Nox faced the wall of raised contracts stacked over the distribution key and found the one grip his liability record still forbade. He could claim the defendant and spare the cargo, but he could not cancel a stranger's signed agreement to treatment.
Each signed contract in that wall was a living person, and the record that let him arrest Sorn would not let him move a single one.
"You built your wall out of people who trusted you, and my record will not break one of them," Nox said, holding his claim at the transport door. "The only hand that can move a contract is the hand that signed it, so I reach for the signers and not through them."
Diana held the trace open and pulled the recall term Sorn had buried inside every raised contract. She turned the folded clause back toward the people it belonged to before the Director could stack them tighter.
