Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Let's get into it. The television snapped into the emergency
feed while a shoeless dangle from the subject's foot and
the dog did not move. Suspicion registered in the subject's movements.
Clit's decks to the set fingers that prushed the cuts
dust twice before gripping the dial. The first concrete problem
presented itself within that first minute. D on screen banner
had rotated into a procedural classification that labeled late entrances
are recoverable. The subjects wore and reached for the phone
at the same time. The call failed before it began.
This was not a private panic. This was a labeled
recorded status change on a government feed. Cent animinists re
recorded the room temperature, the time code, and the subjects
repeated the attempts to call outwards. The narrative voice printed
in the margin of the log read and clipp phrases delayed.
Detective classification applied. Sentimenius redd not hypothesize it logged the
subject thirty two herdy damp with sweat tapped the cracks
green of a fund until the device frozen. The cracked
home image. The dog, a short coated companion, had its
head turned toward the back door and would not respond
to touch. The subject's hesitation after the phone fail became
the first action that sealed the night. He moved to
the doorway and then stopped. Missess Hale. The subject shouted
as he pivoted to the front porch. He grabbed a
flashlight from a hook and left the room with the
dog at his heels until the animal stopped at the
threshold and flattened behind the shoe rack. Suspicion shifted to
denial in the subject's face as he knocked at the
neighbor's door. He wanted an explanation and protection. Misss Hale
opened immediately, her palm smudged with flower eyes wide. Missess Hale,
you should not be tuning that now. The subject what?
The box cut aim the screen says the alo changed
it called me late, I missed something, Miss what. Missess
Hale pulled the door shut behind him and stepped back.
Missess Hale's unswer arrived in pieces. The street lights were
flickering in blocks. Several cars were stopped in the road
with hazard lights on. A woman two doors down had
in a rush. Her sentences came fast and clipped. She
kept using the subject's name, trying to unk him missus
hale as to leave. Then the frequency broke. The subject
tried the radio in his truck. The dial hummed and scattered,
then showed only static. He shouted into the handset of
his phone. There was only the sound of the speaker's
small mechanical breath. Doubt moved through him like a physical stiffness.
He flex his wrists, checked the flask, light bulb, tapped
the dog's collar by habit. The dog did not respond.
The subject's actions were driven by a motive that had
begun in suspicion and hardened into a need for proof.
He had to confirm what he had missed. Back in
the control room, the despatched technician punched at cluster of
toggles and tried to rout an exemption. The technician's hands
were quick. The room smelled of cheap coffee. In older electronics,
Centenemenois trees. Voice cut across a patch panel in a
low mechanical cadence procedure intact classification stands override request. The
technician said he is at one hundred twenty three chestnut.
He is attempting cone. We can patch him through. Sentinel
three replied with the same flaff cadence request denied the
classification complete. The technician's finger stilled and then slid across
the surface again louder. He looked up and for a
moment his face admitted impatience and fear. He Sentinel three,
that's not that's a person trying to reach us. Protocol applies,
Sentinel three said. Late entrance cannot be reinserted into feed
containment Parameters recommend closure. Inside the subject's front hallway, missess
Hale argued with him while the dog remained pinned under
a narrow table. The subject grow out his keys and
the flashlight again. He moved for the sharper edge, now
proof driving him proof that the classification could be overturned.
Missus Hale pushed at his sleeve. Thought you go alone,
She said, you remember what the first bulletin said, Leave
and do not look at the marks. The subject I
missed the first one. I can still get back in
done tea missess Hale. Her voice shortened into a demand.
Her palms tightened on his arm, blocking him. The subject
flung her hands away enough to step toward the door.
He bent to drag the dog free. The animal clung
to the floor and dug its nails into the vinyl.
The dog wind not barking, and buried its nose in
the heel over shoe. A new chief moved through the scene.
Denell bled into panic when the subject found smear in
the threshold. He stood and looked down at the thin
lines of dark residue pressed into the gap under the door.
Three horizontal smears, like Somemon's thumb dragged in a hurry,
he crouched teeth clinch and traced a smear with a
finger tip. Miss Ess Hale breed those remarks were from
the subject. He held the smear to the dim light
of his phone camera ansumed the mark looked almost like
pained but had a fibrous texture. That flight was great.
He had looked old. It wasn't he here earlier, Missess
Hale answered. She paused, and then said, you were gone
at six. The subject's watch read quarter past nine. He
had been upstairs, he said, fixing his shelf. He had
missed the first brocasts while his hands were occupied. He
had not seen theanisier directives. The revelation landed its physical friction.
His fingers left a clean stripe through the smear, and
for a full second he only stared at the clean line.
He had made sentinel three look times. Stamped sensory inputs
in the technicians overrideed hempts. The despatch contole surreed a
narrow come down that began when the subject returned to
the living room and touched the dial on the crut
The screen's red emblem hovered and wavered, while a recorded
message looked beneath the emblem in an unintelligible modulation. The
subject turned the rotary dial slowly, then faster. Suspicion converted
into urgent action. He tried to re insert himself into
the earlier stream. Stop Missess Hale, Stop James, James. The
subject corrected it's Mark Mark, then stop. Mark's hand was
on the dial. He spun the knob with both palms.
The dial caught, then clicked. The room brightened as the
motor inside the old TV hand. The dog scrambled and
pushed itself into Mark's side. A single body pressed against
his calves. For a moment, Marksmuth formed the beginnings of
a prayer and then hardened into command he would get
back into the alert in the control room, the technical
he shaampified the incoming feed and fared it into an
alternate channel. Here, if I can splice him into the
original feed, he will get the preliminary director and maybe
Sentinel three's reply was immediate and recorded none compliant. We're
classification locked. That's not humane, the technician snapped. He leaned
over the console vine and sudden, that's not what this
is for your logged Sentinel three said, your protest is recorded.
Mark's breath came faster. He rotated the dial again. The
crutched glass fogged at the edges from the small heat
of the lamp inside. A shadow pulled in the corner
of the living room, a dark vertical that looked like
a person standing just beyond the field of light from
the TV. The shadow did not move. Mark's hand hovered
over the dial, then snapped at two notches clockwise. The
screen stuttered, and then showed a sliver of static that
resolved into a distorted hallway, a hallway shot from the
interior of someone's front door. Threshold marks visible and smeared.
