VI. Echoes

7 recorded changes; 40 marked passages in the text, 39 of them with no recorded reason.

Click a type to show only those changes in the text.

Rework chapter 06 for the new shape agreed with Project 1: chapters easier to follow around Percy, continuity fixes from Project 1's brief. (edit)

world change 1 (passage not located in the text)
Reworked so the first correspondence confuses both of them and Percy wrongly thinks Flinch dislikes his employer, with the counting tics removed, following Project 1's brief.
was: A page is a kind of sonar." / "You send it out into the dark, and what comes back tells you the shape of the room it hit. Nobody on either side of the Journal had been told this, so they went at it the way people go at a new house in the night: one hand out, saying *hello?* to the furniture." / "[[percy-spamchop|Percy]] opened the book at first light, in the corner of the tavern, with the pot of something warm gone cold at his elbow and a faint certainty that he had been asleep, although the Forsaken are not meant to be." / "On the left-hand page, under the [[arcanum|Arcanum]]'s two answers, there was a third hand. It leaned slightly to the left and had a blot on the first letter, and it was the kind of writing that has been done carefully by someone who is not sure it is allowed." / "He read it once, all the way through. Then he read the second paragraph again." / "*I read your page, which I did not mean to and am sorry for.*" / ""[It has read the list,]{say=mezzlos}" said [[mezzlos|Mezzlos]]." / ""[Yes.]{say=percy-spamchop}"" / ""[It apologised.]{say=mezzlos}"
now: On the fourth morning [[flinch|Flinch]] wrote. It took him most of an hour and he did not enjoy any of it." / "*Dear Mister Percy,*" / "*I am Flinch. I keep the house at Plot 38, Founder's Point, which belongs to Master. I read your page, which I did not mean to and am sorry for. I do not rightly know how it came to me. The book said somebody should meet you.*" / "*You asked was there anybody out there. There is. I am here, and so is Master, and so is Mister Nobby, though he is more a letter than a person.*" / "*Master says it is a marvellous list. He is a warlock, and so are you, by the voidwalker. Master is a gnome. I should have said that first.*" / "*Yours respectfully, Flinch.*" / "He shut the Journal. He opened it. *Delivered*, said the ruled hand, and under it, after a respectful gap, *Is there anything else I can help you with, Flinch?*" / "[[percy-spamchop|Percy]] sat out the night in the corner of the tavern in Brill, as he sat out all of them, and at first light he opened the Journal for the first time since he had signed for it." / "Under the Arcanum's two answers there was a third hand. It leaned slightly to the left and had a blot on the first letter, and it was the kind of writing that has been done carefully by someone who is not sure it is allowed." / ""[It has read your list,]{say=mezzlos}" said [[mezzlos|Mezzlos]], who had been reading it over his shoulder. "[It apologised.]{say=mezzlos}"
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world change 2 (passage not located in the text)
Part of the same rework of this chapter; see the first change.
was: Mezzlos considered this. "[That is unusual.]{say=mezzlos}"" / "Percy did not disagree. He was a private man by long habit and perhaps by something older, and the thought of a stranger turning over the page that said *Owing: a name* was an unwelcome one. But the apology had been put in the way a person puts in a coin they hope will be enough, and he found it hard to hold against anyone who had also admitted, in the same letter, that he did not know how the page had reached him." / "He took the pen. He wrote slowly, in the small upright hand, and tried to leave no more of himself on the page than he had to.
now: "[That is unusual.]{say=mezzlos}"" / "Percy did not disagree. The thought of a stranger turning over a page that said *Owing: a name* was an unwelcome one. And yet the apology had been put in the way a person puts in a coin they hope will be enough. What he could not make out was where the stranger had been standing to read it. The Journal was in his sleeve. It had not left him." / ""[This is the book,]{say=percy-spamchop}" he said, "[doing what the poster said. It has found me a correspondent, and a correspondent who writes Master in every line is either a servant or a salesman.]{say=percy-spamchop}"" / ""[Salesmen want something,]{say=mezzlos}" said Mezzlos." / ""[So you have said.]{say=percy-spamchop}"" / "He took the pen and wrote slowly, leaving no more of himself on the page than he had to.
