The first challenge came from a man who had carried water through a weak barrier for six nights.
He stood in front of the forum table with his empty containers still tied to a pole, listening while Juno described the wider connection. When she finished, he asked whether the western span had improved. She said yes. He asked whether the street behind it was safer from a direct breach. Within the measured limit, she said, it appeared so.
“Then why,” he asked, “do you keep leaving that until the end?”
Juno looked down at the account she had brought. Eli had heard her dictate it and had not noticed the order. The successful output sat beneath the concern, exact and easy to miss.
She turned the page.
“The defense improved,” she said. “That belongs at the beginning.”
The man shifted his pole. He was prepared for a fight and had been given a correction instead. It did not make him a supporter. He stayed to hear the independent operator.
The operator submitted his original timing record beside the copied receiver strips. He included the first ambiguous test, the moved reference, the visible branch, and the part no instrument had seen. People who had watched the display leaned forward when he described the repeated timing. People who had not watched it asked how anyone could distinguish a reward effect from the power needed to strengthen the barrier.
