Deathkarion titled the folder like it was a lab specimen.
CUSTODY SLEEVE CONTAMINATION THEATER
Theater: Westonglappa / coastal logistics chain
Objective: Invert AES proof tooling into a public scandal
Window: Half-hour hit–fade, synchronized to civic backbone cadence
Operator: Deathkarion (Elite), Death Regime
He wrote it on paper first, not for romance, for intent. Paper did not glitch. Paper could be photographed. Paper could be leaked with clean edges and believable ink.
The Death Regime ship sat offshore like a continent that refused to sink. Its interior bay smelled of sterile polymer and brine. Overhead lights hummed at a frequency that made exhausted minds feel calmer, which was exactly why Death Regime used them. In a row of cabinets—each marked like medical aid—Deathkarion kept his tools: sealed reagent vials, nitrile gloves, a portable fluorescence lamp tuned to common street lighting, and a small stack of clear custody sleeves identical in size to AES equipment but produced with a microscopic difference in seam resin.
His "+" pupils glowed faintly against his dark-gray, violet-undershaded face as he examined a sleeve under the lamp. The seam looked perfect. That was the trap. If you could see it, it was already too late.
A Death courier-technician approached and stopped at the taped rectangle on the deck. Hands open. Eyes down. "Reagent batch ready."
"Present," Deathkarion ordered.
The courier slid a metal tray forward with two vials. One held the reagent: harmless to skin in the doses planned, dramatic under light. The other held neutralizer gel: to erase evidence if the theater needed to shift narratives mid-window. Deathkarion never touched the glass bare-handed. He used forceps, rotated the vials in the lamp, watched the color play like a lie learning how to smile.
"This is not poison," he said quietly. "This is accusation."
The courier swallowed. "Understood."
Deathkarion lifted two fingers and made the Death Regime gesture that meant scope control: small, precise, repeatable. "We contaminate the container ecosystem. Not the evidence. Not the bodies. The sleeves."
"Why sleeves?" the courier asked—too curious, but still within allowed parameters.
Deathkarion's voice stayed clinical. "AES made sleeves into faith. We make faith into doubt."
He sealed the vials into a padded case, stamped the latch, and handed it off without crossing the rectangle. Then he pointed at the deck timer: the half-hour seam was eleven minutes away.
"Deploy."
The insertion team moved without drama: naval skimmer to a secondary Westonglappa pier, then a maintenance van into the industrial grid. No stolen sirens. No gunfire. Their camouflage was procedure: reflective vests, clipboards, and the calm face of people who "keep things safe."
Fortborter Town had become a port that still functioned while pretending it wasn't at war. Cranes moved because they had to. Trucks rolled because stopping would admit fear. Screens played calm looping advisories to keep people from stampeding. The perfect environment for a subtle betrayal.
Deathkarion stepped out of the van at a staff-only gate and raised his hands for the Moon Guard stationed there—yes, Moon Guards, because AES had pushed escort doctrine across Westonglappa. The guard's eyes tracked hands, not faces. Deathkarion complied like a model citizen. He offered a paper badge, a plausible department title, and a form with a stamped header that looked official enough to pass at a glance.
The guard read the header aloud, as required. "Health Safety Audit Team."
"Correct," Deathkarion said.
The guard hesitated. "No screens. Paper only."
Deathkarion tilted his head, polite. "Paper only."
He was admitted.
Inside the port, he did not walk like a villain. He walked like an inspector. He noted lane tape edges. He watched custody sleeves being used to seal manifests, incident photos, confiscated modules—anything that needed to be "provable" later. He watched the press lens teams—Star and Solar—filming hands and seals like it was liturgy. He watched the same sleeves recur across different checkpoints and knew the truth: the sleeves were becoming a shared tool, traded between teams, handed off under pressure, used by tired hands that believed plastic could keep reality clean.
That belief was the opening.
Deathkarion stopped near a "no-touch" rectangle beside a manifest desk and waited. When the clerk looked up, Deathkarion raised his hands slowly, palms visible.
"Random compliance audit," he said. "Glove change. Sleeve stock check."
The clerk frowned. "We're busy."
Deathkarion nodded once. "That is when contamination happens."
He did not argue. He presented a tray of "replacement sleeves" and a stack of gloves. The sleeves were real—almost. The gloves were clean—almost. The clerk's eyes flicked to the calm broadcast screen, then back to Deathkarion's tray. The clerk wanted permission to end the mental strain. The tray offered it.
"Put them in the supply," the clerk said.
Deathkarion's "+" pupils held steady. "Confirm chain. Two-person witness."
The clerk called over another worker. The camera lens nearby caught hands, saw a calm handoff, saw procedure, saw nothing wrong. The sleeves were accepted into inventory with the same seriousness as medicine.
