[Ava's POV]
The Council’s response was not a scalpel. It was a poison gas, released into the atmosphere of the entire wasteland. They bypassed covert operations and psychic sanctions, opting for a tool far more corrosive: public policy, dressed in the cold, sterile language of bureaucratic concern.
The decree did not arrive under cover of darkness. It was promulgated. It flooded every functioning broadcast band, a repetitive, rolling scroll of text accompanied by a synthesized, androgynous voice that dripped with reasonableness.
Copies, printed on the Council’s distinctive, watermark-laced synth-parchment, appeared nailed to settlement gates, trading post bulletin boards, and the rusted hulls of landmark wrecks. It was omnipresent, inescapable.
“ATTENTION ALL CITIZENS AND RECOGNIZED F