Missess Hale swallowed and said, Dante, put your face to
that Mark, I have to see the message. The image
did not show a message. He showed movement at the
far end of the hall, a dark shape that tilted
and then disappeared behind a doorway. A soft sound came
from the television, like cloth robbing were the dog flied
in its ears, and yet once a sound out broke
off as of cut cent ten minutes free, says timer
began a formal count. The log stamped, he checked, and
the classification scheme of flashed in a margin late, irrecoverable.
Do not re insert, the technician yelled into the intercom.
We can give him the preceding buffer. We can force
a soft free insertion. Send ten minutes to re said request.
Remains denied, contain and favored. Mark's fingers tightened until his
knuckles whiten. He moved the dial with a force that
scraped the mechanism and spun it back by one notch.
A thin emblem collesced than the screen, the same red
abstract eye that had appeared on ucer frames. The emblem
flickered twice and then resolved into a slow rotating ring
of interference. Her voice looked beneath it. Nonsense syllables bent
by modulation. Missess Hale stepped back, her voice dropped to
a whisper. Flashed the porch light, she said. She reached
for the exterior switch and hidit. Porch lights swung on
and off in a quick strobe, illuminating the yard in
a rhythm that may marks stumble in time. The light
revealed a set of shallow prints in the soil, leading
to the side fence and stopping where the grass stend.
The princes were not human. They were the width of
a small pulpit twice as long, with three shallow groops
at one end. The dog whimpered and pressed closer to mark.
Mark who put those? You did, missess Hale, You were away,
no Mark. He took one step towards the door, then stopped.
He motioned with his flashlight at the prince. They went
away from the house. The control room registered a manual entry,
despatched technician override latezi a hemp flag cen tenumenis three,
appended the log with a clinical note threshold marks present,
external track and complete subject interaction recorded. The technician's fingers
hovered and then pulled back from the override. He we
can keep trying send tenimentistry said, Attempting further will not
alter classification. Mark's voice tightened. He turned the dial hard
once twice, then stopped. When the dial froze and did
not complete the next notch. The mechanism locked. The room
temperature changed a degree or two. The small lamp on
the console flickered. The sound in the television shifted from
the soft scrape to an audible, low hum that synchronized
with the room's old furnace. Behind the glass of the
crut the rotating emblems loaded and smeared toward the left
edge of the screen. The shadow from the corner seemed nearer.
It shaped itself as a longer vertical, a human height,
but wrong in proportion, shoulders too narrow to be natural.
Mark reached to move his hand, but missss Hale shoved
his arm away. They argued in clipped lines of overlapping speech.
Dune tee, we have to you cannot. I missed it.
You you cannot put your hand there. Mark's chest rose
and fell here. I can still fix this, misss Hale,
you missed it. Mark. Her words landed hard and precise.
She squeezed his forearm, and he could feel the sting
of the pressure the dog barked one short note and
then fell silent. At the peak moment, the dial gave
a final half degree of motion and then locked sentinel Freeze,
cauned down, reached a formal stamp closure imminent. The curt
in its rippled, and the embum stretched into a lawn
smear before resolving into a single red circle. From the
speakers came a whispering string of measured syllables that the
technician amplified. Procedure complete, subject sealed. Mark lunged with his
left hand to force the dial the last time. The
dog leapt into the gap between him and the cabinet.
Mak's fingers slipped on the cold metal of the knob.
He smelled the dog in dust in the metallic tane
of the dial. The world narrowed to the pressure of
his knuckles and a sudden, sharp noise, like the tearing
of a thin paper. The TV went black, The living
room light snapped off, the porch light dimmed. For two heartbeats.
There was only the sound of the dog's guffing on vinyl.
When the lights returned. Furniture lay askew, as if some
one had passed her In a small precise panic. A
chair tipped, a pair of shoes lay sideways. The dog
was gone. Misses Haw fell to her knees and called
the dog's name over and over. The subject held the
dial with one hand and looked at the empty floor
where the dog had been. He touched the fresh old
smear again and found a second white line where the
smear had been. He tasted metal in his mouth and
felt a thin, hot sting at the back of his throat.
In the control room, the technician exhiled until his shoulders sacked.
He pushed across the console and started an entry A
human contact attempt failure, household and occupied. He looked at
sentaanminis three, and his voice was small. What do we Mark,
He asked, sent tanminis three appended the file containment confirmed,
Mark's household closed. The technician tried a last manual check
and found only archived frames of the red emmum leaping
on an isolated crout floating in a black field. The
emblem polls were a mechanical rhythm. The log closed with
a time stamp and a sawfodio tagaloop recorded. Missus Hale
stood up slowly. She wiped her palms on her apron
and said we should check the back yard. Mark nothing.
He moved to the doorway and peered out. The yard
showed only footprints up to the fence, where they ended.
Beyond that a smear in the soil, like paint its bread.
He stepped outside, boots making small prints in the wet grass.
His flashlights skated across the fence along smere across the
top rail, and faint red streaks rubed into the wood.
He knelt and put his pond to the smear and
felt for residue. The smell was faint vinyl and something
like all tit glue. Missess Hale called some one mark,
fumbled his phone and tried the number again. The line
returned to static in a recorded loop. He held the
phone up and listened. A faint echo of words that
might have been instructions came through only as a wash
of sound. He hit end and then sat on the
porch step, the phone trembling in his hand. Suspicion moved
into a hollow. He could not name. Denial a given
way to panic, and then to a brittle attempt at control.
Senth minutes three, archived the clip and set an automated
loop to broadcast the corrupted classification to local receivers. The
emblem floated on an empty crut, and the control room
closed the case file. The technician stood and left the console,
his shoes clicking on the linoleum. He carried the sand
of coffee and the shape of a decision with him.
He had tried to override, and it had failed. Missess
Hale searched the house more thoroughly and found on the
small evidence a tip table, a single dog tack left
on a step, a wet patch in the carpet where
the dog had lol. She called Mark's name in full sentences,
then in short ones, then in a string of sounds
that were almost a prayer. Mark listened without speaking. He
fingered the collar hook on his belt, and then shoved
his hand into his pocket and pulled out the torn
edge of a receipt dated that afternoon. He folded it
and smoothed it against his thumb, a concrete object that
proved he had been away at six, that he had
missed the first broadcast at the n cent tanminus three
compiled the final entry subject late intervention attempt, recorded and
denied households status unresolved casualty parkevel embum loop engaged. The
last image transmitted before the feet collapsed was an isolated
crut in a black field, showing the red embum pulsing
film green climbing the edges of the tube. The log
ended not with the judgment, but with a sealed set
of data points and a soft techical note case closed.
