The challenge is filed in November.
Not by the 2011 cohort student directly. Through a law firm in New York that has enough distance from the Benjamin Hale connection to be technically clean. The filing is narrow, procedural, and precisely targeted at the subsection 7 question — exactly as Hope predicted from the infrastructure she found in the tertiary registry.
Chen sends a three-word text when it arrives.
As she said.
Aria shows it to Damien at the kitchen table.
He reads it. Sets the phone down.
"The amicus brief is already filed," he says.
"Already filed," Aria confirms.
"The Meridian standard is already in the record," he says.
"In the record since October," she says.
He looks at the table. The November morning. The Montana dark that comes early now, the season doing its decisive thing.
"How long does the process take?" he says.
