By midmorning, everyone had accepted that the bunnies weren’t moving.

  They hadn’t accepted why.

  The yard had settled into a strange new rhythm. Crews moved around the parked machines the way water flows around stones. Slower. More deliberate. The absence of motion was impossible to ignore, but the order of the rows made it clear this wasn’t a malfunction. It was a choice.

  That distinction bothered people.

  A Parks supervisor stopped by first, radio clipped to his vest, eyes flicking between the rows and Howard. “You sure they’re locked out and not faulted?”

  “Locked out,” Howard said.

  “Software?”

  “Procedure.”

  The supervisor frowned. “That’s… not usually the reason.”

  Howard nodded. “Today it is.”

  The supervisor hesitated, clearly weighing whether this was the point where he pushed. Instead, he sighed. “All right. I’ll move people around.” He walked off, already talking into his radio.

  Jake watched him go. “See, that guy wanted to ask.”

  “He asked,” Howard said.

  “No, he wanted to ask why.”

  “He wanted to know if he needed to file a report,” Howard replied. “He doesn’t.”

  That answer satisfied Howard. It did nothing for Jake.

  By lunchtime, the questions had shifted. Fewer operational checks, more conversational probes. The kind that pretended to be casual.

  “So this is just a pause, right?”“No.”“Well, temporary, I mean.”“It’s a stop.”“Okay, but that’s not—”“It’s still a stop.”

  Jake found himself translating for Howard even when no one asked him to.

  “What he means is,” Jake said at one point, “they’re off because it’s safer to look at everything before—”

  Howard cut a glance at him. Not sharp. Just present.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Jake stopped talking.

  A contractor leaned against a railing nearby, watching the rows. “They didn’t do anything weird, did they?”

  “No,” Howard said.

  “Because if they did, we need to—”

  “They did exactly what they were told,” Howard said again.

  The contractor nodded slowly, processing that. “Huh. That’s almost worse.”

  Howard didn’t respond to that at all.

  Jake exhaled loudly once the man had gone. “You realize people hear that and think something big happened.”

  Howard set down the wrench he’d been holding. “Something did.”

  Jake straightened. “Okay, so what?”

  Howard met his eyes. “We stopped.”

  “That’s not an event.”

  “It is if you’re used to things only ever moving forward.”

  Jake rubbed a hand over his face. “You’re doing that thing again.”

  “What thing?”

  “Where you answer the letter of the question and not the part people actually mean.”

  Howard considered that. “The part they mean isn’t useful right now.”

  “For who?”

  “For anyone trying to fix the wrong problem.”

  The afternoon brought more of the same. Questions that circled. Statements phrased like suggestions. People looking for permission to assume.

  No one got it.

  Jake paced near the workbench, clearly vibrating with unspent explanation. “You know what this looks like, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “It looks like a shutdown after an incident.”

  Howard nodded. “Correct.”

  “So why not just say that?”

  “Because that’s not what this is.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Howard took a moment. Not because he didn’t know, but because he was choosing how much to say.

  “It’s a stop after something worked,” he said finally.

  Jake blinked. “That’s… worse.”

  “Yes.”

  “People don’t like that.”

  Howard smiled faintly. “People don’t get to like everything.”

  By late afternoon, the yard had gone quiet again. Not empty. Just resigned. The rows hadn’t shifted an inch. The bunnies waited, patient in the way machines only are when someone has told them exactly what to do.

  Howard made another note on the pad clipped to the bench. Jake leaned in, trying to read it.

  “Is that a plan?” Jake asked.

  “It’s a reminder.”

  “For what?”

  Howard tore off the page and folded it once. “Not to skip steps.”

  Jake laughed despite himself. “You’re killing me.”

  Howard tucked the paper into his pocket. “I know.”

  As they locked up for the evening, Jake took one last look at the parked machines. The urge to narrate the moment pressed at him again. To frame it. To make it make sense in a way that would satisfy everyone.

  “So tomorrow,” he said carefully, “we’ll have more answers?”

  Howard paused with his hand on the door. “Tomorrow we’ll have the same ones.”

  “That’s not comforting.”

  “It’s accurate.”

  Jake shook his head, but he didn’t argue. Not this time.

  They left the yard as they found it.

  Still. Ordered. Waiting.