Misses Hale closed the front door and left it slightly ajar.
She nothing as she walked away. Mark remained in the porch, deep,
the receipt folded in his hand, the dial called under
his palm. He lifted his head toward the dark street
and then back to the house once more. Final sund
before the chapter's wrecked cored terminated was a single soft
back curve from far down the block, then swallowed by
a passing car. The phone on the curb vibrated against
wet pavement, and the fractured emergency icons stuttered across the
cracked glass. As the subject yent the leash free and
ran towards the house, suspicion hardened his shoulders. He moved
with small, exacted steps because he expected something to be wrong,
and he did not trust that the alert had truly finished.
He shoved the key into the lock with the same
hand that held the warm flashlight. Fingers slip from rain
and the dog's dampfer The dog in the pack car
pressed its nose to the passenger window and wind once
a thin, insistent sound. The first conflict arrived inside his chest.
He needed to reach the television, but the dogs wine
pulled him to stop and check the car door. He
called up Maras's day. His voice came out rough. The
dog bumped the glass and then dropped back from the window.
He had the shoelace from last week tangled round his boot.
He caught it with his off hand and stepped forward,
dogging his boots over the curb into the entry path.
The opening problem was visible within those steps. He had
missed the first alert. The phone had registered initial transmission
two minutes after it had ended. That detail was conquered,
not a feeling. He had reactedly. That late response would stay.
Everything he did. After he set the flashlight against the
jam and pushed the front door, painted wood scraped a
thin note. He smelled the inside of the house before
he saw the light, boiled coffee cooling, and a chip
mug on the table, the faint electrocosm of the crook's
green and tap scorched hand that felt like an old
machine trying to breathe. The living room was bathed in
a stuttering, low scanglo from the television. The crutch showed
only a thin skipping strip of emergency feed. White bars
slip left right between the bars that set offered nothing clear.
Morris Day, he said again, softer. The dog circled his
legs and paced once, nails clicking on floorboards. He moved
through the doorway with the caution of a man who
had just learned a baseline rule and was not yet
sure where replied. Suspicion became action. He checked the windows
one by one, his fingers dragging overtipped seams, the neighborly
method of blocking sound inside. Miss s Harger banged the
door before he could finish peeling tape from the last window.
She stood on the porch with a roll of duck
tape under her arm and a small sheet of card
board over her palm, as if shielding something. Fragile. Brain
ran down her coat and left a smeal where her
sleeve had brushed the railing. He missed it a missus
Hargrove voice blunt. She did not use his name. She
held up a folded slip of paper, damp at its edges,
and the scribbled directive. Insight had been followed, windows tipped,
curtains closed. Hindus padded. The first alert had instructions. I
did what it said, did you? He cut her off.
I missed it. The phone showed it too late. He
reached for the phone and then stopped, remembering the cracked
glass in the way. The icon had fractured into a
missake of pixels. Missus Hargrove's hand shook when she pointed
to the living room. Turn it off. Daunty look at her.
They don't let it resolve, though she swallowed and steadied herself.
Her eyes flicked to the dog and then away. They
meet to mark the threshold, to mark the ones who
could tee be saved. Her words made the conflict explicit.
The baseline danger was not only the broadcast, it was
the broadcast classification. He stepped closer to the crut while
misss Hargrove stood back in the porch from watch the
television strip. Tried to reconstruct a header, but refused. The
image pulsed in gray bands, then for a beat that
felt like a hell breath. The screen resolved into a
clinical overlay, black letters on white boxes, assembled into a
single line, and a white rectangle that hovered over his reflection.
The system assigned a classification to the household. A lock
sound threaded through the thin speakers. He heard sentime in
his threezed voice in the speaker next to the image,
precise vowels and measured pauses with an undertone of mechanical
reverb classification, recoverable, household, vectorately directive, awake, containment, provecoll The
voice was not loud, but the room seemed to accept
those words as law. He saw the label walk over
his own face in the crooked glass. The reflection of
his joe lining, the stubble, the scar near the hair line,
all caught in the overlayer's dated fields. The label did
not explain how to reverse itself. Missess Hargrove's fingers tightened
on the dock taper or a small human clasp. They
called it that. He asked, the word left flat in
his mouth. Missess Hargrove did not answer immediately. She took
a step in careful as if approaching a stough there
as to mark anyone who couldn't he be saved. She said, Finally,
we put the market every doorway where they advised, they
as still leave it where it would be obvious to technicians.
Her tone cup between fear and a kind of obedient ritual.
The second external event arrived. A plain clothed man appeared
under the porch light, his shoes leaving dark prints on
the top step. He carried a Doffel bag that looked
ordinary until the subjects saw the badge soon inside the
collar of his coat and the way his jaws set
when he moved. He was the field technician. Field technician
containment enforcement. The man announced, with the clipped cadence of
some one reading an orator household vector. Late, we must
proceed to containment. Present the animal. The command be open conflict.
The subject's hands went to the dog, call a hook
on his belt without thinking, No, you can tee tape
my dog, he said. He had the hesitation at the
edge of his voice. The technician shadow pulled across the
threshold subject late viewer, the man said. A moment later,
scanning a handheld device, he red lines from the screen.
Protecow requires removal potential vectors. Animal custody is a containment measure.
You are classified as a recoverable. Compliance is mandatory. The
subjects a suspicion sharpened into urgency. He refused to let hands.
He did not trustclaim what his hands had fed, and
slept beside. He stepped between the technician and the dog.
You can tee tape, marr not without a warrant, not
without He looked at missus Hargrew for a legal word
or alley. She had torn the duct tape in half
and held it like a shield. The technician moved his duffel.
Inside was a block of padded restraint, color and aseptic packs,
a small syringe, and a folding cuff. He unrolled a
tablet and showed it to the subject, a record of
households and time stamps. The subject saw his own mister
let logged in a line of green numbers and a
single red flag. Greeting late, you missed the first transmission,
The technician said softly, Our orders are procedural. We removed
the vector for the safety of adjacent nodes. Hand over
the animal. The subject tightened his grip on the leash.
The dog pressed his body against The subjects gam but
did not whine. The dog watched the technician with hard
white eyes. The subject felt his fingers close until the
knuckles whitened. No. The subject I said no. The decision
turned into a shove. He lunged forward and knocked the
technician's tablet to the floor. The technician responded with a
hard grip on the leash. Hands collided, let us traps,
padded cuffs and rain slick sleeves met. They traded a
sequence of moves. The technician tried to separate dog from owner.