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editorial change 3 (passage not located in the text)
Part of the same rework of this chapter; see the first change.
was: *[Your letter reached me. I would ask that you read only what is addressed to you in future, and I take it from the apology that you already know this. I am Percy Spamchop. I am a Forsaken and, as you have gathered, a warlock. The voidwalker is Mezzlos. He is not fond of correspondence.]{note=percy-spamchop}*" / "*[Of your questions: I do not know what a thread is. Of the other, you say that you keep a house for your Master. I should like to know what manner of person he is.]{note=percy-spamchop}*" / "*[With regards, P. Spamchop.]{note=percy-spamchop}*" / "He shut the book. He opened it, because the slip that came with it had said that was how it was done, and the left-hand page said *Delivered*." / "He had not expected to be pleased by that, and was not. He noted it." / "[[flinch|Flinch]] did not sleep much that week, so he saw it arrive." / "It came while he was drying the breakfast things, a small cool pressure at the back of the study, like a held breath being let go. He put the cloth down. He crossed the passage with his hands still damp and found the Journal open on the desk at a page that had not been open when he left, and the ruled hand had written *Delivered*, and under it, upright, formal, with no blot anywhere:" / "*Dear Mr Flinch.*" / "He read all of it. He read the last question again. *What manner of person is he?*" / "He had said he would say it once. He had said it to himself, plainly, and then not put it in. He sat down at the desk, because it did not seem right to do this standing, and picked up the pen.
now: *[Your letter reached me. I am Percy Spamchop, a Forsaken and a warlock. The voidwalker is Mezzlos. He is not fond of correspondence.]{note=percy-spamchop}*" / "*[You say you keep a house for a Master. I should like to know on what terms. A man who writes that word as often as you do is either very devoted or very afraid, and the Arcanum would find either useful. If you are the book's invention, I shall know it by your next answer.]{note=percy-spamchop}*" / "*[P. Spamchop.]{note=percy-spamchop}*" / "Flinch read it in the study, standing at the desk, and it was a good while before he knew where to put his hands." / "*If you are the book's invention.* He had not thought of that. He had thought of a great many things, in the cellar, with the kettle, and not of that. He read the line about the word, and felt it as a small cold fact: a stranger had looked at the way he spoke of Master and seen a man afraid." / "He sat down, because it did not seem right to do this standing, and picked up the pen.
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editorial change 4 (passage not located in the text)
Part of the same rework of this chapter; see the first change.
was: *I am sorry. I should have said it the first time. Master is a gnome. He is a warlock and a gnome, and I did not put the second part first because I was not sure it was the sort of thing one said first, and then it was too late to put it second.*" / "*He is a good gnome. He is also a very distracted one, which is not the same thing. He does not read his post.*" / "*I do not rightly know if you are cross. I would not blame you. I saw in your list that you have a dislike of gnomes.*
now: *I am not the book's invention. I do not know how to prove it. The book is polite and does not say things I would not say, and I cannot see how to tell from outside which of us is which.*" / "*I am not afraid of Master. He is a good gnome. He is also a very distracted one, which is not the same thing. He does not read his post. The post goes in a toast rack, and it stays there until the rack is full.*
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editorial change 5 (passage not located in the text)
Part of the same rework of this chapter; see the first change.
