# Chapter 15 Synthesis Memo

## Source Drafts

- Claude prose base: `output/drafts/claude/chapter_15.round_01.md`
- Accepted chapter: `output/chapters/chapter_15.md`
- Drafting lane: single Claude draft plus Codex integration, then opposing Claude risk audits and Codex-owned core audits.

No Codex parallel prose draft was used. Codex's role was integration, repair, and continuity/audit synthesis.

## What Stayed From Claude

- The apartment pressure: nine borrowed catalogs physically too large for June's room, the paper-slipped volume protected but unread, and the mineral spirits jar kept unopened.
- The central offer call: Nia gives June a genuinely good Tasker Street offer rather than a strawman or rescue speech.
- The job's lure through machine maintenance: June's attention going first to `true up the Vandercook`, with the after-hours wall remaining a written line rather than a chosen future.
- The Asha/Kessler/Dana counterweight: New York remains possible through June's own work network, but materially riskier than Tasker.
- The contrast with Theo's text thread: he keeps the `After Class` chair-count promise and knows nothing about Nia, Tasker, Asha, Dana, Kessler, or the Dec 4 deadline.
- The close on object consequence: `FRI DEC 4 / NOON` written on the Marchetti Rooms receipt and pinned under the unopened jar.

## Major Integration Repairs

- Repaired raw mechanical blockers: one-sentence paragraph density, banned `after a moment`, banned echo-line construction, and banned `for a long moment`.
- Flattened Nia's over-polished call rhythm and removed zinger density while keeping her direct institutional candor.
- Made money explicit on page: $49,500/year, $1,180 nearby Tasker rent, June's current $1,475 rent, and Kessler's $3,840 gross paid in March.
- Protected the catalog reveal: all nine catalogs remain in June's apartment, paper-slipped volume on the bottom, no acknowledgment page read.
- Removed dialogue-diagnosis and aphorism drift: cut delivery captions, de-quotablized the coat-count reply, and removed Nia's self-caption.
- Recast the press/wall realization away from a pre-solved thesis: no `Not the wall. The press.` stamp remains; the line of interest and back-room image carry the pressure.
- Cut portable/over-composed prose: closing press-room reprise, flyer-photo captioning, Asha figure-stack, and receipt personification.
- Applied Voice Check 15 span repairs across touched chapters: Ch13 bare `"Mm."` attached to action; Ch14 parting varied and reopened around the group-thread arrival; Ch13/Ch14 object-as-agent figures reduced; Ch15 call-station/inventory rhythm pulled back toward June.

## Audit Disposition

- Codex-owned core/risk audits: `consequence_test`, `opening_hook`, `ending_quality`, `surprise_audit`, `unresolved_threads`, `continuity_check`, `voice_cover_names`, `editor_scored_check`, `shared_vocab`, `convenient_invention`, `snapshot_conformance`, `specificity_test`, `interchangeability_test`, `seed_payoff_15`, `npc_goals_15`, `meanwhile_15`, and `adversarial_register` returned clean/no blocking prose orders.
- Dialogue Doctor: final round 5 returned `OVERALL: CLEAN` after later dialogue repairs.
- Comedy Doctor: latest canonical order was the receipt-personification close; Codex cut `or otherwise excuse itself`.
- Clarity Pass: round 2 returned `CLEAR-UNDER-COMPLEXITY` after calendar/elapsed-time repairs.
- Thought Development: returned `OVERALL: DEVELOPED`, no orders.
- Characters Wrong: returned `WRONG-ENOUGH`, no orders.
- Positive Prose: latest orders were accepted and executed: closing reprise cut, flyer crop made optical, Nia self-caption removed, Asha figure-stack collapsed to literal scrap/phone action.
- Plain Translation: all four orders executed: Asha delivery caption removed, coat line de-quotablized, Nia `Noon.` echo cut, equipment phrase varied.
- Voice Check 15: all eight orders executed across Chapters 13-15; the Ch16 packet must inherit the no-solitary-Theo-clerical-opening correction.

## Final Verification

- Chapter 15 gate: PASS open=0 allowlisted=0 WATCH=41.
- Full manuscript gate across Chapters 01-15: PASS open=0 allowlisted=0 WATCH=918.
- Dialogue scene manifest: OK, missing_doctor_files=0.
- Prose variability audit: PASS.

## Carry Forward

- Ch16 must keep Theo ignorant of the offer and deadline.
- Ch16 must keep the catalog acknowledgment protected for Ch17.
- Ch16 should show June carrying the private Dec 4 clock through behavior, not explanation.
- Ch16 Theo POV must open through other people or live class action, not another solitary clerical/gallery setup.
