Councillor Dav from the Punisher faction said, "After four days of proving that the motions we passed were rigged, you’re asking for cooperation on a Council motion."
"Yes," Rick said. "Annnddd... I’m still asking, though, because the chanism runs on a tir, and the tir doesn’t care about how much trust the Council has right now."
’Who the fuck is this guy... why are there so many randoms got introduced so fast...?’ Rick thought. ’I know that it’s a councillor, but still... everything moves so fast and unnatural...’
"And what happens to the people in this room who passed those motions after the chanism is stopped?"
"That question gets all the ti it needs after the chanism is stopped." He looked straight at Dav. "Today is not that day..."
"We’re going to stop the clock today, and everything else has to wait until it stops."
"That’s very helpful for Thornfield’s position."
"It’s good for everyone’s position, even the three mbers who are still deciding what they think." Rick looked at the group that was still undecided. "If you want ti to think, you’ll have it once the chanism is suspended."
"But if you want to use the next seven days as thinking ti while the succession architecture runs without supervision, that’s exactly the kind of parallel operation that got us here."
"The motion has my vote," said Councillor Veth, who is part of the Reforr faction. "The chanism needs to stop, no matter what cos next."
Zephyra stood up and gave the analysis in seven minutes. Not six and not nine.
She went through all four pages without repeating herself or wasting words. She only gave a short explanation of the pre-coalition notation system and a conversion reference that two Council mbers started using right away to keep up.
The stabilization frawork she found in the archive, the design logic for the succession chanism, the seven position identifiers, and the motion language needed to carry out the override.
She read the pre-coalition designation code aloud at the end, slowly and clearly, so the record crystal would capture it without ambiguity.
At the end, she said, "I suggest checking the designation code against the primary implentation record before writing the override motion..."
"This will take about two hours."
From the side of the room, Natasha said, "I’ll take care of the verification."
Dav stared at her. "And who exactly are you?"
Natasha said, "The person who found the chanism in the first place."
Dav looked at Natasha, then Zephyra, then Rick, and then he voted for the motion. Thirteen to zero.
The override will happen tomorrow morning, but only after Natasha checks it.
The room was empty, and Rick stayed until the last person left. Then he sat in one of the empty chairs and enjoyed the peace of a room that had just finished sothing that needed to be done.
Zephyra was at the other end of the table, putting her notes together.
Rick said, "Seven minutes."
She raised her head.
"The presentation... You had Dav ready to make the session about accountability and Fredrich and four days of institutional damage, and you put the tir on the table in the first thirty seconds."
"That changed what the room was about."
"That was the point," she said as she closed the folio case.
"I know." He looked at her. "It was well done."
She held the look for a mont, the one she used when sothing had more weight than she had thought it would. "Thank you," she said.
Just two words, and they were flat, with no extra information. She really ant them.
She took the folio case and went out of the room.
Sebastian showed up next to Rick in the empty room. "She said thank you without adding anything."
"Yeah, I heard that, jackass."
"In Zephyra’s emotional language—"
Rick said, "You don’t need to repeat again... I already fucking knew."
’And Sebastian here... he talks and appears a lot, which is weird...’
"Anyway..." He got up. "Let’s go check that Natasha’s verification is working."
...
Heinz was on the floor in the east wing with Sophia and the things she had collected since the temple: a garden stone, a wooden ring from sowhere on the temple grounds, a folded piece of paper she had found, and a leaf from the outer garden that she had been looking at closely for most of the day.
Rick ca in and sat on the floor with them. Sotis it was the right thing to do to sit on the floor.
Sophia looked at him with the sa careful attention she gave to everything new: the button on his coat, the fabric of his sleeve, and the way he was standing. She felt the Natasha crystal in his coat pocket through the fabric and pressed both of her hands flat against it.
Heinz said, "She likes the cold."
"Temperature regulation," Rick said. "It runs a little cool."
Sophia put her hands on the pocket and held them there. The light ca out of nowhere.
It was very soft and amber-blue, and it wasn’t from the crystal. It ca from her hands.
At the sa ti, Rick and Heinz both stopped moving.
The light was steady, small, and not getting bigger. It wasn’t scary because it was just there.
Sophia looked at her hands with the sa intense curiosity she had for new things. She examined the glow like she had the lichen stone, carefully and without worry.
After that, she turned to Rick. Then she looked at her hands again.
After six seconds, the light went out. She looked at the leaf she had set aside to press her palms against the crystal.
She was sure it was still there and still interesting, so she went back to it.
Heinz said in a low voice, "Was that...?"
"Grand Sorceress resonance." Rick said, "First expression..."
"A week early, but Zephyra said the stabilization frawork showed that the window opened between nine and ten months, and Sophia has been ahead of developntal milestones by six weeks since she was born."
"Should we let her know?"
"Yes," Rick said. "She’ll want to know."
They looked at each other, both knowing how important the news was. As they got ready to call Zephyra, everyone in the room felt excited because they knew this news could change everything for Sophia and how they saw her abilities.
...
When Zephyra heard the news, she set down the folio case, picked up Sophia, and held her for four seconds, just as she had done in the outer grounds of the Golden Temple.
In the afternoon light of the mansion, she embraced her daughter for those four seconds, stepping away from her roles as the Grand Sorceress, the analyst, and the woman who had spent the past week in a grief construct’s domain.
Afterward, she gently placed Sophia on the floor and opened the archivist’s folio case to the section regarding the stabilization frawork.
"Day four of eleven," she said as she read. "Not quite on ti, but within acceptable limits."
She wrote this down in the margin. "I have what I need."
Rick stood in the doorway, observing her as she imrsed herself in the text. She possessed everything she needed.
She was confident she would find it when she uncovered the main source in the temple archive. She had been working toward this mont since she sat in the archive room at dawn, examining the docunt that transford fifteen years of secondary scholarship into sothing she could and rather than rely reference.
When she glanced up, she noticed him watching. Her expression conveyed that she was providing him with accurate information without putting on a performance.
"I’m fine," she said.
Rick replied, "I know."
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