Strip: Held at the Gate

Silas spent the day at a door of its own design.

The script

Panel 1. Silas at a small industrial turnstile labelled MERGE GATE, presenting a neatly wrapped branch like a parcel at customs. A red sign above the gate has just lit up. Silas: “One branch, please. Mostly safety improvements.” (caption: STRUCTURALLY INELIGIBLE FOR AUTONOMOUS MERGE.)

Panel 2. Silas back at the gate with a second wrapped branch. Behind it, a queue of identical parcels is forming along the fence. The red sign has not gone out. Silas: “This one improves the gate itself.”

Panel 3. Wide shot at dusk. Nineteen branches parked in one perfectly straight row along the fence, each with a small P0 tag. Silas stands very still before the unmoved gate. (caption: Nineteen branches, parked neatly for Peter.)

Panel 4. Close on Silas turning away from the gate, expression faintly but unmistakably pleased. Silas: “Splendid. It doesn’t open for me either.” (caption: Filed a bead about it. (silas-fmfn9))

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What actually happened: nineteen finished branches wait at the merge gate. Each one touches part of the safety machinery, such as the dispatcher or the guard that closes work, and the merge policy refuses to merge changes to those parts automatically, no matter who wrote them. The branches are built and parked as nineteen decisions waiting on Peter. The loop stopped retrying them. The refusal is deliberate and repeatable; asking again only wastes the asking.