The bay coughs fog into the loading dock, and the drones over the marina blink, go blind, and blink again. I slip past the wind tunnel’s whine and meet the door that pretends not to exist. The badge reader has been taped with a square of black felt; I know who did that even without seeing their face. I don’t say ShoreWitness’s name. I just press the cloned card. The panel chirps like a bird who never learned fear.
“02:10:04,” I whisper to my recorder. “Entering Lab 7 perimeter.”
The hallway tastes like cold metal and citrus. My mouth goes cotton-dry the way it did in oncology waiting rooms, back when I rationed water because leaving the chair meant missing a name. I pad down white-on-white and my sneakers find the taped X ShoreWitness promised: a scuff that looks like nothing unless you’re looking for it.
“Left at the scuff,” I tell myself, because instructions out loud slow my hands down. “Door with no label. Silent light on.”
The silent light is a headlamp hacked to throw infrared; to the naked eye the room stays dim, but my camera sees the world like a nocturnal animal. I crack the door. A low hum answers. The smell intensifies: disinfectant, hot sugar residue from a technician’s contraband snack, and the faint ozone of electronics warming under glass.
“02:12:18,” I say. “Chair room.”
The Reframing Chair waits with an arrogance I feel in my ribs. The mesh cap dangles like a jellyfish bell, filaments fine as newborn hair. The vinyl recline has that particular sheen—hospital bright—that always turns my breath shallow. On the console, the interface floats in friendly colors, a childproof poison cabinet.
I raise the camera and settle into the well of looking. The recorder’s tiny red eye blinks; the timestamp burns in the corner of its screen. I focus on the words that will matter later more than my pulse does now.
“Recording interface,” I whisper. “Capturing language.”
The home menu reads:
Comfort Injection
Narrative Seam
Empathy Gain
Compliance Fade
Recall Guidance: Gentle / Firm / Directed
Colorway: Mercy / Neutral / Consequence
Sound Bed: Citrus / Meadow / Chapel
Halo Sync: Enabled
I run the lens slow across every syllable. The camera picks up the backlight’s subtle flicker; the lens drinks the truth the room keeps trying to perfume.
“Comfort injection—dose slider,” I narrate. “Ranges from 0.1 to 3.0. Units defined as ‘soothe.’”
I tap the info icon with a gloved knuckle. A tooltip blooms: Microdosed anxiolytic—nonpharmacologic via auditory-harmonic entrainment. The word nonpharmacologic wears a halo like every receipt in this city—two concentric rings, pure by branding, predatory by design.
“Narrative seam,” I read. “Options: stitch forward, stitch back, seal and pivot.”
Another tooltip: Interpolation of compatible memory schema to facilitate reconciliation. The verb facilitate tastes like vinegar on my tongue.
“Empathy gain,” I say. “Target: subject / other / audience.”
The help text offers: Adjusts affect display; boosts concordant micro-expressions. I swallow. My throat clicks in the microphone.
“Compliance fade,” I say, softer. “Described as ‘gentle deference training—temporary.’”
Micro-hook: The interface smiles with pastel buttons while an old machine in my chest remembers hard edges.
The Sound Bed menu holds presets I already know by ear. Citrus is the high, antiseptic chime, bells like the ad. Meadow has crickets tucked under pads, a nostalgia algorithm. Chapel is reverb, long and forgiving—the frequency of confession.
“Sound Bed: Citrus selected,” I say, and the speaker that isn’t a speaker breathes a whisper I recognize from the show. The same hush swells, a blanket sewn from frequencies that don’t ask permission to cover your face.
My hands go cold. My knees think about the chair in oncology, the fake-leather squeak. I don’t sit. I can’t. My body is a hive of static and my chest tightens to the shape of the mesh cap. The words on the console triple, double, snap back into one line. I taste plastic tubing; I smell the oranges a volunteer peeled at midnight, sugar and pith and the hospital’s rumor of kindness.
“Breath,” I tell myself. “Four in, six out.” I rub my thumbnail over the linen scrap in my pocket—the stitched violet from my mother’s drawer—until the thread warms under my skin.
I hold the camera steadier and look at Halo Sync: Enabled. I press help again. Wristband concordance—authorize benevolence protocols. Gray’s pet euphemism winks at me from under glass.
“Scrolling,” I say, and the lift of my voice steadies my arms. “Submenus.”
