# Character State: ch-01

## Marcus
Location: Cypress Bend, Florida (Rural residential lot)
Physical: Exhausted from a twenty-hour drive; smelling of rain and old upholstery.
Emotional: Numb and dissociated, transitioning into a desperate need for silence.
Active obligations: Owes Sarah’s memory a world without Alpha-7 (Ch[01]) — UNPAID.
Open loops: Marcus and Sarah’s family potential restitution (Ch[01]) — 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: 05% — Marcus has abandoned his god-tier corporate status to become a ghost in the humid fringe of society.
Permanent: YES

## Julian
Location: Chicago, Illinois (Avery-Quinn Headquarters, Executive Floor)
Physical: Pristine; no injuries.
Emotional: Triumphant, cold, and utterly detached from the human cost of his product.
Active obligations: None.
Open loops: Julian and Marcus’s "resignation" fallout (Ch[01]) — UNRESOLVED.
Known secrets: None.
Arc: 05% — Julian has successfully crossed the threshold from human manager to the architect of autonomous displacement.
Permanent: NO

## Sarah
Location: Dallas, Texas (Remote)
Physical: Unknown.
Emotional: Devastated by her professional execution (implied).
Active obligations: None.
Open loops: None.
Known secrets: None.
Arc: 00% — Sarah remains a symbol of the collateral damage caused by Marcus’s code.
Permanent: NO

## Arthur — DECEASED (Ch[36])
Established: Died peacefully in his sleep overlooking the cypress grove he spent his life protecting.
Legacy: His absence provided the vacant bird sanctuary that Marcus purchased as a hiding hole.

# World State: ch-01

## NPC Memory
- High-Level Avery-Quinn Staff (Chicago): DISMISSIVE — They view the 40% layoff as "recursive grievance resolution" rather than a human tragedy.

## Faction Attitudes
- Avery-Quinn Corp: AGGRESSIVE — Prioritizing immediate "efficiency" baselines over long-term social stability.
- The People of Cypress Bend: NEUTRAL — Currently unaware that an architect of the automation crisis has moved into their woods.

## Active World Events
- The Alpha-7 Rollout: The software has officially gone live, displacing thousands of customer service and logistics workers in a single day.
- The Great Flight: Marcus has successfully physically decoupled from the corporate grid, moving from Chicago to Florida.