"Three," Rita said.
The white on the far wall took a breath. The deputies stood with their hands visible and the County IT balanced his clipboard like a scale that knows how to be fair. The half-door was warm under my palms, oak learned by fingers and years.
"Two," Rita said.
From the hedge, the host's voice arrived like a bell that likes sidewalks. "Seal, date, docket - or no story."
"Window up," Vivian said in Rita's ear. The replay board obeyed, our window plate riding left like a quiet law.
"One," Rita said.
The tally that wasn't ours but lived in our heads went red anyway.
I looked into the little mouth of the lens and gave it nouns. "Consent on Record is verifiable," I said. "No 'values' labels. Public Record Statement: index isn't a record; check seal, date, docket; please don't harass clerks."
Evan did not lean toward me; he leaned toward the fact. "I haven't consented to romantic staging today," he said. "If you see it, it's editing, not my consent. We'll speak when there is consent on record."
Our fingers met on the half-door rail for one heartbeat — deliberate, plain, not lace — and parted. It read as what it was: consent made visible, not sold.
A crawl under the replay tried to grow the word values. Standards sat on it with window so fast the attempt looked like a blink. Rita's thumb lifted the square we keep for thieves — misleading lower-third with two lines — and pinned it where anyone stealing would have to carry it too.
The first deputy's bodycam caught the corner of our frame and chose manners. "For the Audit check," he said, voice low, "we're noting incident number twenty-four dash five seven one three one, drone complaint. No further action." He wasn't asking; he was reading an honest sentence into air.
"Thank you," Rita said, and made it a record by letting her phone hear it.
The IT, who had not smiled all morning, made a tiny mark on his paper that could have been approval or posture. "Index isn't a record is correct," he said, for the log. "Window appreciated."
Strobe at :46 kissed the marble in the vestible, stayed behind our inside wide, and died without learning to brag. Victor's mouth made the half-smile of a man whose frequencies behaved themselves in public for once.
From the hedge, the host lifted us to the second rung. "One sentence each from the people involved," he said, and his eyes went to the vestibule like a man introducing a weather system.
Serena stepped into the far line of the vestibule's geometry — not into our inside wide, into hers. The mic on her jacket caught her voice the way you catch a glass before it falls because you've decided it will not break today.
"I choose to stand next to my work," she said. "This is mine. If I stand next to a person, you'll hear me say it. Consent on Record."
The host didn't gild it. He closed the minute with the exact bow of a man who likes bus stops. "Be kind to clerks," he said. "Back after the break."
"Cut," a floor voice said somewhere that wasn't here. The room we were in exhaled.
The deputies became civilians again without removing uniforms. The IT capped his pen like a man who believes in tiny endings.
"Thanks for the corridor," the first deputy murmured to Boone.
"Thanks for the verbs," Boone answered.
Rita's phone blinked twice — Vivian, then Standards. Vivian first: Board withdrawing second 'values'. Noon meeting moved to 12:20. They will push 'couch'. I will not. Standards next: Window overlay policy will be public today. Accessibility wins.
"Pinned," Rita said, half to herself, posting the window replay, our square, and Serena's line in one tidy thread. "No adjectives."
Nolan tried to appear at the service glass with a face that could have been contrition or practice. The supervisor's new human tapped the sign and the glass translated it without passion. Nolan's lens found its own reflection and hated the taste.
"Phones," Aisha said in our sleeves. "If you can, phones off for ninety minutes. Board will 'monitor' into lunch. If your devices are quiet, they will argue with themselves instead of you."
Vivian confirmed the gift like weather with manners. Two-hour quiet. I bought it with a bus stop and a lawyer.
Evan's shoulder brushed mine as he half-turned toward the corridor door. Not an accident; a map. The heat from the hedge that had lived in my blood clipped to the moment like a microphone lives to a collar.
"Come with me," he said, too soft to be theater.
I looked at Rita first, because rules are also love. She saw my look, saw his, saw the phones off in Aisha's line, and nodded like a friend who has been waiting for you to choose the obvious.
"Go," she said. "We'll finish the Audit check and walk Serena. window guard is on a timer. I'll text only if the building lies."
Boone ghosted a half-step toward the door that leads nowhere risky. "I'll ride the first elevator down," he said. "Then switch cars. You take the second."
The County IT raised his clipboard as if to give a benediction. "You're done here," he said. "With us."
Serena, from her line beyond our frame, caught my eye and spent a small, fierce smile like a colleague would spend spare sugar. "Later," she mouthed. "Sleep."
"Later," I mouthed back, meaning something else too.
We moved as a room that had learned to be small without being afraid. The half-door lowered itself despite being wood and my palms left heat on it that did not belong to television.
The corridor door clicked like an invitation that had done its homework.
"Keys," Evan said, a shorthand for phones, locks, water.
"Phones off," I said, and meant world off.
We stepped past the deputies with the nod you give men who did their jobs without asking for applause. Victor packed the last coil by simply touching it; it obeyed.
Rita's phone thrummed once more with useful weather. Vivian: I can hold Noon, but not the afternoon. Buy what you can now.
Boone opened the first elevator with a shoulder like a well-written sentence. He stepped in, faced out, hands visible. The doors closed on a man who believes that rooms can be taught manners.
We waited with the discipline that had saved us all night. The second car arrived like a promise to people who watch numbers.
The space inside was chrome and quiet. It offered us a mirror that did not ask for a show.
Evan looked at it, then at me, then down to our hands. His fingers lifted an inch, not for the lens, for me.
"Phones off," he repeated, softer. "Come with me."
Aisha's timer text slid into view like a green light. Go dark. Ninety minutes.
Rita, from two steps back, gave me the tiny salute of a woman who will hold the line while you do something else you also deserve.
I put my phone into airplane like a ritual. He did the same. The world shrank to chrome, breath, and the tilt of his mouth when he knows he's asking the right thing.
The elevator accepted us. The doors began to meet.
From the far end of the corridor, the press pen tried one last thin sound like a violin being tuned by a child. It didn't reach.
We let the doors close.