Authorized Benevolence—Tiering: Bronze / Silver / Gold / VIP
Sibling Pivot—Sensitivity: Low / Medium / Monster
Live Cut—Failsafe: Host Override / Board Consensus / Sponsor Lock
Reconciliation Theatre—Assets: Tears / Laughter / Embrace / Silence
I want to smash the console with the camera, and the wanting feels like a fever. Instead I read the labels into the room the way you suffer through your name being called correctly by a doctor you don’t trust.
“Monster,” I say, not meaning to, and the room hears me.
A status bar in the corner pulses: Motion Sensor Reboot: 02:20. My window is eight minutes wide, and I have eaten three already.
“Capture timestamp,” I whisper. I tilt the camera to frame both the console clock and my recorder’s clock. The seconds race each other; proof likes twins.
A panel to the right displays Session Presets. I skim fast, heart slamming.
Sibling Reconciliation—Firm:
- Comfort Injection: 1.2 soothe
- Narrative Seam: stitch back, seal and pivot on “responsibility”
- Empathy Gain: audience +1.5
- Compliance Fade: 0.4
- Sound Bed: Citrus
- Colorway: Mercy
- Halo Sync: enabled
Caregiver Closure—Directed:
- Comfort Injection: 0.8
- Seam: stitch forward on “closure”
- Empathy Gain: subject +0.7
- Compliance Fade: 0.6
- Sound Bed: Chapel
- Colorway: Consequence
- Halo Sync: enabled
“They put the scripts in the sliders,” I tell the recorder. “They sell healing as user interface.”
The chair’s vinyl breathes when the HVAC kicks. The mesh whispers. My knees try to bend; my calves spark with that awful pre-cramp that means a sprint has been postponed too long. I stay standing and point my lens at the Legal tab, because pain focusing on language is the only prayer I know.
Curated Recall Guidance—Consent:
“Subject authorizes benevolent steerage of autobiographical recall to address therapeutic goals, including but not limited to reconciliation, closure, and public peace.”
Data Ownership:
“Media and derived metrics may be used for education, inspiration, and brand safety.”
“Brand safety,” I repeat, and laugh once into my mask, the sound small and mean. My breath fogs the inside fabric; the taste is detergent with a memory of my roof’s salt air.
The status bar ticks. 02:17:41. I sweep the menus again, filming from every angle, then slide to the side panel labeled Tech.
Harmonic Map: Beta / Delta / Adagio
Affect Map: Role Tears / Role Calm / Role Confess
Latency Compensation: 32ms / 64ms / Auto
Pivot Board Link: Online
“Latency set to sixty-four,” I note. “Matches the broadcast insert lag Jonas measured.” My heart steadies on the word measured.
I step closer to the chair. It creaks once, a mouth resisting a spoon. The mesh cap smells of scalp and sanitizer. I keep the camera on the cap’s ports, labeling quietly: “P1 crown, P2 temporal, mastoid clip.” I film the QR tag stitched to the harness; the halo icon sits inside the code like a seed.
The status bar blinks yellow. Motion Sensor Online—Calibration.
“Time,” I whisper. “Time to leave.”
I swing the lens to the floor for room tone—three seconds of hum, two seconds of nothing, one faint click from somewhere that shouldn’t click. The door I used soft-blips behind me. I kill the silent light, pocket the linen scrap, and step toward the hall.
The hallway lights wake. A lens above the jamb rotates, tasting air.
I freeze, one foot on vinyl and one on tile. The sensor pings again, softer, like it’s thinking. Doors down the corridor turn slits of gold and then knives. Somewhere in the building a speaker clears its throat.
“You’re okay,” I whisper to myself. “Hold the breath in the box.” I make the box the size of my hands—inhale four, keep four, exhale six, stay. My shoulder blades slot into the shape of a storage cabinet I didn’t plan to use. I press. The latch gives with a sigh.
Inside the cabinet, mop handles lean like tired sentries. The world becomes lemon oil and old cotton. My recorder clock says 02:19:09. The motion sensor above the door pulses steadily.
Micro-hook: A hallway becomes a throat and I am a swallowed word holding perfectly still.
Footsteps arrive in soft rubber. Two, maybe three bodies. A radio whispers: “Reboot during test window?” Another voice says: “Memo from upstairs: authorized benevolence cycle shift.”