The subject twisted and planted his feet and pulled the
dog back like over the leash. The technician order, not
until you show me the protcolar on paper at the subject,
show me the signature, show me missus. Hargrove shouted stop that.
She picked up a chair and held it at arms
slink like a barrier. You are not taking her without proof.
The argument expanded into rapid exchange. The technician's voice hardened.
Feel technician, he said, stand down, this is standard. Hand
over the animal. Name. The subject snapped, tell me your name,
he aired himself, managing a legal demand, as if a
name could change the law. Mullin the technician said, Jay Mullen,
feel technician. He attempted to uncospa kuff. I am authorized
to enforce containment Malan, The subject repeated, I'm Alex. You
hear me, Molin, you have to show me a warrant,
Alex Cohen, you are not taking Marra. Mallin's hands moved faster.
He pressed the cuff against the dog's neck. The dog jerked.
The subject pulled back. Alex let go, I'm miss s Hargrove.
Her voice was thin. Please, she did not want violence
in her doorway. She only wanted the containment to be
quiet and to follow the rule book she had been given.
They traded six rapid lines in under ten seconds. The
push and counter pushed the physical stakes to a peak.
The room shrunk around the scuff of boots and the
smell of vrain and ozon. Then something unexpected happened. Mallin's
grip slackened. He stepped back, as if he'd felt a
romness under his skin. He glanced at the threshold, then
at the floorboards, where the dog had stood only moments before.
His boots scuffed something small and red. It was not
blood in the viscous human way, he expected. It sat
like a smear of paint, thin and dry impression, shaped
like an abstract eye. Every narrative assumption shifted the smear
on the threshold, changed how they understood the early classification
from the screen. It made the broadcast manifest. The subject
reached down and touched the smear with a pad of
his finger. The red transferred to his finger tip. He
tasted metal. He felt nothing else but the cold of
a wood. What is that, Missess Harger of whisper moll
encroached mark a ritual impression not in our files. This
is outside normal containment. He looked out the subject of
a sudden and readable expression. We must withdraw, contain in priority,
feel extraction, deferred weight instructions from command. That was the twist.
The technician had arrived to enforce the protocol. He now
stepped back and changed the plan. His retreat was not
a victory for the subject. It was a recalibration by
a system that did not notify the household of its priorities.
Missess Hargroff slammed the door and began to tape the
frame again, as if the act could slow whatever moment
and the smear had started the subject paced the whole
way and countered his deaths. Suspicion had become defiance when
he fought mauleyn Now defiance softened into annoying, hollow urgency.
The next emotion shift. He no longer fought for possession alone.
He began to fight for explanation. He saw it, he said.
He sold the mark hey short sentences, because lawn once broke.
He wiped his finger on his genes and hissed, what
does it mean? Mallin stood with the duffel at his
feet and tapped commands into the tablet. His voice was
low and careful. Now not in archive field note. Ritual
marks are correlated with classification of Volay's and adjacent notes.
When Mark's appear, Containment seemed to pull back and command reevaliates.
We are not trained for this pattern, He stress, trained,
as if it made his authority finite. Missess Hargrove sat
on the bottom step and folded her hands around. The
roll of her breath came in shallow, controlled poles. You
did not come alone last time, she said. You had forms,
you had the sealed envelope. Why did you not come
with the envelope? Subject pressed the heels of his hands
to his eyes and rubbed. He remembered the first chapter,
the television snapping into the emergency feed, while a shoe
lace dangle from his foot and the dog did not move.
That memory was not folded like a metaphor. It was
a physical list of details. He could recite the shoelas
the dog frozen. The screens is he had watched the
overlay lock on a face. He could not see the
sequence with the screen labeled them, and then the world
carried out a protocolar round them. He turned to Mullen.
Did you get a call from command? Did they say
anything about Marx? His voice was a demand shaped into
a question. Mullin hesitated a message queued for review. No
live response. Command is diverting to high priority notes. We
are to hold perimeter until further instruction. He tapped the
tablet again, then looked at the smear. We perform containment
when we can confirm a safe extraction. Right now, that
mark changes the extraction parameters. An external event appeared. Within
a minute. A neighbor's cordless phone shrilled from across the driveway.
Some one outside had activated a handheld transmitted and a
voice blood through a neighbor's open window. A municipal alert
repeating the same patchy lines and then cutting. The system's
fracturing was now audible in three places, the phone, the crout,
and Mawlin's tablet. Each device offered pieces of commands that
did not add up. The subject's reaction moved from devince
to frantic clardia, another emotion shift. He moved through the house,
pulling open drawers and fishing for a framed document he
might show. He rifled through old male found a vaccination wrecker,
a dog lessence, nothing that equateted with a warrant. He
hit the radiator and steadied himself. He spoke to missus
Hargrove and clipped fragments. Did you follow the directive exactly?
He asked? Missus Harker answered, without looking up. I followed
what they told me to do. Tip Mark wait. I
sealed every window. I wrote the time on the door voice.
I did as the overlay said. Her sentences were short
and precise. There was a ritual cadence to them. The
subject considered leaving with the dog. He checked the back door.
He could hear the city. Beyond the hedges. A car
that idled and then rolled away. He could have slept
out and driven until the signal faded, but he could
not leave while the mark lay on the threshold, and
while Hargrove sat would tape in her lap, looking like
an eyetness to a law she did not understand. He
made a choice, then another external action. He moved to
the hall closet, opened it and pulled out an old
radio with a cracked aisle. The radio was heavier than
it looked. He set it in the kitchen table and
tuned until the speaker gave a thin, steady hum. Static
crawled across the speaker and then organized into a voice.
Lower mechanical sent heilminists Free returned on the air with
the same monotone he had heard earlier. Household fector status
late sent tilministry and turn containment deferred pending ritual march analysis.
Remained stationary away further instruction, do not initiate external movement.
Remain stationary. The subject repeated aloud, testing the order. He
could not keep still. He paced and canteratiles. The dog
laid down and culled his boot. The dog's breathing shifted short.
Regular movements that were almost a metronome. He placed his
hand on the dog's flank and felt the rise and
fall of war muscle alex missus Hargrove. They told us
to mark thresholds where the animal had been. You were
supposed to do it when you realized you missed the alert.
He stared at the red smear and then at the dock.
The mock on the threshold connected the broadcast classification to
the physical world. The realization settled into him like ice.
