The name arrived later.
Always later.
Not when the damage happens, not when someone suffers, but when the system has enough distance to be able to recount it without having to correct it.
Marikka felt it as they crossed the High Lines bridge. Not a sudden vibration, but a change in the way surfaces prepared to be touched. As if the world were holding its breath, awaiting an official word.
Cedric stopped abruptly. "Look."
He wasn't pointing at a person. He was pointing at a civic board: a smooth surface embedded in the wall, on which stable signs scrolled, readable from afar. No urgency. No bright colors.
Attribution.
Marikka did not approach immediately. The delay washed over her like an involuntary caution. She leaned her hand on the bridge railing first. The metal vibrated with an unnatural calm.
The name was already there.
Not hers.
Not yet.
Local Simplification Event — Level I Probable Cause: Unclassified Resonance Interference Status: Contained
Below, a smaller line:
Associated Contact Person: C. L.
Cedric inhaled deeply. "That... that's me."
Aurelian didn't look at him. He was reading the structure, not the effect. "They did what they always do."
Marikka felt the word Contact Person vibrate like an open wound. She wrote in the notebook, slowly:
IT IS NOT A NAME. IT IS A HOOK.
Cedric swallowed. "But they don't say what I did."
"It's not necessary," Aurelian replied. "It's necessary that you exist in relation to the event."
The civic board continued to scroll. Compatible versions. Reassuring language. No mention of the woman on the stairs. No mention of the loss.
The damage had become manageable.
Marikka walked closer.
She placed her fingers on the surface. The vibration was smooth, frictionless. A narrative that did not allow for a rebuttal.
She wrote:
THIS IS NOT TRUE.
Aurelian looked at her. "No. It is coherent."
The distinction hurt her.
A couple stopped nearby. They read the board with quiet attention. The man nodded. "Good thing they contained it quickly."
The woman added: "Yes. With all this resonance going around..."
Marikka felt the phrase arrive with a delay that made her clench her fists. The name was already working. It wasn't accusing. It was orienting.
She wrote, faster:
THEY CHOSE WHAT TO SAY.
"And what not to say," Aurelian completed.
Cedric took a step back. "So what happens now?"
The board changed lines.
Additional Note: Associated Subject invited to provide clarification at the Civic Registry.
Invited.
Marikka felt Serian stir in the case, a tired but present impulse. The echo reacted to the name like an indirect pressure. It didn't call it. It restricted it.
She wrote:
THEY WANT A STORY.
Aurelian nodded. "And you are the part that doesn't fit."
Cedric looked at Marikka. "I can say that—"
She shook her head. No.
She wrote, firmly:
WHATEVER YOU SAY BECOMES TRUE.
The civic board continued to shine discreetly. The bridge was crossed by people who no longer stopped. The name had done its job: it had transformed an event into context.
Marikka closed her eyes for an instant.
She felt the city adapt to the narrative. The vibrations became simpler, less variable. The system was teaching the world how to remember.
When she reopened them, she wrote the only question that mattered:
CAN WE REMOVE IT.
Aurelian hesitated. Then he replied softly: "Only by replacing it."
Cedric looked at him. "With what?"
Marikka leaned her hand against the bridge wall. The stone vibrated with a new resistance. Not refusal. Possibility.
She wrote:
WITH SOMETHING THEY CANNOT CONTAIN WITHOUT ADMITTING THEY MADE A MISTAKE.
Silence.
Not the silence of fear.
The one that precedes a political choice.
The civic board emitted a faint update pulse. No visible change. Just the confirmation that the name had been registered.
Cedric straightened up. "So... now we are officially part of the problem."
Marikka looked at the river flowing under the bridge. The water still vibrated with a complexity that the rest of the city was losing.
She wrote the final sentence, with a new calm:
NO. NOW THE PROBLEM HAS A FACE.
And she knew that the next step would not be to erase the name.
It would be to render it insufficient.