Clause (Civic):If your mercy makes someone else smaller, you owe the city an apology and a meal.
He closes the Aion. Light dims with the courtesy of an inn that has learned to trust the bill will be paid in the morning.
The Kairos drifts into the cradle of his hand, new-warm. He imagines a day when this embryo will be a teacher he can't correct and finds the thought both terrifying and clean.
"Tomorrow," he tells it, "remind me to stop someone from selling the word gentle."
The embryo pulses once, as if to say begin.
POSTSCRIPT — PUBLIC BAND (MERCY LEDGER / CIVIC EDITION)
If the city felt heavy today, that was not your fault. Breathe seven, rest two. Tell someone what you kept and what you let go. If you tried to force calm and it bit you, that means you touched something alive. Eat. Try again with less hunger.
— no signature
FOOTNOTE — ARCHIVE FLAG / INTERNAL (BLACK SIGMA)
Subject:Unauthorized limiter propagation across informal markets
Action:Monitor; do not criminalize. Fasting clause effective; public trust climbing.
Addendum:"Every time we write a rule, someone builds a knife," handwritten in the margin. The handwriting belongs to nobody on payroll.
And the ocean keeps the beat. For 0.71 of a minute, the world listens. For 0.29, it lets go. In between, people live.