The forensics unit lived under the city like a careful secret—windowless hallway, humming racks, coffee that tasted like the inside of a server. The ring lights in my memory still prickled my cheeks, but down here the air smelled like dusted plastic and old pencils. I checked the clock on my phone—70:22:08—and followed Sloane toward a glass-walled conference room where a captain in shirtsleeves waited with his arms crossed.
“Keep it narrow,” Sloane murmured, smoothing a single sheet on her clipboard. “We ask for the tablet’s device management records, the shell LLC’s vendor contracts limited to the countdown asset, and communications with whoever administered the profile.”
“I’ll try not to twitch,” I said.
She gave me a side look that read as both rule and reassurance. “You’re not in the room.”
“I’ll be outside the glass,” I said. “Like a fish with opinions.”
She pushed the door open. The captain didn’t stand. I stayed in the corridor, within sightline but out of hearing, and watched the strange ballet of public safety under fluorescence. Through the glass, Sloane spoke with steady hands. The captain’s fingers drummed a slow hunger on the table.
A tech wheeled past me with a tray of labeled devices and a donut that breathed stale sugar as it crossed. Somewhere deeper in the unit, a printer coughed. My mouth held onto the taste of bakery honey from earlier, a small mercy against the metallic tang of recycled air.
The captain gestured at the clock on his own phone and then at the ceiling as though the city’s roof were an audience we had to please. Sloane didn’t flinch. I read his lips on a single word through the glass: optics. He said it twice. My jaw tightened.
Micro-hook: If the system cared more about optics than oxygen, I’d have to become air.
I pulled my notebook and drafted a memo while they parried. RISK MEMO (Plain Language) sat at the top in block letters. I outlined four bullets:
- Conversion Funnel: Countdown as commerce engine; delay increases affiliate revenue and entrenches false narratives.
- Safety Pressure: Fan base self-organizes; without guardrails, tips become harassment.
- Evidence Window: Digital assets can be scrubbed or reassigned within hours; vendor logs are volatile.
- Narrative Control: “Crisis arcs” language points to premeditated controversy spikes; warrant must precede PR spin.
I wrote fast, spine straight against the cinderblock, the pen skating. I added two exhibits: a redacted clause from Nessa’s archive and the burner “boycott” funnel map. I stapled it, bent to slide the packet under the door, and caught Sloane’s eye. She didn’t say no. The captain glanced down when the papers appeared like a tide at his shoes.
From the hall, I couldn’t hear their words, but I could read their bodies. The captain’s chin tipped back in that small dismissive arc of men who sign forms; Sloane’s shoulders widened to occupy authority that wasn’t offered. She tapped one line with her pen; he stopped drumming.
My phone buzzed. Nessa: Something’s off. TikTok surge. Same audio bed across hundreds of “Where is she?”s. She sent three links and a fingerprint of a waveform, little mountains repeating every five seconds.
Me: Farmed?
Nessa: Likely. The audio belongs to a “creator studio” that pumps out slots for rent. I’m hearing the same pad underneath panic videos—chime → hush → low boom. It’s designed to spike watch-time. The account hosting the sound is part of a network tied to a Delaware umbrella—guess who owns two subsidiaries?
Me: Riverlane Holdings.
Nessa: Bingo.
I looked through the glass at the captain and lifted my phone to catch Sloane’s attention. She didn’t turn, but she raised a finger—wait. I swallowed impatience and stared at the honeycomb pattern of the privacy film half-frosted on the lower glass. Hexes everywhere: shelves, tiles, rugs, now bureaucracy.
The door opened with controlled air. The captain brushed past me without a word, the memo in his hand folded once as if it might bite. Sloane lingered.
“Scope stands,” she said quietly. “He’ll approve the narrow version. Device management logs, vendor records for the countdown asset, and correspondence with the LLC. He wants clean lanes. No fishing.”
“Fishing would find the sharks,” I said, and rode my tongue until the heat cooled. “Thank you.”
“I made the case on volatility,” she said. “He hates losing evidence more than he hates being wrong.”
“I’ve got fresh bait,” I said, lifting my phone. “Nessa traced a surge of ‘Where is she?’ TikToks to the same audio bed from a creator farm. The account that hosts the sound belongs to a network under a Delaware umbrella with ties to Riverlane.”
