# Character State: ch-13

## Marcus Thorne
Location: The Kitchen, Cypress Bend cabin.
Physical: Soaked, hands raw from rope-burn, right thumb twitching in a rhythmic four-beat "ping."
Emotional: High-latency guilt triggered by a Sarah-memory; currently experiencing a "systemic crash" between his digital past and physical present.
Active obligations: Must secure the north-bank drainage for David (UNPAID); owes the "Sanctuary" a functional storm-warning integration (IN PROGRESS).
Open loops: The Alpha-7 "Phone Home" sequence—he initiated the handshake but hasn't processed the incoming packet (ACTIVE); The back-end logs remain his only leverage against Julian.
Arc: 78% -- The "God-tier" developer is being forcibly compiled into a "Grounded" protector; the transition is painful and unoptimized.

## Sarah Jenkins (Flashback/Memory)
Status: Digital Ghost / Catalyst.
Emotional: Indignant but professional; her voice in Marcus’s head acts as the moral compiler that rejects his "clean" excuses.
Known secrets: She knew the empathy protocols were being weaponized for "termination triage" before Marcus admitted it to himself.
Arc: 75% -- Transitioned from a victim of the rollout to the internal conscience governing Marcus's manual labor.

## David
Location: The Porch / North Bank.
Physical: Exhausted, kneeling in mud; smelling of diesel and saturated pine.
Emotional: Protective and weary; he views Marcus not as a savior, but as a "variable" that finally started pulling its weight.
Active obligations: Owes the perimeter a final reinforcement before the surge peaks (ACTIVE).
Arc: 68% -- He has moved from "playing pioneer" to surviving as a tectonic anchor for the group.

## Elena
Location: The Communications Closet / Solar Rack.
Physical: Tense, knuckles bruised from manual overrides.
Emotional: Fiercely territorial over the "Dead Zone" logic; she views Marcus’s digital handshake as a potential "security leak."
Known secrets: Has already identified the manual axe-throw as the final failsafe for the cabin's isolation.
Arc: 77% -- She is the architect of the group's "friction," ensuring the world remains unindexed.

# World State: ch-13

## NPC Memory
- The Ocklawaha: VIOLENT -- The river has reached the "recursive flood" stage, ignoring human trenching and forcing a retreat to high ground.

## Faction Attitudes
- Avery-Quinn Corp: SCANNING -- The Alpha-7 "Phone Home" sequence has alerted the corporate grid to a heartbeat in the Florida dead-zone.
- The Displaced: AGGREGATED -- Thousands are being "processed" through failing ration-hubs; their suffering is the data-load Marcus is trying to outrun.

## Active World Events
- The Hundred-Year Rain: PEAKING -- The storm has transitioned from a weather event to a "logic-test" for the Sanctuary’s analog defenses.
- The Analog Drift: SUCCESSFUL -- The cabin's systems (Storm-warning/Sanctuary LLM) are now running on a closed-loop air-gapped from the global grid, with one single, dangerous exception: Marcus’s initiated handshake.

## Strategic Nodes
- The North Bank Drainage: CRITICAL VULNERABILITY -- If it fails, the "Dead Zone" becomes a literal swamp, unmaking Arthur’s legacy.
- The Alpha-7 Logs: ACTIVE THREAT -- The data Marcus carries is the "emotional payload" that Julian needs to "clean" the final rollout.