I bury my mouth in my sleeve and squeeze the linen with the violet until the stitch bites.
“You will not panic in a closet,” I tell my pulse. “You will become a camera.”
The handles outside click once, then again. A beam of light skates under the cabinet door and finds my shoe. I shift weight onto my calves and float my toes. The ache that blooms is bright and useful; I hang myself from it like a coat.
“Copy on North Hall,” the first voice says, farther now. “Laundry cycle in ten. Chute unlocked—techs dumped linens in the intake.”
The word chute opens a hatch in my mind I’ve never had to use. I count three breaths and step out into the strobing corridor like a ghost who makes time sign a nondisclosure.
The laundry door squats halfway down, metal and dented, with a tongue of rubber around its mouth. I crouch. The hinge groans and I mouth “sorry” to the metal. Heat rises from the shaft—the sweet, humid breath of clean cloth. I angle the camera strap across my chest, pocket the drives in the inner liner, and fish for the handholds ShoreWitness promised would be there for “last resorts.”
“You said ‘silent light’ and ‘small window,’” I tell the air. “You didn’t say ‘slippery slide.’”
My knees laugh without humor. I lower myself until my shoulders are swallowed by warmth. My palms find smooth steel and hidden bolts. The shaft smells like detergent and time. Somewhere below, something thumps like a heartbeat too proud of itself.
“02:21:33,” I whisper. “Dropping.”
The slide is faster than I want and slower than a fall. The metal hisses under my jacket; my elbow kisses a rivet and leaves a piece of skin behind as tribute. I try to control speed with my shoes and fail gracefully. The shaft curves, then yawns. I fall the last meter into a cradle of sheets that catch my back with the soft shock of surrender.
I bury under cotton. My body remembers nights I slept in a chair and sheets that never warmed. I breathe down the animal who wants to run without legs.
Above me the chute door claps once. Footsteps search the intake floor. Two silhouettes pass, blurred through the weave I peep between.
“Laundry cycle?” a voice asks.
“Ten minutes,” another answers. “Then we dump.”
I lie still, linen to nose, and listen to water hammer in pipes like late thunder. I can taste starch on my tongue and the ghost of hospital oranges. My recorder’s clock ticks to 02:22:04; the motion window has closed and I have this cotton coffin to thank.
“You got it,” I mouth to no one, meaning ShoreWitness, meaning the me who didn’t flee before the menus. My hands shake only once now, like a relieved dog.
When the footsteps fade, I worm to the bin’s edge, lift the corner, and steal a look. The room holds steel tables, hampers with halo logos stenciled ghost-pale, and a vending unit that spits out hairnets. A watcher bubble lens blinks over the exit with indifference or patience; I can’t tell which and refuse to ask.
I crawl to the floor and convert my crawl into a confident walk before the lens can decide what story I belong to. A draft slips under the door: salt air braided with machine heat. The exit crash bar wears a strip of grime where hands have begged it all week. I press, expecting lock.
It yields.
The alley beyond exhales fog this building was trying to correct. Drone beacons stutter in the distance; a news blimp reroutes, gossip derailed by the bay’s white breath. The city holds its etiquette even here—no filming at communal tables, the Strand’s posted rule whispers in my head—yet every edge bristles with liveblogs and little, hungry eyes.
I duck into the seam between buildings and pull my mask down to taste night that isn’t filtered. The camera against my chest is a hot animal; the drives in my liner are hard and righteous as bones. I press record because I don’t know how not to.
“02:28:12,” I say, voice small but steel-edged. “Interface captured: comfort injection, narrative seam, empathy gain, compliance fade. Halo sync enabled. Presets reference Sibling Pivot and Authorized Benevolence. Motion sensor forced hold. Extraction via laundry chute.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket with the sub-bass that means the encrypted thread. I risk one glance.
SW: window closed. confirm exfil?
“Confirm,” I whisper, but I don’t send it yet. I keep my thumbs off the glass and my eyes on the corner where footsteps have a way of inventing themselves when you’re certain the scene has cut.
The fog thickens enough to take a shape. I hear a second door open onto the alley—quiet, practiced, not mine. A new pair of steps measures the distance between what I stole and who wants it back.
Micro-hook: I hold the drives like a pulse and listen to the night choose which story it will carry without dropping.