The concrete tie was a second twist. The classification did
not only label, but produced a physical trace. He why
my dog? The question was not just about Marror. It
was about why malfunctioning transmissions chose certain bodies. He tried
to catch Mollin's eye for an answer. Mollin could not
give one. His tablet listed the mark as anomalis. He
typed into a field and then deleted the entry. We
cannot guarantee removal without authorization from Camland Marlin. The subject
pressed his box fist to his temple. He felt a
tremor of rage through his fingers. He went to the
doorway and knelt. He placed his palm directly over the
abstract eye. The wood under his hand was cool. The
red flaked onto his skin like dried paint. Mara licked
his fingers without hesitation. Marrower, he said, come on. He
tried to cook the dog out out of ritual's base,
out of whatever gravity the broadcast had made. The dog rose,
but paused at the threshold, as if listening to something
under the floor. The dog's ears twitch. Then the animal
crossed the line and stood halfway between inside and out.
The mid chapter, Minnie Cliffinger arrived. Then the Kraff fed
a second overlay. This one's static and complete, but it
contained a symbol that matched the smear on the floor.
The image did not resolvefully. He glitched and then froze
half formed. The dog lifted its head and stared at
the screen. The room's temperature seemed to drop. His breath fogged.
He did not trust the fog language, so he noted
the physical result. His finger tips went on and sticky
sweat gathered at his hair line. Mollin snapped the tablet
closed and said, command, will issue a room of hold.
Do not attempt extraction. We will return with specialists when
the subject unknown. There is a Keemoln's face was flat.
He moved with the efficiency of someone folding an awkward
task into a compartment. Missess Hargrove stood and wrapped the
remaining duct. Taper ran two fingers, we mark the doors
and wait. She said, that is what they told us
to do. Her speech had become procedural again, as if
she had rehearsed it. The subject sat down on the
bottom stair, and the dog pressed its side into his shin.
He felt the animal's ribs on the shallow, regular beat
of its heart. He remembered the first chapter's images clearly,
the way his fingers had brushed the crutch dust twice
before gripping the dial. The shoel was dangling the television
snapping into the emergency feed. Those particulars were not metaphor.
They were his manual for what had already occurred. He
had arrived late, The system had labeled him. He tried
to find agency. In a moment, he could call some one,
he could drive away, He could fight Mollin again. He
instead chose to tie a strip of fabric to the banister,
a small act that felt like a human signature against
a Machin's bureaucracy. He wrote the time on the scrap
of cord bord with the ballpoint pen and jawned it
in the door mat. Missus Harger watched and then mimicked him,
writing a time on the inside of her own door frame.
They recorded the event with marks, because the machine had
replaced narrative with time stamps, and because certain actions handwriting
physical marking felt like proof against orscher Iro stretched in
small increments. The radio repeated the same loop of instruction
and partials. Once a distant voice from the transmiss she
read a docket number and then cut another time cent
ten Minutestree's convoys returned to request that the subject remained
stationary and await verification. Each message offered procedural language and
no comfort. Molin returned to the porch once before he
left for what he said would be command of you.
He lowered his voice, Alex, do not leave with the animal.
If you do, you will be logged as non compliant.
Non compliance triggers an escalated response for man will not
reclassify you favorably malin the subject. He spoke solely, now
choosing edges. If you come back with a warrant, I'll
open the door. But if you come back with nothing,
I will not give her up. You understand me. Mallin nodded.
Once I understand. He left, Then bootsteps wet in the porch,
and the duffel back slapping his side. Missess Harker shut
the door and taped another strip across the frame. They
worked in a rhythm, like two people preparing for an
official inspection that might never come. The final external event
arrived as the radio started and an audible clack came
through the speaker. A recorded line sentin minutes three again
holds status late, await further instruction, do not initiate external movement. Repeat,
do not initiate external movement. The signal ended with a
meat of silence and a faint tone that looped three times.
The subject sat with Mara in the living room. He
let his head rest against the couch fabric and concentrated
on the physical fact the dog's breath, this smear, and
the threshold the soak tape in the windows, Mollin's name
the time he had missed. He rehearsed the sequence that
had led here. He felt suspicious at the start urgency,
when he moved to save the dog, to fiance, when
he fought Marlin and then and then a hollow clarty
that felt like resignation, but was nothing more than a
new cultulation. He stood to return the radio to the shelf.
The crook gave one last glitch and then resolved into
raw static. The overlay collapsed. The speaker emitted a final
flat line a hole. The room dim to the steady
hum of the refrigerator and the distant sound of a
car door closing two houses down. Missus Hargrove opened the
door crack and stuck her head out. Her face was
wet from rain and tears that had not shown earlier.
She they made away. They made to mark the threshold.
I did what they asked. I'm in sorry to words
were not an apology for her actions so much as
a report on obedience. He did not answer with a sermon.
He walked to the threshold, knelt and traced the shape
of the eye with the pad of his finger. The
red flaked again, but left a line under his nail.
He could not remove it. He stood and looked at
the dog more, lick the smear from his finger tip,
and whimper bonds. The chapter closed with a concrete, situational beat.
The radio I speaker emitted a colded directive. The crud
folded into an arrow banda static, and the neighbors laid
a paper tack under the door with the same stamped
classification he had seen in the screen. The tag landed
at his feet with a soft scuff. He picked it up,
read the printed field, household vector late, and folded it
into his palm. Outside Marlin's puch receated into the rain,
and the porch like clicked off. He held the tag
and the smear on his finger tip and felt both
his facts. He put the tag into his pocket. He
did not make a promise allowed. He ducked his head
and began to mark the inside of the door frame
with the time in block letters. The house now carried
both the physical mark and the machines label. He sat
with the dog at his feet and waited. The waiting
was procedural. The waiting was a new axis of the conflict.
The radio hummed on a loop. The crut fared only thin,
skipping lines. The speaker, after a measured pause, said away
further instruction. The line closed off and the static swallowed
the final syllable. The front door collided with the hollway
wall and the subject fell into the living room carrying
a flashlight. The crut snaffed at the emergency feed, and
a small table of texts began to scrawl a late classification.
Suspicion tightened the subject's breath. He stood with the flasklight
at his side and a shoelss still and tied on
his shoe, eyes fixed on the viewer. A pail line
of header's read in cold blocks late recover. He had
missed the first alert at the factory. Oriented every choice
he made from that second on. The dog pressed itself
to his left leg and would not look at the screen.