That was phase one.
Phase two came through distribution. The contaminated sleeve percentage was small—low enough to avoid obvious clustering, high enough to guarantee discovery in the wrong lighting. Deathkarion didn't need every sleeve to fluoresce. He needed just enough to create a pattern that looked like tampering.
By evening, a Blackened street team did what Blackened did best: they made rumor feel like a friend. They did not announce "Death Regime operation." They seeded concern.
A short clip appeared in the local feed loops—an ordinary shelter volunteer holding an evidence sleeve under a fluorescent lamp, the seam glowing faintly. The volunteer's voice was shaky but convincing.
"I don't know what's in these," the volunteer said. "But they glow. Why do they glow?"
The clip spread because it didn't sound like propaganda. It sounded like fear.
Deathkarion watched it from a back room in the port office, not on a civic screen but on a sealed viewer with the audio low. He didn't smile. He wrote.
PUBLIC REACTION TREND: "Evidence tampered."
PRIMARY EFFECT: Trust erosion in custody procedures
SECONDARY EFFECT: Pressure for "standardization" and centralized replacement
TARGET: Approving hands (continuity authority and press marshals)
A Death courier in the corner asked, "Now?"
Deathkarion checked the timer. Two minutes to the half-hour seam. "Now."
He left the port and entered the civic broadcast annex in Fortborter's secondary district—not by forcing a door, but by following an official-looking "maintenance corridor" that people assumed existed. BRD had learned to steal corridors by building them with paperwork.
Inside, a local anchor sat at a desk, reading calm advisories with a tight smile. Behind the camera, a Star Regime press marshal stood like a spine, ensuring the anchor did not drift into speculation.
Deathkarion appeared at the edge of the studio's taped rectangle and raised his hands.
"I'm here for a contamination clarification briefing," he said.
The press marshal's eyes narrowed. "Name."
"Doctor—" Deathkarion began, then stopped himself. He didn't need identity. Identity created targets. He needed posture.
"Health Safety Audit Team," he finished.
The marshal lifted a paper token. "Paper verification only."
Deathkarion presented his folder. The marshal read the header aloud. The header was perfect. The ink was the right shade. The seal was close enough to feel true.
The marshal hesitated, then did the thing Deathkarion had been waiting for: the marshal reached toward the custody sleeve holding the day's incident evidence, intending to compare seals.
Deathkarion's voice cut in, precise. "Use your lamp."
The marshal blinked. "What?"
"Use your lamp," Deathkarion repeated, and nodded toward a common fluorescent desk light.
The anchor shifted uncomfortably. "Are we... are we live?"
The marshal held up a palm to the anchor. "Stand by."
The marshal lifted the sleeve into the light.
The seam fluoresced.
Not violently. Not neon. Just enough to look wrong.
The studio froze. Silence landed like a verdict.
The anchor whispered, "Is that... is that tampered?"
Deathkarion didn't answer quickly. He let the doubt breathe. Then he spoke with the calm of a man pretending to protect them.
"It indicates chemical contact," he said. "It may be accidental. It may be environmental. Either way, your chain-of-custody is now disputable."
The Star press marshal's jaw tightened. "Disputable according to who?"
Deathkarion turned his head slightly. "According to anyone with a lamp."
The anchor swallowed. "What do we do?"
Deathkarion's eyes held steady. His voice stayed soft and clinical.
"You standardize," he said. "You replace all sleeves. You centralize verification. You move all future custody into a single controlled chain."
The press marshal's instincts fought the recommendation. Star doctrine was compartmented verification, not centralization. The marshal tried to regain footing.
"We don't centralize," the marshal said. "We verify independently."
Deathkarion nodded politely, like he respected the argument while strangling it. "Independent verification requires uncontested containers. Your containers are now contested."
The marshal looked at the fluorescent seam again. The camera caught the glow. The anchor's eyes darted to the audience monitor. This was how governance collapsed—quietly, with an object that felt undeniable.
The half-hour seam hit.
Across Fortborter, civic screens blinked. Not power. Not signal loss. A refresh—clean, calm, synchronized. An operator-tier overlay arrived half a beat early, and this time it did not look like war. It looked like public health.
EVIDENCE SAFETY NOTICE
CONTAINMENT STANDARDIZATION REQUIRED
OPERATOR TIER
CONFIRM AUTHORITY
Green pulsed.
In the studio, the anchor gasped, voice cracking. "We just got an alert."
The Star marshal snapped, "Do not touch it."
But the alert was not only on the studio screen. It was on phones. On kiosks. On shelter terminals. It landed everywhere the public had learned to look when they were scared.
