Standing orders // fiction
Four rules. Never broken. Not once in 412 pings.
The Protocol isn't written down anywhere — Relay reconstructed it from three years of logs, and Wrench confirmed it over the workbench. Four rules, in order:
Record: 412/412
Every distress ping gets an answer. Not a triage, not a maybe — an answer. The armor has never missed one, including the night of the nineteen-hour shift when Wrench had to threaten the Gantry locks to stand it down.
The First Ping's words
The only words spoken that first night, and the whole doctrine since. Eleven trips for eleven children. Four trips back into the Overpass wreck. The rule doesn't count cost.
Asked once
Ibarra asked. Once. The visor turned, the radio stayed silent, and the question was retired. The Wards decided the armor is the person, as far as anyone needs to know.
Every dawn
When the patrol ends, the armor returns for the maintenance rites — washdown, actuator check, star count. Wrench says ritual is how it stays human under the plating.
PING RECEIVED. MOVING. NO ONE LEFT BEHIND.