I opened the email and the tone punched first, not the words—confident, cinnamon-sweet PR wrapped around iron. The subject line wore a smile: Brand Safety—Immediate, and the body crisped my throat like over-toasted sugar.
We value Lyla’s community and seek alignment. Recent insinuations have adversely affected conversion. Please refrain from statements that could be interpreted as defamatory. As per partnership provisions, crisis arcs shall be confined to approved deliverables. Failure to comply may result in legal action and clawbacks.
“Crisis arcs,” I said out loud, tasting the phrase. It had the sour aftertaste of someone who bills by the hour. I highlighted the words with a hot yellow smear and felt the ring light’s ozone prickle against my cheeks. Down on River Street, the cliff-backed harbor washed fog into neon smears; a bus sighed; the QR mural across the way blinked to night mode. The city was ready to make a scene for anyone who could turn it into sales.
I hit reply, then didn’t. I forwarded instead, attaching screenshots of the tablet’s device profile and the ring-light adhesive close-up.
To: Detective Sloane Vega
Subject: “Crisis arcs” + Riverlane receipts
Body: Brand counsel invoked “crisis arcs”—contractual language. See attached. Tablet still ticking. Camera LED awake. Request expedited warrant on Riverlane Holdings and related vendor agreements. If they control the arc, they’ll muzzle comms.
I pressed send, the whoosh small and decisive. The red LED on the wall camera stayed steady, patient. The countdown tablet in the cabinet ticked, indifferent: 70:01:32.
My phone vibrated. Nessa: How sharp are the teeth?
Me: They used “crisis arcs.” Threatened clawbacks.
Nessa: Gross. I’m pulling old contracts. Give me five.
I poured the cold tea into the sink; the ceramic pinged, the sound thin in the curated quiet. A whisp of steam rose and vanished into lemon cleanser. I could still taste bakery honey at the back of my tongue, stubborn and comforting. I turned the ring light down two notches; the room softened, losing some of that surgical brightness. The honeycomb shelves threw gentler shadows, a hive dimming toward evening.
Micro-hook: If contracts define crisis, then whoever writes the clauses writes the truth.
Sloane called before Nessa returned. “I got your forward,” she said. Paper rustled. “I’m building a narrow warrant: device management records from Riverlane, correspondence limited to the countdown asset, and any contract language containing ‘crisis arcs.’”
“Aim at ‘controversy uplift,’ too,” I said. “They’ll euphemize the harm.”
“Already in my synonyms list,” she said. “Don’t respond to the brand directly. Let me be the bad cop.”
“I don’t mind being bad,” I said, then unclenched my jaw. “I mind being bait.”
“Then let me take the hook,” she said. “Also, stop thinking about that camera LED. If they’re watching, they already know you’re in the room.”
“If they’re watching, I want them to see restraint,” I said. “And receipts.”
“Then keep collecting,” she said, and hung up with the decisiveness I rely on when the city tries to write over me.
The loft tasted like iron again when the laptop pinged—Shared with you: Past Partnerships (Redacted). Nessa’s face appeared in a small call window, just a static avatar of a bee with a knitted scarf.
“You ready?” she asked.
“Always,” I said.
She screen-shared a folder. Contract PDFs slid into view: blocky black redactions, margins full of corporate preening. “These came from a leak last year,” she said. “I archived copies for research. Cross-brand, cross-creator. Look here—Exhibit D: ‘Contingency Content.’”
She zoomed. The language tightened my neck. In the event of reputational headwinds, the Talent agrees to deploy contingency content assets designed to stabilize sentiment and protect conversion. Parties acknowledge that controversy spikes may increase engagement and authorize coordinated timing of apology arcs, reconciliation arcs, or limited crisis arcs.
“They wrote the storyline into the contract,” I said. “They planned the spike.”
“And priced it,” Nessa added, dragging to a rate card. Crisis Arc Bonus: +15% of net affiliate revenue during crisis period (72 hours). She sighed. “They gamified fear.”
“What’s the date?” I asked.
“Rolling,” she said. “Two years of versions. See this clause? ‘Community activation events may include countdown experiences or ‘participatory rescue’ activations.’ That’s new in the last three contracts.”
“Participatory rescue,” I repeated, and felt bile lift. “They’re training a crowd to do labor.”
Nessa’s cursor circled a line tagged Brand Safety Messaging. Talent and Brand reps will coordinate safety-first language to minimize liability while maximizing audience trust. She snorted. “Safety-scented gasoline.”
“They’ll try to feed us statements that taste like care and burn like kerosene,” I said. “We won’t drink.”
