The public clock showed its first number as if it had been waiting for Jade to close the command form.
Seventeen percent.
The digits sat above the body table, small enough to look harmless until everyone understood where they had appeared. Public noise had been lying around the room all day. Comments, clips, wrong captions, shopkeeper memories, staff guesses, ugly little guesses dressed up as certainty.
Now the room had counted enough of it to make a stack.
JJ stared at the number with open disgust. "Seventeen percent of what exactly are we allowing into evidence?"
The answer came from the body table instead of the public drawer, which made the room change posture. Loose comments could be kicked aside. A filed stack had manners. Manners made bad evidence harder to hate where other people could see you hating it.
Zunoder placed one hand over the new stack. "The threshold for admission has been met, however offended everyone feels about the shape of it."
