Chapter Seventy-Seven: No One Touches You, They Let You Crumble
Section One: Explosion Under the Lamp, No One Knows If It Was a Mistake
Dawn broke, fog cloaking the warehouse zone's roofs, Rustmouth's north line temp dispatch point reeking of damp chill. Tarn stood by an old delivery truck, left hand on a checklist, right peeling back gray tarp—batteries tightly packed, one label missing.
"Who packed this?" he turned, asking.
No answer.
Residents unloaded goods, two Rustmouth dispatchers crouched, sorting lamp frames. Behind, three in gray plainclothes, chests bearing faded volunteer badges.
"Logged the serials?" one volunteer spoke, voice low but piercing Tarn's brow.
"Who're you asking?" Tarn frowned.
"You said Rustmouth's here to help. Who signed for this batch? How's it wired?" The man's eyes held no emotion, like auditing—or reciting a script.
Tarn opened his mouth, but a faint sound cut him off.
Click.
Metal snapping in plastic, soft, brittle.
Next second—boom.
Not the truck, but the battery pack erupted from the box's base, shards flying, sparks tearing a two-meter tarp, electric tang, blood, burnt plastic flooding out.
A child was flung back, another crashed down, knee unyielding.
Seconds, no one moved.
Crowd screamed first. Volunteers rushed, blocking Tarn, low: "Safety crew's wiring now—you can't touch the injured."
"Get lost," Tarn's eyes reddened, voice rusted razor.
He shoved past, knelt, peeling charred cloth from a wound, blood seeping through his fingers, child whimpering.
Twenty minutes later, wounded were carried off, volunteers snapping photos.
Ten more, dispatch got word—the point was tagged by CAIRN as "unclaimed liability zone," freezing supply flow.
Their only morning shipment.
Rustmouth warehouse, meeting room, 7:30 AM.
Windows shut, Maria flipped through crowd message boards. Silent, she turned the terminal to Jason as he entered.
Three lines, most repeated:
"Who sent this stuff?"
"Lamp's theirs, but they didn't blow it, right?"
"Not distrust, just needs someone to clear it up."
"Crowd's doubting," she said.
"Not disbelief—unsure if they should keep believing."
Jian Ci barged in, wordless, tossing his coat on a chair, unzipping a weapon bag, fingers grazing his dagger's friction line, knuckles white.
Jason glanced: "Where to?"
"Find those gray-clads."
"Then?"
Jian Ci didn't answer.
"Beat them?" Jason asked.
"They claim volunteers, say brass sent them—hit them, you hit the system," Zhao Mingxuan entered, voice fresh-frozen. "Don't hit, they say: we're not theirs, Rustmouth hired us."
Silence.
Maria, low: "That point was our only drop today. No code, no system tag, but the crowd knew we sent it."
"So, trouble hits, no one steps up, but they know we're on the hook."
"You want crowds with us, they need to say, when it goes wrong: 'I know Rustmouth did it, I trust them,'" Maria continued.
"Now they can't even say 'I know who did it.'"
Jason eyed the terminal, thinking.
No pen, no orders, just one question: "Remember who first asked for our dispatch plan when we lit the lamps?"
Tarn frowned: "Old Cheng, warehouse side?"
"Right," Jason nodded. "Check if he's still there."
Rustmouth marker point fringe, gray volunteers withdrew. Slow steps, blank faces, one tossed a tag packet: "City Defense Pilot Coordination." No one claimed it.
In an alley, an elder sat at a door, clutching a boy's scorched coat from the blast. No curses, no words, just staring at the tile's unscrubbed char.
Soft: "They didn't ask if I wanted lamps."
"Now it's blown, they're all gone."
Section Two: Crowd's Gaze Isn't Hostile, It's Retreat
Before noon, Rustmouth lamp crews swapped twice, none willing to hit the north point.
"Not refusing," a young tech told Tarn, low. "We fix, crowds won't stand near."
"We arrive, they back off."
Streets weren't noisy—just a silence, like all waited for one to speak. None did.
Even trucks detoured.
Maria stood by Third Warehouse's outer wall, watching slogans scrubbed, repainted.
New spray: "Warehouse Safety, No Uncertified Gear Allowed."
Signed: Coordination Crew.
Her brow didn't twitch, but her finger scraped the wall.
Dust thick.
They'd been too busy; crowds didn't wait for their sweep, posting their own order.
This order wasn't Rustmouth's.
Main warehouse, meeting table, silence.
Jian Ci slammed his coat down, paced, returned, jabbing a CAIRN feedback print—crowd behavior forecast.
"Look at this!" He spread it, red-boxed line:
"Current crowd action shows liability expectation shift, trending toward awaiting official clarification before endorsing Rustmouth."
"Means they don't trust us till TRACE labels us!"
"We saved people, stabilized three zones—now one blast, they're scared?"
No reply.
Zhao Mingxuan pointed to another chart: "Not scared of us—scared if we slip, the system makes them pay too."