“We’ll boil,” she said, then caught herself. “Bad metaphor.”
“We’ll redirect,” I said. “Link to real resources, shut down calls for raids, refuse commerce disguised as concern.”
The room hummed. The ring light breathed. We worked in quiet for a minute—me tagging screenshots with time, Nessa annotating clauses with pastel highlights that looked too gentle for their content. I rubbed the edge of the zip-bagged lav mic with my thumb, the plastic squeaking. The honeycomb rug under my shoes scratched a faint pattern into my soles.
“I’ve got one more,” Nessa said, voice shifting from academic to alert. “A contract with a different brand—redactions suggest the same agency. It references a ‘handler studio’ by function if not by name: Narrative architect to coordinate danger-adjacent arcs.” She looked up, figuratively. “You said ‘handler’ earlier.”
“Working hypothesis,” I said. “The countdown device belonged to Riverlane Holdings. Shells hide shells. Someone pulled this arc tight and built in revenue.”
My phone shivered against the counter. A notification crawled up my lock screen: @Care4LylaNow — Keep her safe: Boycott @CleanNest competitor tonight. Code HIVELOVE. 69:00:00 we choose care. A heart emoji, a bee, a link.
“Hold,” I said. “A burner just went live.”
“Reading,” Nessa said. I forwarded the post. She clicked. “Brand-new account. Less than ten followers ten minutes ago. Now it’s five hundred and rising. They’re timing it to the clock.”
The tablet in the cabinet rolled down to 69:14:23. I tasted copper again. The burner had my sister’s bee emoji in its bio, a soft theft that works.
“We’re not choosing care,” I said. “We’re choosing checkout.”
Nessa hammered keys. “The link uses five redirects,” she said. “Final destination… affiliate page for the brand sending you that email. Not the competitor. The copy says ‘boycott,’ but the cart puts money in the sponsor’s pocket, not their rival’s.”
“Commerce in concern’s clothing,” I said. “Of course.”
“I’m drafting a callout,” she said. “Short, receipts-forward. No moralizing.”
“Pin it under the rules,” I said. “Headline: Boycott Link Is a Funnel. Include screenshots. Add: do not harass anyone who shared it. People get tricked.”
“On it,” she said. “Do you want to address the timer?”
“Yes,” I said. “At 69:00:00 they’ll launch a coordinated push. We need to blunt it.”
“Then we need a counter at 69:05:00,” she said. “Five minutes later, after the initial spike. We post an educational thread: How to spot a burner + checklist to report. We attach your anonymized timestamps and one redacted clause about controversy spikes.”
“Add a line about no calls to the bakery,” I said, a sour warmth climbing my neck as I pictured my mother answering with her gentle voice. “They’ll try to ‘check on us.’”
“Already in the banner,” she said. “I’ll bold it again.”
Micro-hook: If I could keep the hive from spending, I could keep the handler from winning.
Sloane texted: Warrant request submitted. Need the burner handle as an example of commerce masquerade.
Me: @Care4LylaNow. Timed to 69:00:00. Links to sponsor via redirects while urging ‘boycott.’ Screenshots in our drive.
Sloane: Good. Don’t amplify it. Let mods suffocate it. I’ll preserve on my end.
Nessa pinged me a draft. PSA: That “boycott” link routes to a sponsor checkout. Here are the receipts. The thread included three images: the redirects, the affiliate code HIVELOVE mapped to a corporate partner, and a calendar overlay with the countdown. She added, Don’t dogpile people who shared it. Report the account, block, breathe. We care by not being used.
“Post,” I said.
“Posting,” she said. “Slow mode on comments.”
I felt the building vibrate—footsteps down the hall, a neighbor dragging a suitcase, city weight shifting on its bones. The harbor sent a salt draft through the cracked window. My mouth watered; salted caramel carried from the pier; it smelled like a childhood reward.
“What did the brand ask you to do?” Nessa asked, softer.
“Stop implying they profit from panic,” I said. “They asked me to be careful with my words. They cited ‘brand safety.’ They reminded me that crisis arcs should be confined to approved deliverables.”
“Approved by whom?” she asked.
“Whoever holds the pen,” I said. “Not us.”
“Then we write our own deliverables,” she said. “We deliver boundaries.”
“And receipts,” I said. “Always receipts.”
The ring light hummed back up from its rest state; the camera LED never blinked. I imagined someone across town drinking expensive mineral water in a sterile office, watching me on a wall of screens, betting on which minute to drop the next prompt. The thought sharpened more than it scared me.