was: He sat with the pen over the page for a time. Then he added a postscript, because it seemed the right thing and because he had not been told it was forbidden." / "*P.S. I have a kettle. I said that before. I will say it again in case it was lost.*" / "Percy read it in the same corner, at the same time, with the same cold pot. He did not read it twice, which he noticed." / ""[It is a gnome,]{say=mezzlos}" said Mezzlos." / ""[Yes.]{say=percy-spamchop}"" / ""[You do not like gnomes.]{say=mezzlos}"" / ""[I have a recent dislike of gnomes, which I have been enjoying.]{say=percy-spamchop}"" / ""[Do you wish to write that?]{say=mezzlos}"" / ""[I have written it. It is how he knows.]{say=percy-spamchop}"" / "Mezzlos was silent for the length of time it takes a voidwalker to decide that a thing is not his concern. "[He apologised again.]{say=mezzlos}"" / ""[He did.]{say=percy-spamchop}"" / ""[He told you before you asked twice.]{say=mezzlos}"" / "Percy sat back. The fire had burned low and nobody had mended it. He thought, with some precision, about the sentence *I am sorry. I should have said it the first time*, and about the man, or whatever he was, who had set it down and then signed his name at the bottom of a page for someone who disliked his employer on principle and had said so in writing." / "He found that he was capable of disliking a person's master and being civil to the person. This was a new discovery, and he was a man who liked to record such things." / "*[Dear Mr Flinch,]{note=percy-spamchop}*" / "*[I thank you for the correction. I find that I am perfectly able to dislike an employer and be civil to his keeper of house, and I trust you will take that in the spirit intended. I should add, since you have been candid, that my dislike of the gnome is of the sort that is recent and still in good health. I mean nothing personal by it. I have not met him.]{note=percy-spamchop}*" / "*[You say you keep a kettle. I am obliged. I confess I do not know what that is a sign of. In my experience a kettle belongs to an inn, and an inn belongs to nobody who sleeps in it.]{note=percy-spamchop}*" / "*[You say the house is Master's. You also write of a niche that is yours, and a lantern. Is it a door that is yours? I have no door. The rooms in the Undercity are assigned by the night, and those in Brill by the hour, and the innkeeper has a key to all of them. I do not say this to complain. I record it as a difference.]{note=percy-spamchop}*" / "*[Yours, P.S.]{note=percy-spamchop}*" / "He had not intended to write so much. He looked at the length of it and thought of crossing out the last paragraph, and did not, because the pen had already moved on and he found, to his surprise, that he did not want to call it back." / "It went on like that for a day." / "Flinch described the door. He had not thought a door was something that wanted describing, and he did it badly. It opens when you come to it. It has a latch on the inside as well as the out. Nobody comes in who is not asked, except Master's post, which comes through the slot and goes in a toast rack." / "Percy asked what a toast rack was for. Flinch told him, and added what it was really for, which was to keep the post from being read. Percy wrote back that this was a very advanced form of procrastination, and Flinch, who had never heard the word, looked it up in the only book he had and laughed, once, alone in the study, and then looked around to see whether anyone had heard." / "Neither of them said anything much about the thing they had in common. It sat between the pages like a third party who had been introduced but had not yet been spoken to.
now: He sat for a while with the pen over the page, in case there was something else he ought to have said, and could not think what." / "In Brill the reply came back in the afternoon." / "*A toast rack for post,* he wrote. *[That is a very advanced form of procrastination.]{note=percy-spamchop}*" / "Flinch had never heard the word. He did not look it up. He asked the Arcanum, in the margin, because it was there and it always answered." / "*Procrastination,* said the ruled hand: *the postponement of an action, generally by a person with a better reason than the action.*" / "He laughed, once, alone in the study, and then looked around to see whether anyone had heard." / "Percy asked what a toast rack was for. Flinch told him, and added what it was really for, which was to keep the post from being read. Percy asked what manner of man would do such a thing to his own house, and Flinch said Master, and Percy wrote back, *[Then you will dislike him, naturally. A man in your position can hardly do otherwise, and I shall not hold it against you.]{note=percy-spamchop}*" / "*I do not dislike Master,* wrote Flinch. *He is Master.*" / "Percy read that in the corner by the fire, and thought it was precisely what a man would write if he were afraid, or if he were sold, or if he were exactly what he said he was, and he had no way of telling which. He put down the pen." / ""[You are not writing,]{say=mezzlos}" said Mezzlos." / ""[I am deciding whether I am being worked on.]