The two volunteers arrived by different doors.
One had walked from a human work crew that knew the prototype from its failures. The other came with a dungeon community’s chosen observer and asked to see the independent instrument before sitting down. Tessa showed both the same operating explanation. Differences in language required time, but the contribution limit and the right to stop were not being translated into different rights.
Eli stood beside the unloaded frame while the local operators checked the cutoffs. Each volunteer had a separate physical break. The shared circuit could accept a contribution only within the small test configuration. If one person stopped, the agreed reserve and release sequence would manage the modest load. They had rehearsed it unpowered with the new state marks and the independent display visible.
Juno did not begin by telling the volunteers what the junction had promised. She told them what the passive observation suggested and what this experiment could establish. The live junction was not connected. The prison was not under the frame. Their task was a small measured contribution through the independent prototype, with no assumption that a successful interval authorized a longer one.
The human volunteer asked whether a difference in readings meant one of them was weaker.
