Evan's thumb hit Post. The rectangle went from intention to fact. His twelve words sat under his name like a beam that knew its load: I haven't consented to romantic staging tonight. If you see it, it's editing, not my consent.
Vivian's hearts hit a half second later. Is he taken? YES/NO. Pink counters that thought they were sugar. No window tag.
Rita's phone flashed white twice. "Logged," she said. "No window. Screenshot of the live hearts, timestamp on."
Aisha's voice arrived like a clean knife. "Sending note to Standards: 'social poll implies status without consent; classify as misleading unless paired with window or reframed to process.' Vivian, your inbox has it."
Vivian kept the weather smile. "Audience engagement," she said. "Not a claim."
"Then engage their ethics," Rita said. "Or wear the word misleading in notes."
Along the hedge, the room learned to breathe through two clocks. On one, Evans line gathered replies that started like noise and sharpened into people: thank you for verbs, consent isn't coy, editing ≠ consent. On the other, hearts poured into YES like spoiled rain. The shape was pretty, and useless.
Nolan's crop sprouted again from the press pen with a caption that enjoyed itself: He caught her. You know. Rita answered with the incident log, the shove angle, and the word that doesn't flirt: assault. She paired Evans post with the window plate like a seal.
"Floor wants a walk out for the hour," a producer said, sliding up on wheels nobody saw. "Wide down the faux street. Friendly."
"No unannounced intimacy," Boone said, and you could hear the hallway agree. He placed himself where a camera would have to ask permission.
"Wide only," Rita added. "Consent on record or we don't roll."
"Copy," the producer said, head dipping like she'd invented manners.
The host rejoined with the card he uses to land airplanes. "We can cap with a replay of the Consent Poll Result," he said, "then a thirty-second wide walk. If anyone tries to say a name into a mic, I pretend my earpiece fell out."
"Good," I said.
On a small monitor to our right, a chyron operator primed a ticker mirror of the hearts. Rita saw the pink and lifted her voice just enough to be caught by air. "Window on screen or run Consent Poll Result. Not the hearts."
The operator flinched, checked a channel where Standards lives, and swapped the bar. The hedge rewarded him by looking more expensive.
Serena stepped into her wide exactly where we'd agreed a human belongs. She didn't chase lenses. She faced a real door and let the frame come to her. The handler stood where handlers earn their pay.
"Quick sentence," the host said gently.
Serena gave the line she had built for rooms like this. "I choose what parts of me get rented and when I want them back," she said. "On record."
The Brand Rep's smile raced her words. "We're so proud to support that," he said, and then remembered he owed a noun. "We'll post every window we cut tonight."
"Do," Rita said.
Vivian's phone vibrated with a tone that means the person on the other end pays for flowers. She angled away by a degree and let the corridor hear only her face. It changed without moving. She looked at us again with weather that had a lawyer.
"We have a Brand issue," she said softly. "They're threatening a spend pause if we don't deliver a shared frame tonight. 'Friendly proximity' in wide. Ten seconds. No labels."
Rita shook her head once, the way you do at a child near a hot pan. "Addendum says no unannounced intimacy. Rider says wide with consent literal or nothing."
"They'll pause spend," Vivian repeated, as if dollars were a form of gravity. "People lose days next week. Editors do. PAs do."
Evan didn't change shape. "Paper first," he said. "Jobs need good paper to survive bad weather."
"Paper won't keep a junior from getting cut tomorrow," Vivian said, not cruel. "Friendly wide protects people you cannot name."
He looked at me then, not for permission, but because we carry rooms together. "Clock," he said. A question that is also a promise.
"If we give them a shared frame," Rita said, "it's labeled consent on the lower-third and sits next to the window plate as we walk. Ten seconds. No cutaways. No hearts."
Aisha cut in, crisp. "Morals clause 12.4 supports cooperation in good faith, not coerced intimacy. If they demand proximity to coerce spend, we memorialize it and hold Brand when the letter goes public. We can also offer a door geometry alternative that reads collaboration without posture."
