JJ's panel tried to spend her, and the red door stayed shut.
That was the first useful thing the room had done by accident. JJ claimed it before the office could turn the mistake into luck. Her panel kept offering the same sponsor trace, the same clean path, the same price. One stored name memory for a line that might point them toward the living witness Mercy had buried.
The losing version was simple. JJ lost a piece of herself, Zunoder got a hand on Ty's old name, and the witness stayed behind Mercy's wall. The witness was alive, and the route had to help that person survive the office. The win was smaller but real: reach them without paying a name.
The offer appeared beside every search she ran, from patient transfer logs and staff complaints to maintenance tags and Chair 7B's bad wheel.