Outside, in a shelter corridor, a tired volunteer held up a custody sleeve and saw it glow under overhead lights. A civilian whispered, "They lied." Another whispered, "Press the button so they fix it."
Back in the studio, the anchor's hands hovered above the desk. The Star marshal saw the tremor and stepped closer.
"Hands on the table," the marshal ordered.
The anchor obeyed, palms flat, breathing fast. "I'm trying."
Deathkarion watched, not like a predator watching prey, but like a scientist watching a test subject resist reflex.
The marshal turned on Deathkarion. "You knew."
Deathkarion didn't deny it. Denial was for amateurs. He answered with framing.
"I warned you," he said. "You are tired. You want a single fix. That is why this city will accept central authority."
The marshal's voice sharpened. "Our people don't accept your fixes."
Deathkarion inclined his head. "Your people accept relief."
The marshal reached for a paper token, tearing it once to show the tear-code edge. "We hold chain with paper."
Deathkarion's eyes flicked to the sleeve seam again. "Paper can be contested if the container is."
The studio's producer hissed from behind the camera. "We're getting calls. People are asking if evidence is fake."
The anchor's voice rose, panicked. "Tell them it's not fake!"
The marshal barked, "Do not speculate. Read receipts."
The producer shoved a document forward—a "replacement protocol" bulletin, arriving too fast, too clean. The header looked official. The seal looked close. The timestamp was the first lie: it arrived before any real office could have written it.
The marshal stared at it, then glanced at the civic screen prompt pulsing green. The approving layer was being pulled into a decision with no clean choice: refuse and be blamed for unsafe evidence, accept and centralize authority under an operator-tier overlay.
Deathkarion spoke as if he were offering salvation.
"Approve the standardization," he said. "Protect your people."
The marshal's voice dropped to a low, lethal calm. "Step back."
Deathkarion did not move. He lifted his hands again, palms open.
"I am not armed," he said.
The marshal replied with procedure, not emotion. "You are a weapon."
A Lunar security lead cut into the studio comms, voice clipped. "We have crowd pressure at Shelter Three. People are pressing green."
The marshal snapped, "Block terminals. Paper routes only."
"Crowd is fighting," the Lunar lead said. "They think the sleeves are fake."
The marshal's shoulders squared. "We hold line. We show hands. We show seals."
Deathkarion watched the system strain exactly the way he'd designed it. He did not need to win the studio. He needed to force a choice that bruised trust no matter what AES did.
The anchor whispered, barely audible, "What if the sleeves... what if they really are contaminated?"
The marshal turned to the anchor, voice hard but controlled. "Listen. Look at me. Hands visible."
The anchor's eyes locked on the marshal's hands.
"Repeat," the marshal ordered.
The anchor swallowed. "Hands visible."
The marshal nodded. "Good. Now read this."
He held up a paper receipt ledger with tear-edges matching the day's tokens—physical proof that did not depend on a screen. The camera zoomed. The public could see the torn edge alignment like a simple truth.
Deathkarion felt the narrative shift start—AES trying to drag the fight back to receipts.
So he widened the theater.
He leaned slightly toward the camera and spoke as if addressing the city, calm and authoritative.
"If your evidence containers are compromised," he said, "your justice is compromised."
The producer flinched. "Cut him off."
The marshal stepped forward. "You don't speak on our channel."
Deathkarion's eyes glowed with that faint "+" sign, clinical and cold. "Your channel is already mine for half an hour."
Outside, Fortborter's screens kept pulsing green with health-language so clean it felt kind. In shelter corridors, hands hovered. In admin offices, approving officials stared at "replacement protocols" and felt their fatigue become policy pressure. And in the studio, the Star marshal held paper proof up to a lens that was now being forced to decide what the public believed: a tear-edge receipt, or a glowing seam.
The half-hour window was not closing. It was climbing—away from screens and into offices where continuity authority lived, where one tired signature could reclassify every past custody sleeve as suspect.
Deathkarion lifted two fingers and made the smallest possible gesture—an instruction to his unseen operators.
Advance the blink.
The studio lights flickered once, a soft civic backbone hiccup, and the next overlay line began to crawl in on the studio's auxiliary monitor—targeting the approving layer, not the street.
APPROVAL REQUIRED: CUSTODY STANDARD REPLACEMENT
CONTINUITY AUTHORITY
CONFIRM
Green pulsed, patient and predatory.
The Star marshal stared at it, then at the anchor, then at Deathkarion's open hands.
"Do not touch," the marshal ordered.
Deathkarion whispered, just for the marshal. "How long can you hold tired hands away from relief?"
Outside, a shelter volunteer's finger hovered over green.
And Fortborter's civic backbone blinked toward the people whose job was to approve.
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