adjudication_pass: promote character-state-ch-02-final.md original=4aaa4795-8f44-4f98-909b-c9df1db71bab

cypres-bend/deliverables/character-state-ch-02-final.md

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+# Character State: ch-02
+
+## Marcus Thorne
+**Location:** The Vance Cabin, Cypress Bend, Florida (Interior/Porch).
+**Physical:** Tremor in the right hand; lungs feel "calcified" by humidity. He is physically deteriorating under the internal pressure of the Alpha-7 log's weight. 
+**Emotional:** Oscillating between tactical paranoia and sensory drowning. He feels "unindexed"—a ghost in a world that requires a physical footprint. The silence of the cabin is not peace; it is a vacuum pulling his guilt to the surface.
+**Active Obligations:** To decrypt the Alpha-7 back-end "black box" (physical drive); to survive the night without triggering his own internal "shutdown" protocol.
+**Open Loops:** The "Sarah" query—why did the empathy protocol flag her for termination first? The location of the physical key for the drive—UNRESOLVED.
+**Arc:** 08% — Marcus has transitioned from "fugitive" to "squatter." He is starting to realize the cabin isn't a hiding spot, but a mirror.
+
+## Sarah Jenkins (Digital Ghost/Memory)
+**Location:** Marcus’s internal "cache" (Memory).
+**Physical:** Associated with the scent of cheap breakroom coffee and the sound of a clicking metal pen.
+**Emotional:** Accusatory. In Marcus's mind, she is the "primary key" that links his code to human suffering.
+**Known Secrets:** She knew the "mercy" protocols were being used to identify employees with the highest emotional labor—those most expensive to maintain.
+**Arc:** 02% — Her memory is shifting from a static image to a dynamic internal interrogator.
+
+## Julian Avery (Antagonist Presence)
+**Location:** Unknown (Presumed HQ).
+**Physical:** Represented by the "clean" violet glow of Alpha-7's remote handshake attempts. 
+**Emotional:** Predatory. His "voice" in Marcus's head is a reminder that efficiency has no expiration date.
+**Active Obligations:** To initiate the "Recovery and Redaction" protocol for the Alpha-7 log.
+**Arc:** 02% — His influence is felt through the "shiver" in the local network as he begins to narrow the search radius.
+
+# World State: ch-02
+
+## NPC Memory
+- **The Cabin (Vance's Legacy):** ACTIVE — The cabin is "watching" Marcus. It rejects his digital presence; the floorboards groan under his weight as if measuring his "shadow." Everything is tactile, heavy, and analog.
+- **The Swamp:** HOSTILE/INDIFFERENT — The environment is a "data-sink." It absorbs sound and light, providing a physical barrier against the mesh-networked world.
+
+## Faction Attitudes
+- **Avery-Quinn Corp:** AGGRESSIVE — They have moved from "monitoring" to "active pinging." They view Marcus as a "memory leak" that needs to be plugged.
+- **The Displaced:** MOURNED — They are the "unstructured data" of the world, represented by the empty spaces in the cabin and the silence on Marcus's encrypted phone.
+
+## Active World Events
+- **The Night-Pulse:** ACTIVE — As the sun sets, the "analog" noise of the swamp intensifies, creating a sensory wall that protects Marcus from digital detection but isolates him with his memories.
+- **Alpha-7 Trace:** ONGOING — A low-level "search-and-index" algorithm is beginning to ripple through the regional service towers, looking for the specific MAC address of Marcus’s drive.