The host's hand stayed up, small flag, good timing.
"Top of hour in ten," the floor manager said, rolling a low circle. "We tease tomorrow's Pelham door. Consent lower-third. Window ready."
Vivian hovered in the wing like weather with good manners. "Keep it human," she said, not a command, a spell.
Rita's phone sat at sternum height where truth lives. The window card glowed on her screen like a patient shield. "Copy on tease," she said. "Standing wide at Pelham. Consent on record. Window on screen."
The tally blinked to ready on Camera A. The hedge waited, professional and green.
"Five," the floor said.
The host smiled into rent-paying light. "Welcome back," he said. "Tomorrow, a simple image: two doors, one hallway, standing wide at Pelham. Lower-third will read consent on record. Tonight, be gentle with clerks. We're back after the break."
"Cut," the floor said. The tally cooled. Air exhaled.
Rita's phone vibrated once, then again, then found urgency. She swiped and let the corridor see her eyes move. "Vendor drop," she said. "They posted a 'sealed record' scan. Watermark. Wrong seal."
Aisha's voice arrived like a gavel that can jog. "I'm filing misleading notices to platform and to Standards," she said. "Seal graphic is from a template pack; docket number is the wrong format for this county. We respond with your no seal, no story card and the Public Record Statement clip. Maya, say the three words on air. It immunizes."
"Post pinned," Rita said. The Public Record Statement sat at the top of the show account, clean sound, window on left, Public Record Statement on right. Beneath it, a square with three lines: index = search line · record = filed doc · no seal, no story. She mirrored it to my channel and Evan's before the room remembered to argue.
The control monitor coughed up a debate tile with two talking heads who enjoy being nouns. LICENSE? posed on their shoulders like a pet.
"Lose the heads," the host said gently into the void. "Give us a live mini and we'll teach instead of churn."
Vivian gestured something that in her dialect means I'll help you help me. "Thirty seconds," she said. "Window plate and Public Record Statement lower-third."
"In sixty," the floor said. "We'll take Camera C on the hedge."
Boone shifted a coin's worth. The roam-cam learned good manners.
Victor ghosted to my collar, checked the pack without touching skin, and smiled the craftsman's smile. "No whisper," he said. "Wind loves you."
"Wind is my friend," I said.
The prompt tablet peered like a child who had learned to apologize but not to stop. PROMPT: Ask about marriage glowed faint. Boone breathed and the idea lost its nerve.
"Thirty," the floor said.
Vivian angled her phone toward me. A Major-Blog tile had taken the vendor's scan and put it into a hug. EXCLUSIVE: LICENSE LEAKED? The question mark wore lipstick.
Rita's thumb flashed. "Logged," she said. "Pairing window with a four-word caption: no seal, no story. Tagging Standards."
Aisha typed like rain becoming order. "I'll email the blog directly with misleading language," she said. "If they won't retract, we'll publish our standards notes and let the void have a new toy called shame."
"Fifteen," the floor said.
The window plate readied itself on the program monitor. The Public Record Statement lower-third preloaded. The hedge remembered its job.
"Ten," the floor said.
"Five," the floor said.
"Welcome back," the host said. "Thirty seconds of education. Plate's up. Maya?"
"An index isn't a record," I said. "If you see a screenshot, check seal, date, docket. No seal, no story. And please don't harass clerks."
"Evan," the host said.
"I haven't authorized any release about my personal status," he said. "We'll speak when there is consent on record."
"Thank you," the host said. "Back after this."
"Cut," the floor said. The tally cooled like a promise kept.
Nolan from the press pen raised his voice high and oily. "Off record," he shouted, too loud to be off anything, "the county stamp is right there."
Rita lifted the square on her screen so the world could read. "Template pack," she said. "Wrong emboss. Wrong docket format. No seal, no story."
The roam-cam tried to find Serena's profile and Evan's shoulder in one accidental angle. Boone placed half a shoe. The accident decided to be a good citizen.
A producer in black slid by with a headset and the face of someone taught by storms. "We need a wide walk to the bay for top-of-hour," she said. "Friendly. Window on the replay board as we move."
"No unannounced intimacy," Boone said, and because he said it to space, the space learned obedience.
Vivian took a call with the voice of a woman who conceals knives and never drops them. She ended it and faced us. "Brand accepts Pelham door tomorrow," she said. "They added a condition: if another 'romance' frame runs tonight without consent displayed, they pause spend for a week."
"Then they should stop running hearts without window," Rita said. "Addendum and Rider still apply. If their side pushes a romance implication, they fall on their own sword."
Vivian smiled with all her teeth in their sheaths. "I'll send them that poetry," she said. "Let's walk."
"In thirty," the floor said. "Logo at the end."
Victor signaled my cable, a benediction. The hedge gave way to painted brick with experience. Serena and her handler took their own lane through their own door. Human. Not plot.
We walked. Not a parade. Two doors ahead in the picture, three feet between bodies, Consent on Record tucked in the corner, window plate on the replay board overhead. Lenses read the air and refrained from inventing gravity.
The host landed the hour clean. Music pretended to be comfort. The tally cooled. Air excused itself.
Rita's phone buzzed with the tone that means a large room has decided to be wrong. She showed me. The Major-Blog doubled down. They'd cropped out the missing docket and pasted a borrowed seal into the corner like a bad tattoo. SOURCE: VENDOR hid under a fold.
"Misleading times two," Aisha said in our sleeves, dry. "Sent a second notice with the words fabricated visual. If they don't pull, I publish our standards notes and tag their business team. Control loves conflict; boards love liability."
The PA who is a clock arrived mid-glide. "We can give you another live mini if you want to spike the fake before it finishes its lap," she said. "Thirty seconds, then we're clear."
Vivian looked at us like the weather consulting a calendar. "If you keep saying no seal, no story," she said, "even my mother will get it."
"Good," I said.
Nolan tried the old trick one more time. "If there's no record," he asked the air, "why not say the word married out loud."
Boone didn't even look at him. "Credential," he said, and Nolan's mouth remembered the price of verbs.
Evan's phone thrummed with the intimate tone that rarely means good. He glanced at the lock screen and left the message where it was. His agent's name lived there like a small weight. He looked at me instead. Map, not confession.
"Clock," he said.
"Paper," I said.
Rita checked Standards chat. "They'll carry a lower-third Public Record Statement if we do a third live mini," she said. "We keep the window on screen. We do not say yes or no. We say the same sentences until rooms learn them."
"Repetition builds roofs," the host said. "I have breath for one more minute if you do."
Vivian's phone brightened with a new tile from the Major-Blog. She turned it so we could all see the appetite. EXCLUSIVE: LICENSE LEAKED had decided it was tired of question marks. Beneath it, the fake gleamed harder, the wrong seal shining like a coin that thinks it's currency.
Rita lifted the window card until it haloed her knuckles. "Live in two if we want it," she said. "We pin the clip again. We put no seal, no story as the only words on the screen under our mouths. We tell people to stop calling the county. We get out."
Aisha's voice came in steady. "Standards will back you on air if you stick to Public Record Statement," she said. "If the blog doesn't retract, I'm sending the letter to their ad team. That ruins afternoons."
Boone listened to the corridor, then to the bay. "Route holds," he said. "Press pen is thinking loudly. Thinking is fine."
Victor breathed, the way sound men breathe when they like the wind. The hedge waited to be a witness one more time.
The floor manager lifted their hand, fingers ready to count. "In ten if you want it," they said.
The host looked at me and at Evan, not for permission, for map. Evan tipped a fraction of a nod.
"We hit it," he said.
"Go," I said.
The host's hand rose. The tally prepared to turn red again.