"Door," Boone said. "Two doors, parallel, open to the same hallway, walk-and-talk with three feet between. Wide can read it. Long lenses cannot eat it."
Vivian breathed. "They won't love three feet," she said.
"They can love consent on a lower-third," Rita said, already typing a mock. "Shared exit with consent on record. Or they can love emails."
The host glanced toward the void that makes clocks. "We have sixty before the tuck," he said. "I can squeeze fifteen at the end, but only if we start walking now."
The hearts kept counting themselves on a phone we were not watching. Comments under Evans line kept thinning into the ones that matter: about time, say it again, don't let them steal verbs. Nolan's crop kept breeding under the bridge where nuance goes to nap.
Vivian held her phone against her chest like altar and shield. "Brand says ten seconds together or pause spend. That's the sentence. I need an answer in three."
"Tell Brand we offer door geometry," I said. "Wide, consent literal on screen. Ten seconds is fine. Hands visible. If they want closer, they spell consent again and run the window."
"They'll hate it," she said.
"They'll like not being BCC'd on Aisha's letter," Rita said. "And they'll like the Consent Poll Result we're about to show them more than hearts."
Evan's eyes touched mine and dropped to my bandaged palm, not as sentiment, as fact. "We don't feed them," he said.
"We feed them rules," I said.
Aisha's tone softened without going weak. "If they hold the spend anyway, we roadshow the letter with Standards tomorrow and loop in your agent, Evan. Your goodwill buys hours for crews. Use it for a door frame, not a hearts trick."
"Copy," he said.
Boone adjusted the corridor by a coin. It became two parallel lanes that any camera could understand if it wanted to. "Door," he said. "Walk."
The floor manager appeared with the half-smile of people who keep fires small. "In thirty to the tuck," they said. "We can tag the Consent Poll Result and fade into your wide walk. Fifteen seconds, then logo."
"Make the lower-third read Consent on Record," Rita said. "Right aligned. No 'clarify' anywhere in the system."
The graphics op who had chosen adulthood over cleverness nodded and typed like a person aware of gravity.
Vivian's phone hummed again, and her face told us the word before she said it. "Brand: 'we'll accept door geometry if the lower-third says 'consent on record' and the window plate sits on screen for the whole walk.' They added a frown. That's their way of kissing."
"Accepted," Rita said. "We're kissing back with a rerun of the Consent Poll Result on the big board while we walk."
The host chuckled once, dry as good bread. "Let's go make honesty interesting," he said.
We moved. Not a parade. Two doors, three feet of air, hands visible. The hedge gave way to the painted brick that has more experience than half the town. The camera found the wide and refrained from inventing gravity. The lower-third slid in obedient: Consent on Record. The window plate sat like a decent guest.
Serena and her handler passed through their own door ahead of us and did not turn to become story. The Brand Rep hovered where he could claim credit later without being seen now. Nolan wrote a caption in his head and tried to sell it to the air.
We walked. Ten seconds can be longer than a life if you let it. We didn't. We put it in a frame where it could not pretend to be something else.
"Logo," the floor said softly.
The hour landed. The tally cooled. The set remembered it was a neighborhood built for rent.
Vivian looked at us with a face you can work with. "Thank you," she said. "You may have just kept a dozen schedules from breaking."
"You're welcome," Rita said. "Send Brand their clip with window showing. CC Standards."
Vivian nodded. She will. She also will do something else. Weather always does.
Her phone chimed again - a tone none of us had learned yet. She read it, and for the first time tonight the smile left without putting something in its place.
"What," I asked.
She looked up at me and then at Evan, measuring us for a suit we hadn't ordered. "A stringer just sent the void a tip: county clerk index ping, event type license, Hale/E—"
Rita's pen tapped her phone once, a gavel small and definite. "[CHECK] source? County? Year? Alias?"
Vivian blinked, decided to be useful for one beat. "No document, just ping," she said. "The void will buy anything that moves."
Evan's jaw didn't change. It rarely does. He looked at me, not with apology, not with fear. With math.
"Live or nothing," he asked.
"Live," I said.
The host, ten feet away, lifted a hand and understood.