The countdown split cleanly at twenty-four hours, the font fat and cheerful like a bake sale banner. The page refreshed and a new tile slid into place: Live Rescue Finale. A swell of nausea met the sweetness of the word rescue on my tongue, like licking icing off a sales pitch. He wanted the last day to taste like sugar, not sweat.
I stood in the forensics unit, palms pressed to a stainless table gone slick with condensation from my coffee. The bunker hummed—server racks breathing, fluorescent tubes ticking. Someone reheated leftover lo mein, and sesame oil sharpened the air. In the high slit windows, fog from the cliff-backed harbor turned daylight to pewter. I caught the faint ghost-click of phantom notifications in the room, the sound people make when they expect their phones to bless them.
“It’s a trap for us,” I said, nodding at the promo. “He needs a uniform in frame to sell martyrdom. Police as antagonists equals comments, comments equal conversion.”
Sloane rubbed a thumb against the ridge of her badge clip without touching the metal. “Command thinks any on-camera action invites claims of contamination,” she said. “Chain-of-custody, prejudicial pretrial coverage, the works.”
“Command plans to be invisible while a man rehearses coercion into a virtue,” I said. I dropped my voice. “He’ll choreograph failure. He has a storyboard called ‘When Cops Don’t Care.’”
She didn’t flinch, but her jaw tightened. “Optics matter.”
“Then shape them lawfully,” I said. “No black vests. No door rams. A warrant, read evenly. A mic with levels in the green. Cameras wide, not hungry. You hand him boring and see if he can eat it.”
She blew out a breath. “I’m not authorized to hand networks a ride-along.”
“I’m not asking for a ride-along,” I said. “I’m asking for a counter-spectacle that obeys the code book. Transparent, recorded, public interest. If he wants to frame the state as sadistic, you offer the state as procedural.”
She looked past me to the screens, where a honeycomb tile drifted behind the timer—site design mimicking a kitchen shelf. “He’ll provoke,” she said.
“We don’t react,” I said. “We read.”
She tapped a stylus on the table, three neat ticks like a metronome. “Let me take this upstairs.”
Scene Beat 1 — Sloane debates optics with command.
Sloane slid into a glass cube to my left and dialed command. Through the pane, I caught fragments, muffled by the HVAC’s dry rush—controlled access… public interest… narrow scope… de-escalation language… chain-of-custody video. She ran the points without showmanship, each sentence squared on the table. I watched her posture lift a degree at a time, shoulders aligning like a builder’s level finding center.
I paced to keep my muscles from calcifying. The bunker’s stale coffee smell lifted when someone cracked the door to the hallway; outside, the faintest draft of the bay brought salt and a whiff of caramel steam from the pier carts rolling in. The city was waking into neon from last night; mornings here were gauzy, evenings a theater marquee. Pop-up retail turned pavement into stage, QR murals updating weekly like weather. Don’t make a scene—unless it pays.
Sloane stepped out ten minutes later with a face set to neutral. “Command’s split,” she said. “City Attorney is spooked by anything that looks like performance. Chief wants control of the narrative but not at the expense of safety.”
“That’s our wedge,” I said. “Narrative control through safety. We publish the language before he does. We say exactly what we’ll do, what we won’t, and why.”
She handed me a printout. “Draft it,” she said. “Plain words. No heroics.”
“I only do boring,” I said, and my voice came out steadier than my pulse.
I texted Nessa: He labeled the finale ‘Live Rescue.’ He wants cops as villains. Can you build an info shield? Calm captions, de-escalation prompts, ground rules, verified resources. Make it shareable.
She responded before the ellipses faded: Already sketching. Give me the language you’ll commit to and the warrants you can cite. A second bubble: Also, hex your receipts. People remember shapes.
I grinned despite the salt prickle under my eyes. “Hex it,” I murmured to the room. “Boring in a honeycomb.”
Sloane arched a brow. “You’re developing a brand voice.”
“I’m developing a prophylactic,” I said. “For contagion of panic.”
She didn’t argue.
I pulled a legal pad and wrote the bones of the plan like a recipe card:
- Announce scope: This is a warrant service for records and equipment, not a raid. No forced entry unless safety demands.
- Name roles: Who speaks, who observes, who documents.
- De-escalation: Language to use; language to avoid. (No rescue, no threat, no heroes.)
- Accessibility: Captions. Plain-English version for viewers.
- Boundaries: No monetization links during the stream; no donation prompts; recording preserved for evidence and public record.
I slid the pad to Sloane. She read and scratched a line through “public record,” replaced it with “disclosable per law.” The stylus tap returned—tick, tick, tick.
“We need a location,” she said.
