The blue light pooled on the concrete. The clip will have a noun we didn't choose.
Boone did not let the noun own the room. "For your report," he said to the body cam, steady as furniture, "drone complaint - paper dropped from a device - paper appears fabricated. We request the incident number."
Coffee Voice blinked, then remembered forms like a man remembering his wallet. "Incident will be generated," he said. "Dispatch will give it in a minute."
"Please note we request window on any bodycam release," Boone said. "Context plate or plate equivalent."
Lazy Eyes found that interesting without making it his problem. He looked at the rectangle in his partner's hand, then at the real guard. "You received a drone complaint," he said to the guard, turning the sentence into furniture. The guard nodded.
Rita kept her phone at sternum height where truth lives. The red dot on her screen glowed without vanity. "Recording," she said, not to the officers, to the universe.
Victor held the paper by a corner, offering it like a bad bird. Coffee Voice slid it into an evidence sleeve that had been trained to accept nonsense with grace. He wrote something that would later be a line in a database.
"Seal, date, docket," I said, not as a correction, as a song a room can learn. "No seal, no story."
"Logged," Coffee said, and almost smiled like a man enjoying an honest category.
The real guard did his job without cosplay. "I'll add the time stamp to the building log," he said. "Two stringers outside cited for blocking earlier."
A small chirp came from Coffee's radio. He listened, then looked back at Boone like a colleague who has decided not to add friction. "Incident is 24-57131," he said. "Incident number 24-57131. 'Drone complaint, paper drop.'"
Rita repeated the number out loud so sound could become memory. "Twenty-four dash five seven one three one," she said, and her thumb made a small white square that turned a number into a thing you can show to strangers.
Aisha came in through our sleeves like law, not theater. "Thank you, officer," she said for a record that will never hear her. Then to us: "I'm emailing PIO with the incident number and the words 'drone complaint - request window on any footage; please avoid the word 'license' in public statements.'"
Lazy Eyes made a low hmm, the kind rooms grow when they've decided to be civilized. "We won't comment on records," he said, choosing a good noun.
"Appreciated," Boone said.
The officer's gaze did the half circle that releases everyone from ritual. Blue light made his cheek look like a surface. "We're done here," Coffee said. He lifted the sleeve a fraction to show polite custody. "We'll log the drop."
"Please add 'do not call the county clerk' to any dispatch notes," I said. "It saves a lot of humans."
"Noted," Coffee said, and this time he smiled like a man who appreciates fewer phone calls.
They stepped backward the way trained bodies leave rooms - not turning, not displaying. Their boots returned the concrete to the concrete. The blue light shortened into itself and slid away.
Rita exhaled a sentence. "Window guard stays on," she said. "We post nothing tonight except the card, the clip, and six words - unless a mislabel uses the incident number against us."
Vivian's name lit her phone at once, polite as bad weather. Stringer claims 'police confirm license' - says he 'heard it on bodycam'. A second line: Board wants to know if we counter now.
"Board can wait," Rita said. "We counter with window plus the incident number if and only if the blog uses the phrase 'police confirm'. Anything softer gets ignored."
Aisha added steel. "If the stringer sells his 'I heard it' to the blog, we reply with: 'Bodycam recorded an officer using the wrong noun. The incident number 24-57131 is a drone complaint. Index isn't a record.'"
Boone turned his shoulders from blue toward elevator. "Walk," he said.
We moved as a room that remembers it is allowed to be quiet. The guard walked with us for nine steps as a courtesy a building pays when it has chosen sides - not mine, not theirs, just decent. He peeled off at the booth and wrote a neat number. Rita read it without reaching: 23:18.
The ramp gave back the sound of our shoes. Victor's kit rode against his thigh with the calm of a toolbox that has not lied tonight. Evan remained at the corner - visible, not close - his hands open, hands visible, as if the air itself had asked to be reassured.
The elevator received us with the patience of metal that has seen worse. Boone stood where a hinge belongs. Rita held her phone like a lantern that makes truth rather than warmth. I felt the pad on my palm and let the sting be a small price for a large rule.
We rose through numbers that mean less at this hour. The doors parted onto a hallway that pretends it is a choir until someone speaks. A neighbor's peephole practiced its stare.
Ten feet ahead, a door opened on the air as if summoned by rumor. A man in a T-shirt held a phone like a child holds a sword. "Hey," he said, nice in the way people are when they think they are about to become information. "Are you two married or what."
Rita's voice chose polite and precise. "Public Record Statement," she said, and handed him a printed card instead of a conversation. "Index isn't a record. No seal, no story. Please don't harass clerks."
He looked at the card, blinked, and tried for charm. "So that's a yes if the seal shows up."
"Credential," Boone said without volume, merely opening the space around the word. The man's phone lowered by instinct, the way hands obey gravity when reminded.
"I'm a tenant," he said, defensive without being a threat.
"Us too," I said. "Good night."
He looked at the card in his hand as if it were a language he could learn if he wanted. "Okay," he said, and his door returned to its own business.
The hallway resumed its imitation of a choir. We reached my door. The lock recognized me like a patient, nonjudgmental friend. Inside there would be walls, water, and the exact mercy of silence. We didn't go in yet. You don't walk off a storm at the threshold. You let it choose to be weather.
Rita killed white-noise and double-checked the small future we had built. "09:30 window card scheduled across accounts," she said. "Pelham 09:40 route to Serena and the host. 09:55 wide with consent on record lower-third and caption window on the board. Victor's capture pinned. Program chat archived. Standards cc'ed."
"Board?" Vivian typed. Watching sentiment. No more hearts tonight. Window on all replays.
"Good," Rita said aloud, to the goddess of small wins. "Keep their hands busy with plates, not polls."
Evan spoke like a man taking the weight he will carry to the next place. "Clock," he said, soft. "I'll be at Pelham at 09:35. If they build a trap en route, I walk slower and let Boone refactor air."
"Paper," I said. "If the blog runs 'police say license' off that bodycam syllable, we speak once. We use the incident number and the six words. We do not argue with comments."
Aisha chimed in with a ping that sounded like a gavel being kind. "PIO replied," she said. "Incident 24-57131 - drone complaint logged. No comment on records. They also thanked you for the line about not calling the clerk. That is on the record."
"Good," Rita said, and meant useful.
Her screen lit again, colder. Major-Blog had pushed a teaser banner across its front like a circus tent: Police Say License - Exclusive Audio. Under it, a montage of thumbnails that were not courts made an argument no court would love.
"They will set it to run at midnight," Aisha said. "They love their clocks."
"Then we keep ours," I said.
Rita built a rectangle in twelve seconds because memory has muscle. It was not persuasion. It was a receipt: incident number 24-57131, drone complaint; Public Record Statement; index isn't a record; no seal, no story. The window plate sat small and honest in the corner.
Victor adjusted the angle of hallway light with a hand like a level. Boone checked the gap under the door and the gap behind our backs. Air learned manners.
"Short note," Rita said. "Nineteen seconds. No adjectives. We speak the number and the words once. We pin it. Then quiet hours holds."
"Speak it," I said.
She raised the phone. The red dot looked at me the way a small witness looks - willing, if you give it verbs.
"Count," Evan said, not for control, for rhythm.
Rita's eyes flicked to the time in her corner. Midnight minus two.
"On record," she said. "Incident number 24-57131 - drone complaint. Index isn't a record. No seal, no story. Please don't harass clerks."
We had not yet said it into our camera. We had decided to.
The blog would not be first.