# Character State: ch-26

## Marcus Thorne
Location: The Kitchen Porch, Cypress Bend, Florida.
Physical: Shaking hands; exhausted; drenched from the rain.
Emotional: Morally conflicted and hyper-vigilant; feeling the weight of the "Steward's Choice."
Active obligations: Owes Sarah a life free from indexing (Ch-01) — IN PROGRESS; Owes Leo a future (Ch-12) — IN PROGRESS; Owes the Hiker ("Caleb") safe passage to the South Perimeter (Ch-26) — UNPAID.
Open loops: The Ocala "Ghost" Signal (Ch-22) — UNRESOLVED; The Avery-Quinn "Deep Scan" Retaliation (Ch-25) — UNRESOLVED.
Known secrets: CARRIED (Ch-01—unresolved): Knows the Alpha-7 empathy protocols were a lie to facilitate mass firings — Julian does NOT know he kept the back-end logs.
Arc: 140% -- Marcus has transitioned from protecting a "system" to protecting an individual at personal risk, breaking his own security protocol for a human variable.
Permanent: YES

## Sarah Jenkins
Location: The Kitchen Hub, Cypress Bend, Florida.
Physical: Steady; soot-smudged forehead; hands warm from the stove.
Emotional: Defiantly compassionate; acting as the moral anchor of the sanctuary.
Active obligations: None.
Open loops: The Hiker’s Sanctuary Status (Ch-26) — UNRESOLVED.
Known secrets: CARRIED (Ch-01—unresolved): Knows the Alpha-7 empathy protocols were a lie — Julian does NOT know she has weaponized that detachment.
Arc: 125% -- Sarah has successfully asserted communal ethics over Marcus's tactical isolationism, forcing the sanctuary to become a hospital rather than just a bunker.
Permanent: YES

## David
Location: The Kitchen Porch / Treeline, Cypress Bend, Florida.
Physical: Hand on his sidearm; scanning the woods; fully healed.
Emotional: Paradoxical; skeptical of the stranger but deferring to Helen’s legacy of hospitality.
Active obligations: Owes Helen a legacy (Ch-01) — IN PROGRESS.
Open loops: Perimeter Breach via Hiker (Ch-26) — UNRESOLVED.
Arc: 135% -- David has accepted that the "Sanctuary" is a burden of responsibility, not just a place to hide.
Permanent: YES

## Elena
Location: The Server Shed / North Bank, Cypress Bend, Florida.
Physical: Damp hair; eyes bloodshot from monitoring sensor ghosting.
Emotional: Tactically compromised; frustrated by the introduction of a new "biological noise" (the hiker).
Active obligations: Owes Marcus a physical failsafe (Ch-10) — UNPAID.
Open loops: The Hiker’s Tech Signature (Ch-26) — UNRESOLVED.
Known secrets: CARRIED (Ch-10—unresolved): Knows the manual axe-throw is the only physical failsafe for the power line — Marcus does NOT know.
Arc: 128% -- Elena has recognized that human compassion creates a "signal noise" that no mesh can fully mask.
Permanent: YES

## Arthur Silas Vance — DECEASED (Ch-01)
Established: Died peacefully in his sleep after ensuring the "dead-zone" logic was intact.
Legacy: His tradition of "The Long Wait" and the emergency stores he left behind provided the food that saved the hiker's life this chapter.

# World State: ch-26

## NPC Memory
- Caleb (The Hiker): GRATEFUL -- Found semi-conscious in the Scrub -- Now a local variable who knows the sanctuary exists.
- Julian Avery (Avery-Quinn Corp): WATCHFUL -- Analyzing the thermal anomaly and wait-times in the sector.

## Faction Attitudes
- Avery-Quinn Corp: PREDATORY -- Escalating "Human Baseline" scans in the Ocala-adjacent sectors.

## Active World Events
- The Moral Test: ACTIVE -- The presence of an outsider is testing the group's "Zero-Trust" isolationist policy.
- The Sovereign Mesh: ACTIVE -- Currently masking the hub, but under strain from the increased movement at the perimeter.