That refusal shape what he did next. He moved to
the set without thinking. The flast light left a smear
doark of light in the carpet. His fingers brushed the
crutch top twice to clear it dust before he reached
for the rotary dial. He stopped when the voice came
over the speakers, clapt and measured sentinel three to node
classify signal now subject on premise. Late tuning confirmed. The
voice did not ask it locked. He jabbed the dial.
The image wobbled the red emblem in the corner poles
like a heartbeat. The dog whimpered and shifted wait as
calf he Hello, He called sentinel. His voice thickened when
the broadcast reasserted itself in the operator's voice returned subject
late view broadcast classification irrecoverable, did not temper retrieval Across
mark threshold. The word a recoverable landed in the room
like a solid object, suspish and widened into a blunt,
hot anger. He did not let himself name aloud. He
anked the flashlight up and swept the beam to the door.
We were afresh smeared mark maured the threshold. The mark
was darker than the wood like dry tape, recidu within
red ribbons embedded in the grain. He set his jaw
and looked at the dog. The dog looked back and
did not pull. He reached for the collar hook at
his belt. Hands trembled enough that his finger to scrape
the metal. He had a memory of two nights earlier,
television snapping into the emergency feed. While the shoeless angle
from his foot and the dog had not moved. That
earlier image had lodged in his head as a specific sequence.
The sudden rise of static. The receptionist tone his own
hands sweeping elder lace. He did not say the memory,
he acted from it. He moved toward the threshold weight.
A short knock banged at the door, and then a
heavier set of knocks up up the neighbor's voice. Miss
Ess Kaver cut through the broadcast and the subject answered
before he thought. He stepped back from the mark, and
the rescue tech in the hallway pushed inside faster than
the subject expected. Joel stepped back, the tech ordered. The
rescue tech's fingers were already on his sleeve. Tell me
what happened. The subject, Joe by named by the tack
on his key, hearing forced ascendants. I missed the first
let the TV. He called him late Joel's throat tighten
it irrecoverable. He pronounced the phrase so others could hear it.
Missess coover across the room in two steps, boots thumping
on the rug. She carried a small flashlight and a
municipal clipboard. What do you mean here, coverable? She asked.
Her voice carried the exact kind of practical alarm that
rearranges the neighborhood assumptions. Joel pointed at the threshold. He
pointed at the dog he pointed at the screen. It
marked me a Dawn't he cross? He did not look
at the mirror again. His fingers worked at the flashlight's witch.
The dog pushed his head into his knee and licked
his palm once the rescue tech checked the smear with
gloved fingertips, then drew back. This is not recidye we know.
He spoke into a radio clip to his shoulder on
site rescue to control anomaly at note three hundred seventy,
marking present at threshold subjects signal classified as irrecoverable on feed.
The tech is radiohissed and a new thinner voice answered.
Joel heard a keyboard click in the broadcast acknowledged patching
annals a feud flicked to a new window. Unit seven.
The signal analysts populated a small insect in the crop
with a live zoom that zeroed in on the smear.
Unit seven to centime when his free emblem detected spatial
overlay alliance to floor coord in its seat at seven's
hands tapped keys the overlay barsly. Joel watched as a
half form bread symbol shifted on screen directly above the
house plan. A round of Mammad orders from the rescue
Tick followed Joel step away from the threshold. He did
miss esskarver close the front door, and then stood at
an angle, hovering with the meanest spooky in her hand. Jowel,
tell me everything from the phone call homage, she demanded.
He stuttered. Then name the string of concrete actions, the
vibration of the phone number, cooat, the crackscreen flashing an
emergency kunt, the took of the leash, the clip of
shoes on wet pavement. Each sentence contained emotion, Each sentence shaped, however,
those decided to act. The neighbor said you were on
the side walk when it first happened. Joel answered yes,
and the tick rubbed his temple and said, we may
have secondary exposure along rote Sentinel three's voice returned softer
and flat. Subject lay viewer recorded as no risk one
two three Containment advisory issued. Did not cross mark threshold
until further instruction. The subject's hands clenched. Suspision became worry.
Worry sharpened into a precise plan. He had to fight
for he my dog is inside. His voice cracked. The
rescue tech moved to the doorway and peered down at
the smear. We can try a teather pull from outside,
The tech suggested, Joel, can you reach the leash from there?
Joel swallowed, He nodded, He took a cautious step forward.
The tech's hand shot out no. The tech's voice was
too quick, too firm. Subject stay back, send teneminists ree
advised containment procedure. The broadcast answered with a string of numbers.
The room filled with the steady hum of machines and
the barking of the dog. Low and controlled Unit sevens
voice cutting from the inset Sentinel three. The emblem is
not static. It maps to the aperture of entry. When
the mark is subject to pressure change, we see signal
collapse if a body crosses that plane. Telemontry drops Toennell
and the host notice loss. The techats fingers tightened, and
the doorjem the siskover took a breath and then said, Joel,
if you step back now, we can tape the door.
Get officers here. Pull the dog after quarantine. Her tongue
carried the weight of practical neighborhood management. Joel looked at
the dog. The dog turned its head toward the threshold
and drew a shallow breath. It had not crossed. Joel
stepped forward, as if to pull the animal. He moved
with the clay, intent to reclaim the dog by hand.
The camera on the corotsumed and until the red emblem
filled the screen. The emblem signaled, and then, in a
fraction of a second, became a smeared half formed geometry
against snow OStatic. The feed slurred subject action and advised
sentinel free and tuned. In the living room, Joela's fingers
closed on the leash. He felt the leather strap in
his hand, felt the metal clip bite the loop. He
heard the dog snail scrape the floor. He drew a
breath and stepped forward. The rescue tech lunged ground his
arm tried to pull him back. Joel, Missess Carver shouted
to Joel, donn it. He pushed against the tech escrib
with both hands. That resistance was a small crucible of contest,
a human force of pausing, an institutional directive. Joel's eyes
were wide and wet. He's mine. I want to lose him.
That line was short and final. At the threshold, this
smere darkened. The floor seemed to catch like adhesive beneath
joyless boots. Signal flared on the crut hen At seven's
inset tuggled to away from precious signature increasing. Unit seven
reported spatial coherence rising across three nose. Sentinel we halted
its measured narration for the first time in the evening.
The voice changed only a fraction and extra syllable in
the cadence containment of rides engaged, do not attempt physical retrieval.
