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+# Character State: ch-24
+
+## Marcus Thorne
+Location: The North Bank Citrus Grove, Cypress Bend, Florida.
+Physical: Singed hair on forearms; smelling of kerosene and woodsmoke; frost-nipped fingers; soot under fingernails.
+Emotional: Primal and grounded; experiencing the "analog high" of a successful physical defense. Feeling a rare, tactile alignment between his actions and his survival.
+Active obligations: Owes Sarah a life free from indexing (Ch-01) — IN PROGRESS; Owes Leo a future beyond the Mesh (Ch-12) — IN PROGRESS.
+Open loops: The Ocala "Ghost" Signal (Ch-22) — UNRESOLVED; The Avery-Quinn "Deep Scan" Retaliation (Ch-25) — UNRESOLVED.
+Known secrets: CARRIED (Ch-01): Knows the Alpha-7 empathy protocols were a lie to facilitate mass firings — Julian does NOT know Marcus kept the back-end logs.
+Arc: 135% -- Marcus has fully transitioned from a digital architect to a physical steward, prioritizing the "biological clock" over system uptime.
+Permanent: YES
+
+## Sarah Jenkins
+Location: The Kitchen Hub / Porch, Cypress Bend, Florida.
+Physical: Exhausted; soot-stained face; steady hands; smell of rank coffee and orange wood.
+Emotional: Protective and vigilant; the "Sovereign" of the domestic interior; weary but certain.
+Active obligations: None.
+Open loops: The Seed of Barter (Ch-21) — RESOLVED.
+Known secrets: CARRIED (Ch-01): Knows the Alpha-7 empathy protocols were a lie to facilitate mass firings — Julian does NOT know she has weaponized that detachment.
+Arc: 120% -- Sarah has successfully integrated the "Status: Active" life into a permanent agrarian reality, acting as the community's emotional and logistical triage lead.
+Permanent: YES
+
+## Elena
+Location: The Thermal Perimeter / Server Shed, Cypress Bend, Florida.
+Physical: Shivering; eyes bloodshot from monitoring high-alpha sensor feeds in the bitter cold.
+Emotional: Tactically satisfied; wary of the heat-bloom's visibility to orbital or drone sweeps.
+Active obligations: Owes Marcus a physical failsafe (Ch-10) — UNPAID.
+Open loops: The Sanctuary Integrity (Ch-25) — UNRESOLVED.
+Known secrets: CARRIED (Ch-10): Knows the manual axe-throw is the only physical failsafe for the power line — Marcus does NOT know.
+Arc: 125% -- Elena has realized that physical warmth is a tactical vulnerability that requires "analog" courage to maintain.
+Permanent: YES
+
+## David
+Location: The North Bank Citrus Grove, Cypress Bend, Florida.
+Physical: Back strained from hauling fuel; frost on beard; fully healed from ribs (Ch-17).
+Emotional: Tectonic and steady; trusting Marcus as a peer in the muck; communal protector.
+Active obligations: Owes Helen a legacy (Ch-01) — IN PROGRESS.
+Open loops: None.
+Arc: 130% -- David has transitioned from a skeptical sentry to a collaborative patriarch, accepting the technical mesh as part of the land's "nervous system."
+Permanent: YES
+
+# World State: ch-24
+
+## NPC Memory
+- Julian Avery (Avery-Quinn Corp): WATCHFUL -- View Cypress Bend as a "Thermal Anomaly" -- Intends to investigate the unauthorized heat bloom detected during the freeze.
+
+## Faction Attitudes
+- Avery-Quinn Corp: PREDATORY -- Analyzing the sector for "Human Baseline" signatures and unauthorized resource usage.
+
+## Active World Events
+- The Hard Freeze: ACTIVE -- Five-year anomaly testing the Sanctuary’s physical limits. The grove has survived the first night, but at the cost of visibility.
+- The Sovereign Mesh: ACTIVE -- Successfully masked the technical noise, but failed to fully mask the thermal signature of the smudge pots. The Sanctuary is now "hot" on the map.
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