Sloane’s eyes sharpened. “Send me the links. We can cite coordinated amplification in our affidavit addendum.”
“You can use ‘narrative management network’ without getting laughed out of the room?” I asked.
“Not if I say it like that,” she said. “If I say ‘associated marketing vendors,’ I survive.”
“Say what gets you the paper,” I said, and inhaled, realizing I’d been breathing like I was waiting for my cue. “Parallel path?”
“Parallel path,” she said. “I’ll pursue the subpoenas. You map the pattern—cleanly. No ambushes. If you step on my chain of custody, I lose evidence. If I wait for every form, we lose time.”
“Deal,” I said. “We’ll move like braided rivers.”
The unit director called Sloane’s name from down the hall; she lifted a hand in acknowledgment. “Your memo helped,” she said, quieter. “Not because he likes being told what risk is, but because he likes being the one who prevents it.”
“I’ll embroider it on a pillow,” I said. “He can pin it under ‘optics.’”
She almost smiled. “Go. Keep your hands out of the server jar. I’ll ping when the judge signs.”
On my way out, the hallway widened toward a break room with a narrow slit of high window that admitted a square of fog the color of skim milk. The city was exhaling into evening; neon would start licking the edges of buildings soon. The digital world ate hours; the analog one kept score with light.
Micro-hook: If the farm owned the sound, it could own the mood; if it owned the mood, it could sell the rescue.
Outside, the harbor wind knifed salt into my nose. Tide Market’s row of shipping-container shops flashed open, lids lifted, LEDs coiling to life. A new QR mural shone on the pier wall—this week’s palette in sherbet tones. The city’s rule applied: don’t make a scene unless it’s profitable. Tonight, I needed two scenes—the one that calmed, and the one that compelled action in a judge.
I ducked into a corner café with quiet tables and a view of the cliff where fog poured like slow glass. The espresso machine hissed; orange peel burned under someone’s torch; the place smelled like citrus and sweet milk, not like panic. I set up my laptop and called Nessa.
“You seeing this?” she said before hello. Her screen-share popped open: a grid of videos, all the same caption variants—where is she, say something, we care—laid over the same dreamy bell-hush-boom audio.
“Sloane needs a clean packet,” I said. “How do we show this isn’t organic without looking like conspiracy theorists?”
“Frequency and timing,” Nessa said, voice quick. “The audio’s original upload date is three days ago. The surge started eight minutes after the countdown went live, then jumped again at 70:45:00. The studio that posted it lists ‘commercial usage by license’ on their site with a portfolio of ‘concern arcs.’ The contact email bounces to a helpdesk at a company that shares a registered agent with Riverlane.”
“You pulled records?” I asked.
“Public filings,” she said. “Secret is just a setting on a folder.”
“Good,” I said. “Give me a short brief: three bullets, one chart.”
“On it,” she said. “Also, remember the factions? The Caretakers are knit-posting with the audio, the Sleuths are overlaying maps, and the Rage Donors are dueting with call-to-buy links. The audio bed stitches them together like a marching drum.”
“Drumlines move crowds,” I said. “Crowds move product.”
She nodded. “We need to teach the hive to spot the drum.”
“We will,” I said. “Not yet. First we feed the subpoena.”
“You really love feeding things,” she teased, then sobered. “Did the captain bite?”
“He chewed,” I said. “Sloane got him to swallow a narrow warrant.”
“Narrow is better than none,” she said. “I’ll keep the forum calm. We’re still in slow mode for new threads.”
I ended the call and built the packet: screenshots of the audio’s source page, timestamps, the waveform fingerprint, the redirects, the shared registered agent. I kept my language dry as saltine crumbs: Associated vendor network; coordinated distribution; commercial incentive aligned with conversion spikes. I attached Nessa’s chart—time on one axis, video count on the other—so even a captain who loved optics could see slope.
Sloane texted: Judge in twenty. Email packet. Subject line: Affidavit Addendum—Audio Asset Distribution.
Me: Sent.
Sloane: Parallel question. Anything else tie the LLC to a larger constellation?
Me: Yes. Delaware umbrella controls three subsidiaries: Riverlane Holdings (devices), Rainer Narrative Studio (marketing/“narrative architecture”), and a fulfillment shell that handled limited drops last quarter. Shared agent + overlapping directors. I’m not naming the studio publicly yet.
