Chapter 9 · Continued
Normal Parameters
The usual appointment with CBIE was at ten. Chris arrived a little after nine.
Jane answered the door barefoot, coffee already in hand. Chris stepped inside smiling and kissed her lightly on the cheek.
Jane smiled back automatically.
Across the room, Cam watched them carefully.
“Hi, Cam,” Chris said after noticing him standing near the kitchen entrance.
“Hello, Chris. How are you?”
“I’m awesome now that I’m here,” Chris replied, glancing toward Jane again.
Cam processed this silently.
“Cam made coffee,” Jane said. “Want some?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
They moved into the kitchen, where the laptop already sat open on the counter, waiting for the session.
Chris noticed it immediately. “So, this’ll be my first time sitting through one of these beta evaluations. I’m actually pretty curious to see how RCAM handles them.”
Jane leaned against the counter. “It mostly feels like getting audited by a really polite spider.”
Chris laughed into his coffee. “Yeah. That tracks, actually.”
Cam stood nearby, listening quietly.
Chris glanced toward him. “I’ll be here if they ask anything technical. After what happened last time, I’d be shocked if they didn’t.”
Jane nodded, thinking back to Cam freezing in the living room and the hour she’d spent staring at him, unable to do anything except wait.
The memory still sat badly with her.
Her phone suddenly chimed.
Ten o’clock.
Jane exhaled slowly. “Okay, Cam. Time to plug you in.”
Cam stepped over to the counter without hesitation. Jane opened the panel in his side, connected the cable, then plugged the other end into the laptop.
The screen flickered, and CBIE appeared almost immediately.
Smooth. Professional. Perfectly composed.
“Good morning, Jane,” CBIE said pleasantly. “I see you have company today.”
“Yes. This is Chris. He helped me stabilize Cam after his system interruption.”
CBIE’s expression did not change, but the pause that followed felt deliberate.
“Yes. We have several questions regarding that event. I’m very glad you’re here with us today, Chris.”
Chris smiled slightly. “I figured you might be.”
The atmosphere shifted—not hostile, but measured, like two systems recognizing each other.
Jane settled back with her coffee. She knew Cam. Chris knew RCAM. And CBIE was about to find out that neither of them intended to be brushed aside.
“We reviewed the arbitration-instability logs associated with Cam’s interruption,” CBIE said. “There were several unusual recovery signatures following the intervention.”
“I figured there would be,” Chris replied.
“The repair methodology does not match standard RCAM remote-stabilization procedures.”
“That’s because it wasn’t one.”
No defensiveness. No apology. Just fact.