Sera read the worker’s summary aloud because the woman did not want to hold another paper that morning. She sat beside a cold stove in the temporary workshop, one shoe still tied with its broken lace. Outside, runners waited for the report. The council vote had acquired the quality of weather approaching across open ground.
“When you checked the displayed history after evacuation,” Sera read, “you found an assignment different from the instruction written before activation.”
“After treatment,” the woman said.
Sera stopped. “You checked it after treatment?”
“I didn’t open it in the yard. I thought I had, until you asked. I opened it here, when the official wanted the reference.”
Eli looked at the page. The interval they had given was too narrow. It did not destroy the signature result, but it falsely sharpened the witness’s chronology. He could imagine the official who would notice first and use that small mistake to make every other part look arranged.
Sera drew a line through the timing phrase. “We’ll correct the interval.”
“And take my identity out of the public description. Not just my name. My family room, the number of people in it. Anyone on that corridor would know.”
