# Character State: ch-06

## Marcus Thorne
Location: Interstate 75 South, departing Atlanta, Georgia.
Physical: Severe sleep deprivation; fingertips numb from repetitive data entry; smelling of ozone and scorched copper.
Emotional: Frantic and hyper-focused; experiencing a "high-velocity" state of technical desperation.
Active obligations: Owes Sarah’s memory a world without Alpha-7 (Ch-01) — UNPAID; Owes Elena a diagnostic on the port’s manifest system (Ch-04) — UNPAID.
Open loops: Marcus and the decrypted Alpha-7 "Sarah" logs (Ch-06) — RESOLVED; Marcus and the extraction of the local-LLM "Sanctuary" seed (Ch-06) — RESOLVED.
Known secrets: CARRIED (Ch-01—unresolved): Knows the Alpha-7 empathy protocols were a lie to facilitate mass firings.
Arc: 35% — Marcus has transitioned from a data-refugee to a digital insurgent, having successfully decentralized the very AI models Julian sought to monopolize.
Permanent: YES

## Julian Avery
Location: Avery-Quinn Corporate HQ (Atmospheric/Remote).
Physical: Unseen.
Emotional: Predatory and analytical.
Active obligations: To retrieve or neutralize the Alpha-7 back-end log stolen by Marcus (Ch-01) — UNPAID.
Open loops: Julian's "Search-and-Index" protocol for Marcus's MAC address (Ch-04) — UNRESOLVED.
Known secrets: None.
Arc: 10% — Julian remains an abstract force of systemic pressure, his presence felt through the failing infrastructure of the city.
Permanent: NO

## Sarah Jenkins — DECEASED (Ch-01)
Established: Terminated and displaced by the Alpha-7 rollout, serving as the moral catalyst for Marcus's flight.
Legacy: Her "deleted" status is the primary driver for Marcus's attempt to build an un-indexed digital sanctuary.

## Arthur Silas Vance — DECEASED (Ch-36)
Established: Died peacefully in his sleep overlooking the cypress grove he spent his life protecting.
Legacy: His physical "dead-zone" property remains the only safe-harbor destination for the data Marcus has extracted.

# World State: ch-06

## NPC Memory
- Atlanta Network Admin (Remote): FRANTIC — Witnessed the final "ping" of the open-source mirrors before the regional grid collapsed into a rolling blackout.

## Faction Attitudes
- Avery-Quinn Corp: AGGRESSIVE — They have triggered the "Terminal Efficiency" protocol, leading to the destabilization of public utilities to flush out un-indexed hardware.
- The Displaced (Atlanta): PANICKED — Transitioning from digital job-loss to a physical struggle for resources as the power grid fails.

## Active World Events
- The Great Dark: INITIALIZED — The rolling blackouts across the Southeast are being used as a tactical tool by AQ Corp to isolate and track mobile data-nodes.
- The Local-LLM Exodus: COMPLETED — Marcus has successfully "packaged" the foundational AI logic into an offline, analog hardware set for transport to Cypress Bend.