Ethan told the small group about the eleven sectors two days later, the same gathering that had become routine — Mara, Miller, Vale, Leo, Zara — now meeting at the Second Folder building rather than the tower, the shift itself a quiet marker of how much had changed."Eleven," Mara repeated, when he finished. "Still under full harvest.""Yes," Ethan said."And nothing we do here reaches them," Miller said. "Different sectors, different Architect operational zones. No connection at all.""None that we've confirmed," Ethan said. "The Chief Administrator doesn't know either. It's not something he's ever had reason to track before."Vale sat forward slightly. "The relay infrastructure I built was sector-specific," he said. "Designed to keep this region isolated. I have no knowledge of what infrastructure exists in other sectors, or whether they even have anything comparable to what we've built here.""So we don't know if there's a way to reach them," Leo said."Not yet," Ethan said. "But e

Miller had the network records pulled together within the hour, three months of careful documentation spread across the Second Folder building's ground floor table."Every contact we've made," Miller said, flipping through the pages. "Verton, Ashgate, the individual names, dates, what was confirmed and what wasn't. Nothing here mentions Sector 14 or anything adjacent to it."Ethan read through it anyway, the same careful verification he applied to everything that mattered. Nothing contradicted what Miller had said. Two cities, four individuals, a framework built exactly the way it had been described to the representative."Lena," Ethan said. "Her contact network predates the framework. If there's a connection we don't know about, it would run through her."Lena was in the building within twenty minutes, arriving with the same steady presence she always carried, listening to the situation without interrupting before answering."I never mentioned Sector 14," she said. "I don't know that

Miller found the trader within two days, working through Naomi's contact and then through the trader's own network of acquaintances until he had a name and a rough sense of the man's usual path.His name was Oren, and he moved goods between six settlements on a loop that took roughly three weeks to complete, Verton being one stop among several. Sector 14, according to what Naomi could piece together secondhand, sat at the far end of that loop, a city called Marrow that Oren visited perhaps once every two circuits."Marrow," Ethan said, reading Miller's notes. "That's the actual name. Sector 14 is just the Architect designation.""Same as Sea City has its own name underneath whatever number they'd assign it," Miller said. "The people there don't think of themselves as a sector. They think of themselves as a city."Ethan thought about that. It was a small distinction, but it mattered — the difference between a data point in someone else's harvest ledger and a place where actual people w

They reached Marrow on the tenth day, the city coming into view across a wide open plain that reminded Ethan faintly of the approach to Sea City, though smaller, quieter, fewer signs of the kind of rebuilding effort Voss's people had managed back home.David called the halt half a kilometre out, the standard caution before approaching anywhere unfamiliar."Same protocol as Verton and Ashgate," Ethan said. "We announce ourselves. No surprises."They walked in openly, no weapons drawn, David and two of Voss's people slightly ahead of the main group, Leo and Zara close behind Ethan and Mara.A small group met them at the edge of the city before they had gone far — four people, wary but not hostile, one of them stepping forward with the particular caution of someone who had been designated to speak for the rest."You're from Sea City," the woman said. Not quite a question."Yes," Ethan said. "I'm Ethan. We received word that Marrow might be looking for contact."The woman studied him for

They left Marrow on the fifth morning, Ren standing at the edge of the settlement to see them off, steadier than he had been the day they arrived."You'll be alright?" Zara said, checking one more time before they departed."I think so," Ren said. "It still takes effort. But it's effort I understand now, not something happening to me without warning." He looked at Leo. "Thank you. Both of you.""If it gets difficult again," Leo said, "you have the relay line now. Reach out."Petra stood beside Ren, arms crossed, something more relaxed in her posture than when they had first arrived. "Marrow's petition," she said to Ethan. "Do you think it changes anything, us actually meeting like this?""I don't know," Ethan said honestly. "I told the representative everything. What happens with the review isn't something I control."Petra nodded slowly. "For what it's worth," she said, "whatever happens with the sectors and the petitions and the reviews, Marrow will remember that someone actually ca