"They don't doubt you—they can't afford to trust."
"They fear 'Rustmouth' tagged illegal, making them accomplices."
Jian Ci kicked a chair: "What're we for? Handing out supplies? Guarding gates? Smiling for trust?"
Chen Lei rose from the wall, taping a blast point sketch to the tac board, one line: "Don't curse the crowd."
"They hauled water for us yesterday."
"Today's distance is us lacking a story they can stand on."
Silence, ten seconds.
Maria, calm but weary: "We're not selling trust in Fire or faction."
"We show lamps stay lit, we don't leave."
"Now lamps burn, trouble hit—people left."
Jian Ci toppled a chair: "Can't we clear it? Say 'they framed us'?"
"No," Jason spoke, low, steady.
"Speak, we jump into their trap—they want us to claim we're a faction."
"Say 'we're Rustmouth,' we're not a stabilizer, we're a target."
"Let them?" Jian Ci gritted.
"Not letting," Jason met his eyes. "Finding a way stronger than shouting."
"We make them unwavering—not by words, but their eyes seeing us work, shouldering the blame."Rustmouth dispatch point, Tarn and two techs crouched, rewiring. A crowd circled, silent.
No curses, no approach.
Watching wires connect, kids passing tools, a patched lamp flickering on.
An old man glanced up, muttered: "No more trouble."
Soft, but Tarn heard.
He didn't reply, tightening screws, like betting against someone.
Section Three: No One Says You're Bad, But None Say You're Good
TRACE Info Coordination Center, South Logic Branch.
Charlotte Engel sat at the main console, fingers tapping, eyes on CAIRN's hotword trace module.
Screen scrolled keywords:
"Rustmouth's water guy didn't name himself, I remember him."
"Those wiring folks aren't system—familiar faces."
"Don't care who they are, they fixed the lamp."
She exhaled, opening a flagged prompt:
[Meme Risk Factor: Rustmouth speech resonance exceeds normal flux × Cognitive Focus Structure Emerging]
Internal note surfaced:
"Suggest diverting Rustmouth-related speech to 'cooling buffer,' restrict secondary positive tags; ban phrases: 'trustworthy, steadier than system, rely on them, they guard, they came.'"
No words, she clicked [Execute].
Executor: system's "cognitive anomaly regulator."
Clean, legal, harmless—deadlier than bans.
Rustmouth main warehouse, 3 PM.
Maria sat in dispatch, flipping daily feedback. Page eight, she froze.
Update:
"Yesterday said 'Rustmouth runs faster than officials,' today it won't post."
"Posted they fix fast, rejected."
"Didn't bash the system—why blocked?"
Her finger stilled, lips moved, no sound.
Jian Ci stormed in, face dark: "Asked ten people—they're mute."
"Not distrust—they say two words, someone whispers 'don't say much.'"
"Even 'Rustmouth fixes fast,' they warn 'can't say that now.'"
Maria looked to Jason, voice barely audible: "Not silence."
"They're taught silence by the system."
Zhao Mingxuan, on data streams: "It's 'language surface stripping.'"
"They teach crowds not to say 'you're good.' No ban on saying you're bad."
"Our 'stabilizing positive sample' is now scarce."
Tarn frowned: "How do we show we're still working?"
Jason, eyes down: "No explaining."
"Say 'we're working,' system calls it 'meme-building.'"
"All we can do—let crowds, even silent, know we're here."
An elder sat by the warehouse, watching Rustmouth swap a lamp. A youth leaned in, low: "Know them?"
No nod, no shake, just watching work, slow: "Don't need to know."
"See if their lamp lights."
"Lit, stay quiet."
"—Talking's unsafe now."
Section Four: No Response, No Shouts, Never Vanish
Night pressed Rustmouth north, warehouse gate air damp, fog half-fallen, baked dry by lamps.
Chen Lei sat by an old console, worn training clothes, cap low. Before him, the blasted lamp point—metal pillar fixed, junction rewelded, paint wet, glinting.
No words.
Just sitting, guarding.
Toolbox dragged, Jian Ci led two from the east alley, head down, scanning blueprints.
"Rewire East Second's aux power ourselves."
"No dispatch approval? We'll do it."
A young crewman muttered: "What if we wire, crowds say we tampered, system bites back?"
Jian Ci, no glance: "They can't speak, doesn't mean they can't see."
"Wire it. Anyone steps, I'll deal."
Main warehouse, Zhao Mingxuan sat at screens, five hours unslept.
He tuned a fuzzy system model—no "Rustmouth," just "undefined actor × action structure stability models."
Tagged: "event response × crowd stress relief × behavior prediction."
System would read as "environmental samples," not "propaganda memes."
Jason, behind, eyed parameters.
"Redefining us by outcomes?"
Zhao Mingxuan: "They kill words, we drop words."
"They block names, we give none."
"I show: a team, always useful, never chaotic, always alive."