“We make a location irrelevant,” I said. “We publish a process that can travel. Apply it to studio, warehouse, farmhouse annex. When he moves the stage, the script stays.”
She considered, then nodded, slow.
Anxiety gnawed at the corners of my mouth, a chemical taste like over-whipped cream starting to turn. I breathed against it. Clarity arrived the way fog lifts—one streetlight at a time. He wants the police as antagonists; we make the police narrators of procedure. He wants chaos; we bring captions.
Micro-hook: If we could publish our script before he dropped his, the audience might choose the less delicious thing and be satisfied anyway.
I moved to the whiteboard and drew a honeycomb grid with dry-erase lines, each cell a step: Approach, Knock, Announce, Read, Confirm, Collect, Log, Exit. I wrote one sentence inside each, verbs crisp and boring. The ozone tingle from a dormant ring light in the corner teased my skin; I ignored it.
Sloane’s phone buzzed. She answered with her last name. “Understood,” she said. “We’ll produce a draft for Legal within the hour. No uniforms on camera unless necessary. Body-cams recorded, angles wide.”
She hung up and met my eyes. “We have a grudging okay.”
“Then we need Nessa,” I said. “The stream will chew captions faster than we can spit them.”
Scene Beat 2 — Nessa prepares an info shield for fans.
Nessa arrived with a backpack that had been everywhere with her—pale denim, one strap repaired with honeycomb stitching. She smelled like mint gum and printer ink. She set up at the end of the table, opening a laptop pockmarked with stickers: Community ≠ Commodity, Drink Water, a tiny pixel jar labeled HIVE.
“I brought three templates,” she said, fingers already flitting across keys. “A black-on-white accessibility sheet, a pastel version for fans who refuse to share anything that looks ‘official,’ and a high-contrast card for mobile viewers in bright sun.”
“Captions?” I asked.
“Pre-baked,” she said. “Non-escalatory. ‘We’re here to read a warrant.’ ‘Please give space.’ ‘No one needs to perform.’” She glanced up. “I’m adding a counter-monetization banner: ‘If a platform overlays donation prompts, mute and watch later. Receipts > tips.’”
Sloane leaned in. “We won’t solicit anything,” she said. “Not even good deeds.”
“I know,” Nessa said. “I’m plugging the hole he’ll try to punch.” She pulled up a hex grid and started dropping short lines into cells. Approach calmly. Microphones on, egos off. Wide angles protect everyone.
I felt a shoulder uncoil. “Can you include a ‘don’t call’ card?” I said. “Fans flood the non-emergency line when their hearts have nowhere to go.”
“Already queued,” she said, and flashed me a tile: Don’t call dispatch for updates. Call your breath. I snorted; she grinned. “Okay, I’ll swap the woo for neutral. But the message stays.”
Her screen pinged; the countdown site’s promo had updated to a teaser: Watch the State Decide. He’d written it for me. Under it, a QR shifted through palettes—the ozone sheen of ring lights, the linen white of Lyla’s brand, the honey gold he’d stolen from our jar.
“There it is,” I said. “He’s made you the antagonist,” I told Sloane. “He’ll cut between your voice and his ‘care’ voice, then splice fan tears over your read.”
Sloane didn’t blink. “Then I read cleaner than he cuts,” she said. “I need lines.”
I handed her a half sheet I’d scribbled as the site refreshed. “Try these.”
She read aloud, precise: “We’re here to execute a court-approved warrant. We will speak in complete sentences. No one is required to perform for this process. Please step back to allow a safe path. We will name every action as we take it.”
Nessa gave a small, involuntary sigh. “I could pipe that into a thousand living rooms,” she said. “It lowers blood pressure through a screen.”
“Make it a card,” I said. “Put a honeycomb faint in the background. People remember shapes with words inside them.”
Anxiety thudded again, then softened into something workable. Clarity had brought a checklist; the checklist brought breath. We typed for another twenty minutes, building the shield: a landing page of verified resources, a rolling caption deck, a short explainer video with broad captions and no music. Nessa added a slim progress bar to our own stream mock-up—a steady band of teal that didn’t spike, didn’t pulse, just moved.
“Fans chase spikes,” she said. “Flat lines can teach a different rhythm.”
“Teach me one too,” I said, and she nudged my elbow until I unclenched my jaw.
Sloane’s cube rang again. She closed the door, argued and agreed in frictionless alternation, then returned. “Legal wants the script to say ‘reading from’ when I cite clauses,” she said. “They don’t want the impression I’m giving a speech.”
“We’re not giving speeches,” I said. “We’re giving receipts.”
“Receipts don’t inflame juries,” she said. “Speeches might.”
I nodded and adjusted the language: reading from Section X instead of under Section X. One swap, miles of meaning.