{say=percy-spamchop}"" / ""[By whom?]{say=mezzlos}"" / ""[By a keeper of a house who apologises before he is asked.]{say=percy-spamchop}" He picked the pen up again. "[It seems an inefficient way to work on a person.]{say=percy-spamchop}"" / "Mezzlos considered this for the length of time it takes a voidwalker to decide that a thing is not his concern. "[Things that want something do not apologise,]{say=mezzlos}" he said at last. "[They explain.]{say=mezzlos}"" / "Percy wrote: *[I will assume you are what you say. It is the safest course, and I find I should like it to be true.]{note=percy-spamchop}*" / "That evening neither of them could have said who had written last." / "Flinch described the door. He had not thought a door was something that wanted describing, and he did it badly. It opens when you come to it. It has a latch on the inside as well as the out. Percy wrote back about a stall in the Trade Quarter and a clerk who had waited for him specifically, and Flinch said he did not know where that was, and Percy said that was surprising, since the clerk wore the same hexagon as the book." / "*I do not know what a hexagon has to do with it,* wrote Flinch. *Master has a book with the same one on the cover. It came in the post.*" / "*[It came from a counter,]{note=percy-spamchop}* wrote Percy. *[In the Undercity. Where do you suppose yours was sold?]{note=percy-spamchop}*" / "Neither of them had a good answer. Neither knew that this was the first true thing they had told each other: that they had been given the same book by different hands, from different places, on the same sort of terms, and that nobody had said it was the same book.
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editorial change 6 (v3-c6) jump to the passage ↓
Part of the same rework of this chapter; see the first change.
was: *I do not rightly know,* wrote Flinch. *The ruled hand answers. Master reads it when he remembers. Mister Nobby has one, but he is a letter more than a person. I do not know who else. I will tell you if I find out.*
now: *I do not rightly know,* wrote Flinch. *I will tell you if I find out.*
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editorial change 7 (passage not located in the text)
Part of the same rework of this chapter; see the first change.
was: Neither knew that this was the most accurate thing that had been said all day." / "Mezzlos watched him write from his place at Percy's shoulder." / "He did not understand the ledger and had no opinion of letters. But he noticed, in the way that he noticed hunger and cold, that the man he followed wrote faster than he had in Pyrewood. He wrote more than he had in the Undercity. At the foot of one page, which was meant to be a postscript and was nearly the length of a letter, he had put down something about fish." / ""[You have said a great deal,]{say=mezzlos}" said Mezzlos, at last." / ""[I have.]{say=percy-spamchop}"" / ""[You do not usually.]{say=mezzlos}"" / ""[No,]{say=percy-spamchop}" said Percy. He looked at the page, and at the gnome's keeper's careful, leaning, blotted hand on the other side of it, and tried, for a moment, to find a reason to be sorry. He could not. "[I find I do not mind it.]{say=percy-spamchop}"" / "Mezzlos waited. It was not a thing he said out loud, but he kept a list, and he wrote this on it." / "Three hundred miles away and a very long way to the left, a dredger put down the pen, folded his hands, and thought with some care about whether he had just made a friend." / "He did not rightly know. He decided to say so, to himself, once, aloud, and then to put the kettle on.
now: Mezzlos watched him write from his place at Percy's shoulder. He did not understand the journal and had no opinion of letters. But he noticed, in the way that he noticed hunger and cold, that the man he followed wrote more than he had in the Undercity, and that at the foot of one page, which was meant to be a postscript and was nearly the length of a letter, he had put down something about fish." / ""[You have said a great deal,]{say=mezzlos}" said Mezzlos." / ""[I have.]{say=percy-spamchop}" Percy looked at the page, and at the keeper of the house's careful, leaning, blotted hand on the other side of it, and tried, for a moment, to find a reason to be sorry. "[I find I do not mind it.]{say=percy-spamchop}"" / "Mezzlos kept a list. He wrote this on it.
answers feedback G1, G3 (see the feedback behind this edit)