"No name needed—but reports must admit 'they did it.'"
Jason didn't speak, sliding the tac board out, pen slashing "Rustmouth," rewriting: "Non-Defined Cooperative Structure Segment · N.S.C."
Maria raised a brow: "Even our name's gone?"
Jason, soft: "Names matter?"
"They want a tagged enemy, we become a reality their system can't pin."
—
Chen Lei sat under the lamp. Night passers glanced, none dared ask.
One whispered: "Still here?"
He looked up, calm: "If I'm not, they'll ask 'where'd they go?'"
"Here, they don't dare."
Section Five: Not What You Said, But Your Deeds Can Be Erased
Rustmouth west, twelve minutes post-lamp repair, a crowd video hit a shared channel.
Two Rustmouth techs swapped cells, shaky footage, dim light, shooter's hand covert.
Comment:
"No uniforms, no names, but faster than anyone."
"If not for them, my kid would've been at the gate during the blast."
"Don't know if they're Fire, but they fixed this lamp."
Hour later, platform tagged:
[Unknown Actor Action × Crowd Trust Focus × Potential Meme Clustering] → Cooling Buffer.
Another platform, a voice note spread fast:
"Heard they swapped batteries, not system-supplied, gray-line pulls."
"Some say they're with black markets—how else get stock?"
"No system approval, crowds stay—what're they doing?"
Anon.
Jian Ci, hearing it, face blackened, roared: "Crowd said this?!"
Zhao Mingxuan, cold: "Stitched phrasing, meme auto-synthesis."
"They fed keywords, patched crowd hotwords."
"Not crowd speech—system shaped what crowds might say."
Maria opened the hotword panel, cold data:
"Rustmouth" mentions down 37%;
"They," "those people," "that side," "self-styled stabilizers" up 43%.
Meaning?
Crowds dared not name you, nor speak for you. Fear of guilt by association.
Jason stood by the window, breeze lifting a map copy—five crowd-sourced "spontaneous record points" marked.
Unmoving, faint: "We're not without praise."
"Now—praising us is a risk."
Maria: "What then?"
"Crowd support now exposes them."
"Push them to speak, we push them to the blade."
Jason turned, voice low, steady: "We don't make them speak."
"We make their deeds—system must log."
"From now, ARGUS runs 'Structural Feedback Chain.'"
"No crowd praise—they film who wired, hauled lamps, stood at gates, cleaned aftermath."
"No fight for 'Rustmouth.'"
"We leave traces—every lit lamp, fixed junction, delivered supply auto-generates a chained ID record."
Zhao Mingxuan: "Not for proof?"
"To be undeletable."
TRACE backend logged:
[Zone Action Record: Non-Coded Structure Behavior × Crowd Cross-Verified × Video+GPS+Behavior Triad]
"Behavior lacks meme risk, inseparable from core actor structure, tagged 'non-blockable record.'"
Operator frowned: "Who uploaded?"
Backend: "Not uploaded—it happened."
Section Six: No One Says You're Here, But All Live by Your Ways
Main warehouse's last lamp died at 3 AM.
Outside, silence. Only a corner emergency sign glowed, swapped by Rustmouth dispatch three days ago, old-model core, cold light, steady.
Jason stood before the warehouse map, table piled with unsigned dispatch reports. Crowd notes: "lamp broke," "water core expired," all unsigned.
No "hope Rustmouth comes," no "leave to system."
The deadliest state:
Crowds defaulted Rustmouth, but wouldn't admit it.
Maria leaned by the window, last page of hotword data in hand.
"We're gone from 'trusted people.'"
"Moved from 'real stabilizer' to 'unknown variable.'"
"Not meme poison."
"We're—a faction that doesn't exist."
Jason didn't answer, taking a pen, sketching a new map.
No streets, lamps, codes.
Just dots.
"No more points, posts, names."
"We start 'action collab dots.' Each dot—one task: send people, do it."
"Done, photo, log, leave."
Tarn frowned: "Stable enough? System won't block?"
Zhao Mingxuan, cold: "Can't."
"Not 'faction acts'—'natural crowd collab outcomes.'"
"We don't upload—crowds 'leave records,' system grabs us."
Maria: "No name at all?"
Jason nodded: "Right."
"Not 'Rustmouth,' 'structure segment,' 'overlords.'"
"Just people doing."
"No names, but erase all words—lamps lit, wells fixed, wounded saved, gates manned—you can't deny we were."
He wrote on the map:
"Let the system miss us, but catch our tracks."
4 AM, first crowds woke.
A man with a bucket stood at the water point, seeing a note on the new pipe—no unit, no signature.
One line: "Core swapped. Safe to use."
He scanned—no Rustmouth.
He filled his bucket, lingered, then taped his own note:
"Thanks. Anyone, just not them."
Main warehouse, Jason turned to all.
"From now, one thing—no explaining, no voicing."
"We make deniers of our existence dodge our shadows."