The name Rainer sat in my mouth like a seed I wasn’t ready to spit. I let it rest under my tongue and swallowed the heat.
Back at the loft, the ring light’s ozone bit again when I opened the door, a scent like static before a storm. The honeycomb shelves still threw their tidy shadows; the camera’s red LED still burned its berry dot. I set my laptop on the marble island and watched the tablet roll toward 68:00:00 with a chill precision that made me want to throw a towel over it. I didn’t. Evidence is skittish when you treat it with contempt.
My phone pinged. Sloane: Signed. Logs and contracts inbound within statutory window. No comment to brand. Keep your mod lanes. Send any new burners to my desk.
“Understood,” I said out loud to no one, because sometimes the room needed boundaries too.
I printed my packet at the tiny loft printer, the paper curling warm into my palm. On the TV over the couch, autoplay suggested twenty videos with the same audio bed; the ghost-click of phantom notifications nipped the edge of my hearing, a chorus only I heard when the room got too quiet.
Micro-hook: If they looped the same note long enough, the city would call it truth.
I wrote a quick, plain-language text to Nessa for the forum’s education queue: Spot the Loop—If twenty clips use the same new sound to ask the same question, that’s not care growing; that’s inventory moving. Report, don’t repeat.
“Parallel path,” I said again, grounding the words in the soles of my shoes on the honeycomb rug. Sloane would run the subpoenas through clean channels. I’d map the pattern through the messy ones. Neither of us would wait for permission to be decent.
I set a timer for twenty minutes and made tea on Lyla’s burner: water rolling, bag dunked, lemon sliced thin with the practiced wrist my mother taught both of us. The kettle hissed; outside, Tide Market’s music changed keys, a pop-up across the avenue testing its evening playlist. Fog fed neon and neon fed impulse; everything out there was a coin-operated feeling.
The kettle clicked off. I poured, inhaled, and let the heat anchor me. On the island, my laptop screen filled with a new email banner—Custodian Response: Riverlane Holdings—a confirmation of receipt and a reminder that their compliance team would respond “within applicable timelines.”
“Define applicable,” I murmured, and took a careful sip.
The countdown tablet slid past 67:10:00 and kept going, unbothered. I thought of the fans with the audio loop in their kitchens, their bedrooms, their cars in grocery-store parking lots. The sound would make real worry feel orchestrated, then drive that feeling toward a cart. My throat tightened without permission.
Another text from Sloane lit the corner of the screen. Good news: judge added an expedited provision for device logs due to volatility. Bad: captain wants comms routed through public information when we go wide.
Me: Then we don’t go wide yet. We build weight first.
Sloane: Agreed. Breathe, Chen.
I breathed. The ring light buzzed like a mosquito deciding whether to land. Somewhere below, the pier sent up a caramel ribbon that coated the air, and for a second I was twelve, helping my mother ladle brittle onto parchment while Lyla filmed us with a plastic camcorder. We had called the jar on the counter our hive jar, and we fed it with quarters for every silly curse. I could still feel the ridges of the glass in my hand.
The moment broke with a message from Nessa. Audio farm updated their sound title to “Care Theme (Community Use).” They’re laundering intent in the label.
Me: Archive the change. Screenshot versions. Note timestamp.
Nessa: Done. Also—smaller creators are DMing me, saying they were paid a flat fee to use it. Same vendor name appears in their invoices: Rainer.
The seed under my tongue cracked. I typed slowly. Me: _Hold the name. We document. We don’t accuse without the paper.**
I set the tea down. The tablet chewed toward 66:00:00, steady as a metronome. Sloane’s warrant was a wedge; the network was the door; the audio a whisper that pretended to be care.
I stood in the honeycomb of my sister’s chosen life and felt both walls: the system that moved slower than truth, and the market that moved faster than harm. In between, there was a human pace I could choose—coordinated, deliberate, focused.
The clock flipped to 66:00:00 and chirped once, thin and clinical. I looked at the camera LED that wouldn’t blink and the neon printing a honeyed bruise across the plant wall, and I asked the room the only question left before the first drop: what will they sell us next, and can I get to it first.