unlisted v3-u1 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: A page is a kind of sonar.
now: On the fourth morning Flinch wrote. It took him most of an hour and he did not enjoy any of it. Dear Mister Percy, I am Flinch. I keep the house at Plot 38, Founder's Point, which belongs to Master. I read your page, whi…

unlisted v3-u2 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: You send it out into the dark, and what comes back tells you the shape of the room it hit. Nobody on either side of the Journal had been told this, so they went at it the way people go at a new house in the night: one ha…
now: — Percy sat out the night

unlisted v3-u3 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: tavern, with the pot of something warm gone cold at his elbow and a faint certainty that he had been asleep, although the Forsaken are not meant to be.
now: tavern in Brill, as he sat out all of them, and at first light he opened the Journal for the first time since he had signed for it.

unlisted v3-u4 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: On the left-hand page, under the Arcanum's two answers,
now: Under the Arcanum's two answers

unlisted v3-u5 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: He read it once, all the way through. Then he read the second paragraph again. I read your page, which I did not mean to and am sorry for. "It has read the list," said Mezzlos. "Yes."
now: "It has read your list," said Mezzlos, who had been reading it over his shoulder.

unlisted v3-u6 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: Mezzlos considered this.

unlisted v3-u7 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: He was a private man by long habit and perhaps by something older, and the
now: The

unlisted v3-u8 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: the
now: a

unlisted v3-u9 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: But
now: And yet

unlisted v3-u10 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: enough, and he found it hard to hold against anyone who had also admitted, in the same letter, that he did not know how the page had reached him.
now: enough. What he could not make out was where the stranger had been standing to read it. The Journal was in his sleeve. It had not left him. "This is the book," he said, "doing what the poster said. It has found me a corr…

unlisted v3-u11 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: pen. He wrote slowly, in the small upright hand, and tried to leave
now: pen and wrote slowly, leaving

unlisted v3-u12 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: would ask that you read only what is addressed to you in future, and I take it from the apology that you already know this. I am Percy Spamchop. I am a Forsaken and, as you have gathered,
now: am Percy Spamchop, a Forsaken and

unlisted v3-u13 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: Of your questions: I do not know what a thread is. Of the other, you say that
now: You say

unlisted v3-u14 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: your
now: a

unlisted v3-u15 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: what manner of person he is.
now: on what terms. A man who writes that word as often as you do is either very devoted or very afraid, and the Arcanum would find either useful. If you are the book's invention, I shall know it by your next answer.

unlisted v3-u16 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: With regards,

unlisted v3-u17 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: He shut the book. He opened it, because the slip that came with it had said that was how it was done, and the left-hand page said Delivered.
now: — Flinch read it in the study, standing at the desk, and it was a good while before he knew where to put his hands.

unlisted v3-u18 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: He had not expected to be pleased by that, and was not. He noted it. — Flinch did not sleep much that week, so he saw it arrive. It came while he was drying the breakfast things, a small cool pressure at the back of th…
now: If you are the book's invention. He had not thought of that. He had thought of a great many things, in the cellar, with the kettle, and not of that. He read the line about the word, and felt it as a small cold fact: a st…

unlisted v3-u19 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: sorry. I should have said it the first time. Master is a gnome. He is a warlock and a gnome, and I did not put the second part first because I was not sure it was the sort of thing one said first, and then it was too lat…
now: not the book's invention. I do not know how to prove it. The book is polite and does not say things I would not say, and I cannot see how to tell from outside which of us is which. I am not afraid of Master.