“I found another clause,” Nessa said, breaking the silence. “Talent will coordinate ‘voluntary silence windows’ during timed reveals to heighten audience participation. That’s their way of saying: we’ll keep you worried long enough to buy something.”
“And long enough to harass,” I said. “We won’t give them a window.”
The clock ticked: 69:01:10.
“Hey,” Nessa said, voice a little breathless. “The burner’s stealing comments from our forum to look ‘grassroots.’ I see my own phrasing in their replies.”
“Copy-pasters,” I said. “They’re laundering tone.”
“Do I do the nuclear option?” she asked. “Shut down new threads for fifteen minutes?”
“Do it,” I said. “Pin a calm note. Tell them to breathe. Tell them to drink water.”
“On it,” she said. “And… I’m sending you one more doc. It’s a redacted SOW from a boutique studio—no name, but they call themselves ‘narrative architects.’ It mentions ‘participatory rescue’ and ‘handler oversight.’”
The file landed in our drive with a soft chime. I opened it. The formatting was too neat. The bullets had a smugness. We build arcs that transform community care into measurable uplift. There it was: prayer turned into profit.
The clock rolled: 69:00:30. The phone trembled again—push alerts from reactor channels going live, thumbnails full of alarm faces with red arrows and circles.
“Mods are holding,” Nessa said. I could hear keys and the scratch of her pen on a legal pad, analog against digital. “Caretakers are reposting the water reminder. Sleuths are mad at slow mode but staying. Rage Donors are asking where to put money. I’m pointing them toward food banks.”
“Good,” I said. “If they have to buy, let them buy groceries for someone who needs dinner.”
The loft smelled sweeter now, less metal, more spice. The honeycomb rug under my feet felt grippier, as if the pattern itself wanted to hold me in place. I closed the email tab and opened a blank reply to the brand, not to send but to practice.
We do not confine care to deliverables. We do not license harm. We won’t be your crisis product.
I deleted the draft. Sloane could keep the legal words tidy; mine needed to stay sharp for the hive.
The tablet hit 69:00:00 and chirped, a single clinical note. The burner posted on cue: We stand together. Boycott now. The heart and bee emojis tried to domesticate the move; the link did the opposite.
“Counter’s up,” Nessa said. “Our PSA is pin one. We’re holding engagement without feeding it.”
“Good,” I said, tasting relief like cool air. “What about the contracts?”
“I’m threading the redacted clauses into an education post,” she said. “No brands named, no creators fingered. Just: ‘Here is how companies anticipate and profit from controversy spikes.’ We include the line about ‘participatory rescue.’ We teach the hive to recognize the shape.”
“Teach them to name it,” I said. “If they can name it, they can refuse it.”
“You know what else is in here?” she asked, voice tightening. “A clause about ‘handler discretion to trigger countdown assets when Talent is non-compliant.’”
My grip on the counter hardened until marble answered bone. “They wrote punishment into the script.”
“In neutral language,” she said. “It reads like policy.”
The red LED stayed on. The camera kept me in its small circle.
Sloane pinged: Warrant likely within the hour. Keep all communications; don’t reply to brand. If another burner spins up, send handles.
Me: Copy. Contracts confirm controversy spikes are anticipated and priced. Nessa has redacted versions catalogued. Also: burner timed to countdown, routes to sponsor via affiliate code HIVELOVE.
Sloane: Received. Hold your line.
I looked at the crooked neon above the plant wall. Lyla would see it and fuss until it lay true. She wasn’t here to fuss. I was.
“We’re holding,” Nessa said, reading a room she couldn’t see. “Do you want me to publish an open statement about boundaries? We can include a line: ‘This community refuses to be a sales funnel for fear.’”
“Yes,” I said. “Make the font boring.”
She laughed, brief and warm. “You are a menace.”
“To templates,” I said.
The phone buzzed one more time. A new email nested under the brand note, same domain, different tone. Subject: Quick chat? The preview line: We think you’d be ideal to consult on ethical arcs.
Ethical arcs. My teeth met. The handler’s fingerprints smudged the whole page, invisible unless you knew what oil felt like.
I didn’t open it. I stared at the subject until the letters lost meaning, then looked back at the tablet clock eating seconds, and the red LED that refused to blink, and the honeycomb shadows crawling up the wall like a grid I could either live inside or break.
The city outside took another breath of fog and neon and waited to sell whatever came next. I closed my eyes for one slow inhale of tea, lemon, and the ghost of bakery sugar, then opened them to the email waiting for my answer and the quiet decision thrumming in my hands: who gets to script care.