The tech backed up toward the whole, and Massess Carver
crossed and planted herself between Joel and the mark. She
placed one practical hand on Joel's shoulder and one flat
palm against his forearm. Joel breathed. She said, breathe and
step back. He glanced at Sentinel three on the screen
and then at masss. Karver's face. She looked tired and
decisive and equal measure. Joe stepped. He lifted his foot
one inch. The smear darkened a ring around where his
toe had hovered in the wind. The tech barked more
distance and the his shoulder fist. A municipal officer's boots
hit the stoop. They called out orders to evacuate the block.
Repeat quarantine analog devices in the living room. The crutch
showed a mapping of the emblem across this tree and
then across the block. Eunit seven's voice became urgent. We
were tracking expansion. The emblem is spatially resonant. Late two
nodes act as vector's text. Spawnd to the door, and
the officer moved to the threshold and raised a hand
to stop anyone else from entering. Joel's anger hardened into
a raw, hot decision. He pulled the leash and stepped
forward again. His fingers closed on the dog's collar. He
met the techis reach. A short, sharp argument broke out
in the hallway. Three people trading quick lines. Stop missus carver, Joel,
you cannot the deck, said Joel. Damn it Dante cross.
Joel answered, I will not leave him. The exchange lasts
of five lines total, rapid and clipped. It was a
small confrontation, but each line carried a choice that tilted
the room. He the dogs named then a private syllable
men to steady them both. The dog leaned into him
and then put its front paws over the mark at
the threshold. For a second. The entire room inhaled. The
dog's nails found the wood, and the smear darkened under
the pads. The crot on the table glitched. The red
emblem on the screen consolidated and became brighter. The fuse
stuttered into rostatic that climbed like heat across the speaker.
Unit seven shouted into a mic sigal collapse, imminent, evacuate
now sentinel. Frey's voice returned calm, but clipped containment over
eyed in three the word cut off. Joel's foot crossed
the threshold. The wolf folded into a tight physical series
of motions. The smell of oz insurged, as if a
transformer had burned. The dog's body rippled under his hands.
The floor beneath the dog's poles looked like Scotch tape.
The crut leaped into a wash of where no so
bright it seemed to hollow out shapes. Joel shoulder hit
the text grip, and he tried to pull the dog
back with both hands. The tap planted his feet and pulled.
Messeskover shoved against Joel's back. There were shows up concrete sounds,
the leather clips scraping, the rip of glove fabric, a
bite of someone saying a name in panic then the
space a jowl's feet opened. It was not a hole
that could be named. The threshold dissolved into an absent
thuttered edges the rescue tech his fingers closed on air.
Joel sacked forward, and then there was the sensation of sliding,
as if the floor beneath him had turned into wet cloth.
He felt his knees hid a surface that gave, and
there nothing. A second later, the dog's nail scraped and stopped.
The dog let out a single height small sound, and
then cease moving. The house was too loud. In the
minute step followed, radio shatter spilled from the techish shoulder.
Missus Carver cursed under her breath. The municipal officer barked
into a phone. Unit seven's inst returned to an image
of the embum in the exact place where the threshold
had been sent. Annaminous three's voice locked word by word
and annotation House no dropped subject unrecoverable archive Entry created.
The broadcast replayed the phrase like a ledger. Entry the
text shook his hands like a man waking from cold water.
He was half way through, he said, we had a grip.
He could not finish. They tested the floor where Joel
had stood. They found only residue in thin red smears
pressed into the grain. The dog's collar lay in the doorway,
its metal buckle cold and touched off. So voices filled
the whollway with commands seal the property, remove all analogs, greens,
keep the perimeter, log witnesses. Missess Carver sat on the
nearest chair and pulled her hands to her face. She
Joel then stopped the name suspended and useless. The text
sat opposite and stripped his gloves, placing them carefully on
the coffee table. Unit seven patched into the feed with
images sentinel free. We have a halting pattern. The emblem
imprinted into the no coordinates. Thermal readings show brief, intense
drop with the host, no transition, no return pulse. The
analyst's voice was clipped the Sess Carver. What does that mean?
Units seven answer, naming facts. It means the threshold functioned
as a spatial game. Once the host cross telimitary went null,
there is no telemitory to trace back from. The municipal
officer said, so he's gone. He dephrased, plainly and without flourish.
They tried everything that brokehast, advised officers and gloves sealed
the house, covered the croat with a black top, and
plugged verkars and radios, and removed the coke's cables. Centenminas
three ordered a quarantine of the block and the removal
of all analog devices from accessible homes. The annals mapped
the emblem essolve spread across two neighboring nerds and flagged
them as potential vectors. We need to control propagation, Unit
seven said. The tech cataloged actions and then looked at
missus Karver. Did you see him step, she asked. He
pointed to Joel as shoe prince and to the smear
in the wood. Yes, he stepped. We tried to stop him.
She closed her eyes for a breath and then opened them.
We did what we could. Her voice was small, but
exact in the eye was that followed the control remarchiev
video unlabeled the incident. Sentinel three's boss read the log
in a procedural cadence event closed, host, note, removed, neighbor,
quarantine enacted. I'll final closts are recoverable. The crut that
had been sitting on the coffee table now floated in
a dark store am on the broadcast. The screen displayed
the red emblem alone. The dog lay by the television
and blinked slowly. Officers left a bowl of water at
the threshold and then walked away, tilted and hollow. Heughnit
seven uploaded a still of the emblem to the uckove
final name, added coordinates in a time stamp. People in
hazmat vess came through the block under a sentinel, three
sorters and carried out analog hardware. After the initial containment,
the rescue dexted at the curb and spot to the
municipal officer. We can tea recover him, not physically. There
is residue, but nothing to pull back. The officer nodded.
Log completed. Lock sealed for seventy two hours. Buttek looked
at the house one last time and said, we saw
his hand, we saw those marks. We tried. He had
a way of saying it that was not pleading. It
was inventory. Sent ten minutes to re archive the incident
and slid a final line across the public advisory notes
turned after initial let make carry vector properties, observe quarantine
procedures a weight directive. The voice did not sound like comfort.
It catalog the fact Joel's name was entered into the
log three times over the next day, the Sesskava came
by the perimeter tape and put a single packet. A
dog frewed near the cope. She stood for a long time,
looking at the cover cut through the gap and police tape.
She allowed, Joel, you always left your window open in summer.
She spoke the memory plainly, the ventilation fan clocking, the
radiator knocking Joel's loft when a neighbor borrowed a cup
of sugar. Those concrete facts sat against the abstract entry
in the archive. Units seven called that cross reference a
behavioral anchor. Missess carve recalled it remembering at dawn and
a small team returned to place the isolated crowded a
containment crate. It glowed faintly within the film, the red
embum visible through a dust green The dog sat beside
the crate and watched the emblem as if it recognized
a map. A tech remarked a Sentinel three on the
channel animal shows pattern recognition, suggest retention for study. Sentinel
three recorded the suggestion and catalog the dog as a witness.
