The archive core lights flicker over Keir Dalm’s face, and the live feed keeps rolling. On every public channel, Abby’s visor replay is already outpacing his edited version. The relay puck glows in his hand, useless now.
Keir Dalm
Wait. We can still settle this quietly. I can retract everything.
Outside the core, the crowd response surges through the feed, not with outrage, but with recognition. The biometric display on the cargo crate finishes its upload, locking the manifest into the public record.
Abby Stone
The archive locks are still open.
Keir’s posture sags as his own screen mirrors the uncut footage, his claims breaking apart under the timestamps. He looks from Abby to the camera, searching for an exit that is no longer there.
Keir Dalm
You don’t have to ruin me. Just... let the system handle it.
Abby stands between Keir and the hallway, giant and steady, with the entire truth now in public view. Her audience is waiting. So is accountability. One move from Abby decides whether Keir walks out under escort, or whether she seals him in for security to collect.
“Sorry Keir, but im dragging your ass through court until you've paid me for the attempted damages to my reputation and spend a few decades in prison for orchestrating an attack against me at the expo.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +0)
Abby’s words land like a verdict. Keir stops searching the hallway and looks straight at the lens, as if the camera can already hear the sentence forming around him.
Keir Dalm
No, no... not prison. Not with this feed live.
The relay puck slips from his grip and clatters across the floor. He lifts both hands, empty now, and the posture of a man negotiating collapses into surrender.
Keir Dalm
Fine. I will cooperate. I will turn over every record and accept custody.
Behind him, the archive’s public record keeps glowing, capturing every second of the admission. The open locks and exposed manifest turn the room itself into evidence.
Abby does not need to move to win the space anymore. Keir stays where he is, boxed in by law, by witnesses, and by his own broadcast.
A security escort takes over off-panel, and the tension in the core finally drains into silence. What remains is the clean, hard afterimage of consequences settling into place.
Keir Dalm
It's over. I surrender.
He lowers the relay puck and sets it beside the exposed archive core.
Abby Stone
Good. Let the record speak for itself.
The display keeps running, uncut and undeniable, while custody is finalized off-panel.
Abby Stone stood where the whole thing had finally broken, steady as the evidence that held it together. Keir Dalm was gone into custody, his name bound to the public record and the penalties that followed. The archive core remained open, and so did the truth, clean and permanent.