# Character State: ch-08

## Marcus Thorne
Location: The "Garden" clearing, Cypress Bend, Florida.
Physical: Grease-stained hands; multiple small cuts on knuckles; dehydrated; eyes tracking the movement of a "Sanctuary" node on a ruggedized tablet.
Emotional: Quietly triumphant but cautious; experiencing a shift from "God-tier" architect to "Analog" apprentice.
Active obligations: Owes the Vance legacy a functional perimeter (Ch-08) — UNPAID; Owes Sarah’s memory a world that doesn't delete the "unoptimized" (Ch-01) — UNPAID.
Open loops: Marcus and the long-term sustainability of the Sanctuary AI (Ch-08) — UNRESOLVED; Marcus and the potential "ping" from the tractor's legacy hardware (Ch-08) — 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: 35% — Marcus has transitioned from a data-refugee to a physical mender, successfully marrying his high-tier code to obsolete iron.
Permanent: YES

## David
Location: The "Garden" clearing, Cypress Bend, Florida.
Physical: Back muscles still tight but moving with more fluidity; blistering on hands beginning to callous.
Emotional: Grudgingly impressed; experiencing the first crack in his "lone pioneer" isolationism.
Active obligations: Owes Marcus a degree of trust (Ch-08) — UNPAID; Owes the land a successful harvest (Ch-07) — UNPAID.
Open loops: David and the physical defense of the "un-indexed" territory (Ch-08) — UNRESOLVED.
Known secrets: None.
Arc: 35% — David has accepted that survival in the "dead zone" requires the very technical intellect he initially tried to flee.
Permanent: YES

## Sarah
Location: The clearing perimeter, Cypress Bend, Florida.
Physical: Smelling of woodsmoke and wild mint; posture more upright; no injuries.
Emotional: Analytical and grounded; she is the bridge between the two men's conflicting logics.
Active obligations: None.
Open loops: None.
Known secrets: CARRIED (Ch-01—unresolved): Knows the Alpha-7 empathy protocols were a lie to facilitate mass firings.
Arc: 30% — Sarah has moved from a "passenger" of the flight to the moral regulator of the new "Sanctuary" logic.
Permanent: YES

## 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 remains the primary driver for Marcus’s refusal to build a system with a backdoor.

## 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 for the group, though his ghost mocks David's lack of "grit."

# World State: ch-08

## NPC Memory
- **The "Sanctuary" LLM (Offline Node):** FUNCTIONAL — Successfully diagnosed a 1998-era hydraulic failure using un-indexed repair manuals — Learned the "logic" of rust.

## Faction Attitudes
- **Avery-Quinn Corp:** SHUT OUT — The "First Wrench" victory marks the first successful repair performed without an active AQ-Server handshake.
- **The Land (Ocala):** NEGOTIATING — The environment allowed a victory (the tractor repair) but remains a high-friction antagonist.

## Active World Events
- **The First Wrench:** COMPLETED — The group has achieved "Mechanical Autonomy," repairing legacy hardware using localized, air-gapped AI.
- **The Great Hunger:** ONGOING — While the tractor works, the soil remains acidic and the calorically negative "throughput" of the garden is still a threat.