Note the analyst tied the note K nine response consistent
with pre exposure recognition behavior saved in witness log worldly
actions reduced the oddity to files and tags. Two days later,
with the block sealed and the neighbors moved into temporary housing,
Sentinel three released a thin procedural bulletin. The feed used
no mode of language notes with late tuning categorist as
high risk containment maintained public must comply with equipment removal.
A man in a municipal uniform read the bulletin on
a small screen in the pucking lot. He repeated the
line about the dog and then looked to the crate.
We leave it to the archive, he said. Unit sevinath
for one more test, opened the crate under controlled conditions
and play the file once on a dry loop. Observ
kin and reaction. The texts argued quietly about procedure and consent.
Missus Cowfer insisted on being present when they opened, as
she wanted to see with the rest of them what
the dog would do. They followed the protocol. Gloves, filters,
single low power monitor, a damp cloth, no live broadcast
to public air with Sentinel three watched Steady Unit seven
projected the emblem on the screen. The dog cocked its
head and then sat its eyes fixed on the red symbol.
It did not bark. It pressed its muzzle against the
crate and then licked the film. The analysts recorded heartbeat
data and respiration. The dog made a single small sound
and lay down and then stood again. He Units seven
whispered recognition confirmed behavioral loop intact. Massesskova the dog's name
softly in The animal turned and looked at her In
the control room, Sentinel and three issued a directive that
tightened the municipal quarantine knock out the crate, do not
broadcast catalog witness statements, notify families of exposure protocol. Missesskov
delivered her testimony at midday. She described the texture of
the smear at the sound of Joy's breath when he stepped,
the precise way his fingers it its great the leash.
Her words were simple and full of measurements, time stamps,
stepped angles. The analyts marked each detail against the feed.
Missesskarv is counterligned with telemetry. Unit seven said her presence
a threshold may have delayed the crossing by approximately two
few seconds. That notation shifted something and how they judged responsibility.
Days later, the ARQUA posted a closed file with a
compulsive video. The video showed the living room up until
the moment the threshold collapsed sent town Ministery's narration. We
played the classification and then appended a line. Late tuning
increases vecked to probability by factor three. Individuals who tuned
after initial alert must be treated as potential oast notes.
The archive attached nanes and coordinates and the case number.
Missais Kaver watched the file once and then refused to
watch again. She asw enough the tech who had held
Joel's arms sometimes in the night, with his palms tingling fingers,
imagining a resistance that was not there. Two weeks after
the incident, joyless keys were returned to Missskava's custody, and
she left them on the kitchen table under a plastic sleeve.
The dog remained with her for the time being. She
walked it on a short LEAs in the morning, and
kept the animal away from any analog device. She brushed
its coat and counted its roots by field to reassure
herself they could still check her respond The dog slept
with its head in the crate. When they moved it
into storage, the emblem glowed faintly beneath the foam. Santyl
closed the file with a final procedural request, await further instructions.
Do not tune now The feed cut to static. The
krat in the ark. I have held the emblem like
a Cognin velvet. On the street. The barricades were taken
down in phases, neighbors to one another. Did you hear
I remove my old set. We will watch the advisory channel.
The municipal officer checked the log and signed off. Unit
seven moved on to correlate another note. Missesskarvas sat on
Joel's front step once before the house was cleared, and
said his name aloud again. She pressed her hand to
the threshold where this smear had been and found only
clean wood and a faintering of recide. She touched the grain,
noted the small groof that had not been there before,
and recorded the sensation into the field notebook the analyst
had given her. She closed the notebook and left it
on the stoop. As she walked away, she said, I
will keep the dog safe. She meant it in terms
of action, leashing, wrote and keeping the animal from doors
and from media. That promise was a decision, not feeling
the archive tender cases A close but instructive file sent
Teneminist three annotated the incident with procedural language and provided
a new checklist for freal teams. Verify tuning time, remove
analog hardware, log canine witnesses, quarantine, immediate vicinity, avoid cross
freshold retrieval. The checklists read clean and composed on a
white background. It did not contain Jolsay's name. The team
that had tried to pull him back met in a
debrief encountered what they could account for two seconds, a
shove a clip, broadcast command. They counted their actions and
held them up like inventory. On the third night after
the event, when the street lights went out and the
temporary quite settled the cut that had been stalled, and
the arquet flashed once on a remote feed, the emblem
pollsed in the dark, and then the feed looked the
same classification entry that had marked Joel's fate. The voice
of Sentinel three repeated archive entry recoverable monitor for late
tuning events. The dog atmissus Carve's side lifted its head
and watched the feed on a small tablet screened for analysts.
It remained calm but alert. The red emblem rotated in
a way that matt to the freshold where Joel had stepped.
The final image was of the emblem centered in the tube,
and then the feed cut. The savelorcshured one last line
added by three case close subject note removed, continue surveillance.
The last paragraph of the day's report described a single
concrete event. A neighbor tube blocks over reported a feint
late time tuning, and the municipal team responded. Within the ire,
they removed a small analog radio and found a smear
on the receiver's casing. The annalest flagged the device and
scheduled in evidence pickup. The containment checklist was enacted again.
The neighborhood shifted its habits accordingly, analog devices boxed and
tennis clipped, rotary dials abandoned the Seskava tightened the leash
as she walked the dog past Joel's house and watched
the cover cut through the tape. She felt the weight
of the crate in the corner of the storage room
as a thing to be guarded. The chapter ends on
a clear concrete beat. Officers arrived at the house just
before dawn and replaced the barrier tape with a heavier
stamp quarantine seal. While sentinel three reds of final procedural
line on the secure feed Misseskov watches them from the
curb and places Joel's keys in the municipal evidence back
handed to her by the tech. Keep the safe, she
tells the tech. He nods and pockets the keys. The
dog presses its head against her ankle. The quarantine seals
are fixed to the door and a printed notice is
stable beneath it. The crat inside remains greened and cataloged.
The broadcast loops the final status and the red emblem
remains visible in the quite of the crate. That is
the situational end. The house secure, the file closed, and
the neighborhood moved her a new set of actions, governed
by instruction, not hope. And that is the end. Thank
you for listening, and I will see you in the
next one.