Page 51 of Pocket Wife

My mind moves quickly. The Westline translation sheet. Maev Orlan’s testimony. The altered central archive. The reclassification of water, burial, and harvest land. The private medical coercion. The sabotage. Different tools, same objective.

Not relocation.

Nullification.

Helix has spent generations removing every legal person, place, and memory that could say no.

Lucy understands at the same instant. Her face goes pale under the afternoon light. “They don’t just need us gone.”

“No,” I say. “They need it proven that you were never legally here.”

“That is monstrous.”

“It is organized.”

The correction sounds cold even to me, but cold has its uses. Monsters can be condemned. Systems have to be dismantled.

I turn to the witnesses. “This proves the language of the covenant. It does not yet prove legal validity. Helix will attack age, custody, translation, and every name on this sheet.”

Lucy’s grip tightens around the stone’s rim. “Then we prove those too.”

“Yes.”

I face the others. “This evidence must enter public record immediately. Duplicate scans. Separate storage. One copy to Director Kaun, one to the council, one to the clinic archive, one to the schoolhouse.”

“No private custody,” Lucy says.

I almost smile. “Precisely.”

My comm flashes before I can give the next instruction.

Director Kaun’s authorization seal fills the screen, followed by three words.

Review window accelerated.

Then the full notice opens.

Helix has petitioned for emergency enforcement, citing civil instability, medical disruption, and alleged evidence contamination. Hearing scheduled in forty-eight hours. Failure to establish covenant validity by then would trigger provisional relocation authority.

Celia reads over Lucy’s shoulder and goes gray.

Forty-eight hours.

I look from the covenant sheet to the children behind the schoolhouse curtains, to Lucy standing in the dust with her ancestors’ names in her hands.

My career still matters.

It simply no longer comes first.

If we fail now, Helix will not simply win land. It will teach every frightened settlement in the outer worlds that memory can be purchased, edited, and erased.

Lucy’s eyes find mine. Through the bond comes no panic. Only pressure. Fierce, bright, and shared.

“What do we do?” she asks.

I seal the covenant sheet under four witness scans.

“Everything,” I say. “And this time, nothing alone.”