Chapter 14 · free to read
A record is a thing that can be spent. That was the rule the whole ledger stood on. Corvin Yael read it the other way round for the first time at 0500 hours.
Thirty-four years of a life, and the only true thing about his body had never made it onto the paper. He was going to make the rest of it match.
Transmitting a record forward hands it to the ledger as settled. Destroying the copy behind you leaves nothing for the present to check it against. He had spent four days learning how a thing is un-recorded. Now he did it to himself, on purpose, one page at a time.
Nine years of handwriting. It took two hours and eleven minutes, and Kestrel-9 grew quieter with every page, in a way that had nothing to do with sound.
Artwork and narration generated with AI.