22. Rethan
RETHAN
Celia’s bakery is already smoking when I reach the square.
Not burning.
Smoking.
A difference large enough for survival and small enough for terror.
The bakery stands between the clinic lane and the school road, its front windows thrown open, pale flour dust drifting through them like ash.
Two Helix security transports block the street.
Four armored officers stand at the entrance.
A fifth holds Celia by one arm while she tries to twist toward the open doorway.
Lucy moves faster.
I catch her wrist before she crosses the square.
She turns on me, furious. “Let go.”
“No.”
“They have Celia.”
“And they want you to rush in without witness.”
Her anger falters, not gone, but forced to think. Around us, people pour from the meeting hall with recorders still active. Relay screens float in Jessa’s hands. Torren has the main witness feed open on his slate.
Lucy glances at the bakery again.
Celia stumbles. The officer holding her tightens his grip.
The bond flares hot through my nerves.
I release Lucy’s wrist carefully. “Now we enter together.”
We cross the square under fourteen drones and half the valley’s watching eyes.
The Helix officer at the door raises one gloved hand. “This structure is under compliance inspection.”
I stop within recording range. “Identify authorization.”
The officer’s visor shifts toward me. “Specialist Veyr’s independent authority has been restricted.”
“Observation is not restricted.”
“You are obstructing a lawful inspection.”
“You are detaining a protected witness and damaging potential evidence less than forty-eight hours before emergency review.” I lift my comm, already streaming to Kaun’s oversight channel.
“Director Kaun, live record begins at 18:22 local. Helix security is present at the private business of covenant witness Celia. Evidence disturbance visible.”
The officer’s posture changes by a fraction.
He did not expect oversight.
Lucy steps beside me. “Let her go.”
Celia’s face is white beneath flour and smoke. Blood marks one sleeve where glass cut through the fabric. Still, she glares at the officer as if he were a badly risen loaf.
“I told them the ledgers were under council copy,” she says.
“They are,” Lucy answers.
The officer releases Celia with a shove meant to look accidental.
I move before Lucy can.
I catch Celia by both shoulders, steady her, and feel how violently she trembles. Human bones are small things. Breakable things. Helix has always known that. It prefers systems until systems fail, then it remembers bodies.
Lucy takes Celia from me. “Are you hurt?”
“My arm. Nothing broken.” Celia looks past her toward the bakery. “They took the old ledger.”
My attention narrows. “The original?”
“Yes. And the oven accounts. And the festival ration book.”
Torren swears from behind us. “They’re stealing the map.”
The officer at the door says, “Unverified documents suspected of fabrication are subject to review.”
“By whom?” I ask.
“Helix compliance.”
“No.”
The word leaves me quiet, but the square hears it.
The officer faces me fully. “No?”
“Evidence in a disputed preservation matter cannot be removed by a claimant without neutral custody.”
“Take that up with your director.”
“I already have.”
Behind the officer, something crashes inside the bakery.
Celia makes a soft sound.
Lucy pushes forward. “What was that?”
The officer blocks her.
I step between them before contact can happen. The movement is controlled. Barely.
Through the open door, I see the damage.
Shelves overturned. Flour bins split across the floor.
Proofing trays crushed under armored boots.
The old brick oven stands open, embers disturbed.
Beside it, one Helix technician feeds a stack of papers into a portable scanner while another seals Celia’s ledger inside a black evidence sleeve marked corporate property.
Corporate property.
I enter the bakery.
The officer follows. “You are not cleared to enter.”
“This is not a Helix facility.”
“It is under inspection.”
“It is under witness protection as of this moment.”
“You do not have authority to declare—”
I turn my comm outward so Kaun’s seal faces the room. The director has not spoken yet, but her channel remains active.
That is enough to slow them.
I cross to the technician with the evidence sleeve. “Place the ledger on the table.”
The technician hesitates.
I lower my voice. “If you remove that document now, every tribunal official will watch a claimant carry away the evidence it is accused of suppressing.”
For one sharp second, no one moves.
Then the technician sets the ledger down.
The scanner light goes dark, but not before I see the transfer indicator blink once.
Helix has copied something.
Not all.
Enough to matter.
Lucy enters with Celia tucked against her side. Her eyes move over the ruined shelves, the spilled flour, the torn bread cloths. The pain on her face strikes me harder than the damage. This is not only business property. It is labor. Memory. Morning food. A place where the valley has been ordinary.
Helix has learned to attack ordinary things.
Celia pulls free from Lucy and goes to the brick oven. Her injured hand shakes as she reaches behind a loosened tile near the hearth.
“Don’t,” Lucy says softly. “Let me.”
Celia shakes her head. “My grandmother hid it. I will bring it out.”
She removes a narrow tin tube blackened by heat but intact.
My mind sharpens. “Another fragment?”
“Not a fragment.” Celia looks at me with wet, fierce eyes. “A key.”
Inside the tube lies a strip of woven metal thread and a folded note, browned but readable.
I scan the first line.
If the harvest clause is challenged, open the old civic archive beneath First Hall.
My pulse slows.
Not from calm.
From understanding.
First Hall is not in our current archive map. Not under the council chamber. Not under the schoolhouse. Older. Deeper. A place Helix has not found because the valley itself forgot how to name it.
Lucy reads the note over my shoulder.
“They nearly burned this,” she says.
“No,” I say. “They nearly proved why it matters.”
Outside, the square has gone quiet. The relay screens are still live. Stonebend, Lark Hollow, Tamsin Ford, every witness settlement watched Helix put hands on Celia and try to remove the bakery records.
I seal the tin tube under public scan, then turn to the Helix officers.
“You may continue claiming this is procedure,” I say. “But now everyone has seen what your procedure requires.”
The lead officer says nothing.
His comm flashes at last.
Director Kaun’s voice enters the bakery, cold and clear. “All Helix personnel will withdraw from that property immediately. Any seized materials remain in local neutral custody pending tribunal order.”
The officers obey because the whole sector is watching them obey.
When the transports lift, flour swirls through the square in pale clouds.
I look at Celia’s bloodied sleeve, Lucy’s pale anger, the bakery torn open like a warning, and the scanner Helix managed to use before losing the room.
Helix has crossed another line.
So have I.
Because when I look at Lucy now, fear no longer asks me to step back.
It asks what I’m willing to risk if they touch her next.
I close my hand around the sealed tin tube.
“We find First Hall,” I say.
Lucy turns to me, flour on her cheek and fury in her eyes.
“Yes,” she says. “Tonight.”