Scene Beat 3 — I script a clean, non-sensational plan.
I opened a new document and titled it WARRANT SERVICE — PUBLIC TRANSPARENCY PROTOCOL. The letters looked heavier than they were. I started with a preamble no PR person could love: We will not monetize this action. We will not invite audience participation. We will not create cliffhangers. We will read, record, and leave.
Then the steps:
- Approach: “We are approaching the door at [time]. Body-cams are recording. This feed is recorded for evidentiary transparency.”
- Knock and Announce: “We are knocking now. We are announcing our presence and purpose.”
- Read: “We are reading from the warrant. We are stating scope and limits.”
- Confirm Understanding: “We will answer process questions. We will not negotiate scope on-stream.”
- Collect: “We are collecting only items named. We are logging them aloud.”
- Close: “We are concluding and exiting. A copy of the warrant remains on site. Questions about property return go to [unit email].”
I cut anything performative. No adjectives. No metaphors. No applause lines. The document looked like a kitchen safety sheet, which comforted me—the way a posted hand-washing sign comforts anyone who’s eaten street food.
Nessa hovered at my shoulder. “I can’t believe I’m building a fandom landing page for a warrant,” she said, not quite laughing.
“I can,” I said. “We needed a culture of boring a year ago.”
“We needed a culture of boring when ring lights became prayer candles,” she said. “But here we are.”
I added a final section—CITIZEN GUIDE—with three lines: Do not swarm. Do not fund. Do not narrate over the people whose lives are in the frame.
Sloane placed her palm on the page, not to stop me, but to weigh the words down. “We can do this,” she said quietly. “But it might still break.”
“Everything breaks,” I said. “We can choose where.”
We synced the plan to her unit’s drive, then to Nessa’s shield site. The honeycomb tiles slid into place with short, square sentences that would survive a thousand screenshots. I sent the reporter a heads-up: Lawful transparency protocol drafted. You’ll get it on record after Legal stamps. We will not provide location until necessary.
The room stilled for a beat. The whir of the server fans rose like tide. I could taste the copper of adrenaline on the back of my tongue. Anxiety returned and tried the door; clarity kept it closed. Determined calm took the chair.
“Say it,” Sloane said, as if she could hear the shape of my thoughts.
“He plans to use police as antagonists for engagement,” I said. “We plan to deny him antagonists. We give him process. We give him captions. We give him nothing he can inflate without looking like he’s squeezing air.”
She nodded once. “I’ll brief the team.”
Nessa refreshed the countdown site, then slapped a palm on the desk. “New teaser,” she said. “Listen.”
The audio auto-played: a soft chime, then a voice pitched to sound like concern. “When authorities arrive, remember: we heal by participating.” The line shivered across my skin. He’d taken the phrase from his deck and fed it to the crowd like communion.
I closed my eyes, vision going black in a kind of relief. “So he will stage law enforcement failure,” I said. “That’s our confirmation.”
“And our cue,” Sloane said.
I reopened my eyes and put my finger on the word Approach in the honeycomb. “Then we approach,” I said. “We read. We exit.”
Nessa slid a clay jar toward me—the one she’d found at a flea market and etched with a crude hive. Coins lay inside, quiet. “For the fine you’ll owe if you grandstand,” she said.
I tipped a dollar in. The clink snapped the moment into place.
“One more thing,” I said. “We need a sentence just for Lyla.”
I wrote it under Confirm Understanding, where he couldn’t cut it to look like a stunt: We are here for records and safety. We will use first names to reduce heat. Lyla, I’m here. You don’t owe anyone a performance.
Nessa typed, then read it back to me, voice low, the way you speak in a kitchen when someone is sleeping. Sloane nodded, once, like a bow.
The countdown ticked down to 23:41:32. The bunker’s air went colder. Outside, beyond the bunker, the fog tugged the neon down to a smear. The city recalibrated to its social contract: don’t make a scene—unless it’s profitable. We were breaking the contract on purpose.
I sent the protocol to Legal. I sent the shield to our mod team. I sent a single text to the prepaid phone I kept on me like a talisman: HIVE JAR rules apply. Boring on purpose. Watch the aprons for mirrors.
No reply came, of course. The phone gave me its ghost-click anyway, a phantom I’d learned to ignore.
“Ready?” Sloane asked.
“Ready,” I said. My voice didn’t wobble.
We stood in the hum and watched the timer chew seconds like a metronome for a song we refused to sing. The finale’s location remained a blank square in my head. I didn’t ask the last question out loud, because I didn’t want to hear it echo in the racks: when he drops the pin, will our boring prove strong enough to hold, or will the crowd run to the more delicious story and trample the truth again?