Wagon Bomb — v0.3

Current draft

Twelve, Asian, and among the biggest on the block, she has muttered since she took the handle. She wears loose, opaque cotton washed out past any color it had, already darker down the back before the first balloon flies. Behind her rolls a rust-red wagon with one deep-teal balloon the size of a laundry basket. A brass thumbtack rides point-out on a shoelace at her wrist, its flat worn pale by her thumb. Her name, and who handed her the wagon, remain deliberately unresolved rather than invented to look complete.

She is not ordnance. She is a kid holding the one thing that can end her own afternoon, and she picks the minute. Her thumb hovers because winning and quitting are the same half-inch of movement, and everyone has done that arithmetic.

What changed

• Replaced v0.2's mischievous ambusher with row 8's furious hauler.
• Adopted row 8's twelve-year-old Asian girl and left charter §8's "his" standing, unresolved.
• Moved the threat off the balloon and onto the thumb.
• Changed the thumbtack from a bare detonator into a worn, chosen object.
• Gave her a hueless near-black wardrobe and left every hue on the equipment.
• Added the constant muttering, aimed at nobody, as her tell.
• Carried charter §7's Stygian rule in: a wetsuit is no help at the collar.
• Kept the bubble cloud as a place she parks, not a concealment system.
• Established "do not corner her" as a block rule nobody justifies tactically.

Why it changed

A single-use blast radius explains a chokepoint but not why the rest of the street arranges its afternoon around one girl's mood. This revision moves the threat off the balloon and onto the thumb, where the casting sheet put it, and leaves every number unbuilt rather than invented.

Evidence and playtest marginalia

• docs/seventh-street-charter-v8.md §8 roster table, "Slow kid, red wagon, one enormous balloon. Attacks exactly once. Pure ambush," under the Wight analog neither register borrows.
• §7's Stygian rule, "a direct balloon hit or the wagon soaks it through the collar." The Little Brother row reads "Steals the wagon balloon."
• docs/characters/roster-mix-v1.csv row 8 reads 12, Asian, Female, L, "Do not corner her," and "angry enough to just end it and go home"; charter §8's "his" stands unedited.
• docs/scouting/meijer-summer-aisle-2026-07.md, "The wagon in the foam" (2026-07-24), gives the lurk its tell, "a red handle in the foam," and rides "behind S3.1."
• decisions.md records nothing about this kid; sim/constants.gd names four kids and the Sprinkler — no wagon, tack, or cloud. Nothing is built for this kid; every number here is a proposal, not a finding.

Rejected or alternate directions

• A cheerful demolitionist reading.
• A hidden soft center under the anger.
• Reloading, refilling, or any second attack.
• True invisibility in the foam, without a tell.
• Detonation on another kid's order.
• A friendly-fire exemption inside her own blast.
• A kids'-register alias coined in-dossier.
• Muttered lines written as audible one-liners.
• The thumbtack as pure bluff.
• A wardrobe hue of her own.
• A cause for her fury outside the block.
• Strain or freight weight as a body joke.

Still unresolved

Featured question: does the kid stuck with an unbearable job show through the hazard everyone routes around?

Secondary unknowns:

• whether twelve millimeters of brass reads at tactical zoom;
• whether §8's "Steals the wagon balloon" takes the balloon before she picks the minute;
• whether "do not corner her" holds or collapses into ground nobody contests;
• whether the bubble cloud is a parking spot or the first move of a stealth system;
• what she is like on a day she is not hauling.