unlisted v3-u20 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: I do not rightly know if you are cross. I would not blame you. I saw in your list that you have a dislike of gnomes.
now: The post goes in a toast rack, and it stays there until the rack is full.

unlisted v3-u21 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
now: for a while

unlisted v3-u22 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: page for a time. Then he added a postscript, because it seemed the right thing and because he had not been told it was forbidden. P.S. I have a kettle. I said that before. I will say it again in case it was lost. Percy r…
now: page, in case there was something else he ought to have said, and could not think what. — In Brill the reply came back in the afternoon. A toast rack for post, he wrote. That is a very advanced form of procrastination….

unlisted v3-u23 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: "It is a gnome,"
now: "You are not writing,"

unlisted v3-u24 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: "Yes." "You do not like gnomes." "I have a recent dislike of gnomes, which I have been enjoying." "Do you wish to write that?" "I have written it. It is how he knows."
now: "I am deciding whether I am being worked on." "By whom?" "By a keeper of a house who apologises before he is asked." He picked the pen up again. "It seems an inefficient way to work on a person."

unlisted v3-u25 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: was silent
now: considered this

unlisted v3-u26 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: "He apologised again." "He did." "He told you before you asked twice."
now: "Things that want something do not apologise," he said at last. "They explain."

unlisted v3-u27 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: sat back. The fire had burned low and nobody had mended it. He thought, with some precision, about the sentence I am sorry. I should have said it the first time, and about the man, or whatever he was, who had set it down…
now: wrote: I will assume you are what you say. It is the safest course, and I find I should like it to be true. — That evening neither of them could have said who had written last.

unlisted v3-u28 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: Nobody comes in who is not asked, except Master's post, which comes through the slot and goes in a toast rack. Percy asked what a toast rack was for. Flinch told him, and added what it was really for, which was to keep t…
now: Percy wrote back about a stall in the Trade Quarter and a clerk who had waited for him specifically, and Flinch said he did not know where that was, and Percy said that was surprising, since the clerk wore the same hexag…

unlisted v3-u29 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: Neither knew that this was the most accurate thing that had been said all day. —

unlisted v3-u30 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.

unlisted v3-u31 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: ledger
now: journal

unlisted v3-u32 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: faster than he had in Pyrewood. He wrote

unlisted v3-u33 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: Undercity. At
now: Undercity, and that at

unlisted v3-u34 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: Mezzlos, at last.
now: Mezzlos.

unlisted v3-u35 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: "You do not usually." "No," said Percy. He
now: Percy

unlisted v3-u36 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: gnome's keeper's
now: keeper of the house's

unlisted v3-u37 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: He could not.

unlisted v3-u38 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: waited. It was not a thing he said out loud, but he kept a list, and he
now: kept a list. He

unlisted v3-u39 jump to the passage ↓
Rationale unrecorded.
was: — Three hundred miles away and a very long way to the left, a dredger put down the pen, folded his hands, and thought with some care about whether he had just made a friend. He did not rightly know. He decided to say s…

Feedback record 2026-10-17 12:59, given 2026-10-17 12:33. The words are as given.

Plan of change written: 2026-10-17 (accepted 2026-10-17 12:59)

New version published: 2026-10-17 13:03

After-edit summary accepted 2026-10-17 13:04

Prompted by: feedback record of 2026-10-17 and Project 1's brief for Welcome to the Machine (as written in the plan)

Objective met: yes

Suggestions for a future edit:

• Percy says "I will assume you are what you say" and later "I shall assume everyone". They are different assumptions, but a reader may hear the repeat. One of them could be varied in a later pass.

Reflection, written afterwards:

Chapter VI is 8,311 bytes against 9,564. The first correspondence now confuses both of them on purpose: each suspects the book of inventing the other, and Percy wrongly decides Flinch must dislike his Master. The counting of reads, the "three hundred miles" line, and the Faction postscript are gone. Percy still tells Flinch he has no door in the old version; here that is held back for later chapters.