# Synthesis Memo - Chapter 04

chapter: `output/chapters/chapter_04.md`
raw Claude draft used: `output/drafts/claude/chapter_04.round_02.md`
draft lane: single Claude draft plus Codex integration, audit repair, and opposing-risk pressure
Codex parallel draft: none

## Source and Base Choice

Claude round 02 was accepted as the prose base. Round 01 failed before producing extractable markdown; the failed stream remains preserved as provenance. Round 02 supplied the core chapter engine the card needed: Sonia's as first commons, ensemble warmth, a public cover story built from true details, and Ruth's wrong-but-nearer concern.

## Kept from Claude

- Sonia's booth arithmetic and the practical seating pressure that places June and Theo side by side without either choosing it.
- The ensemble care texture: Sam's chair work, Priya's food care, Ben's train math, Luis's room/pencil precision, Mara's warmth-as-pressure.
- June and Theo's improvised origin story: Thursdays at the gallery, one flipped label among forty-three, the 4B pencil, and line eight.
- Ruth's comped-slot question and the napkin-map object as the first concrete form of her suspicion.
- Theo's receipt list as a private consistency tool and proof that the lie has become socially repeatable.

## Modified During Integration

- Repaired Dialogue Doctor findings by reducing fake-sharp table dialogue and clarifying Theo's interiority around the cover story and Ruth's question.
- Repaired Comedy Doctor findings by cutting/softening over-polished lines and lowering portable wit where the ensemble sounded too rehearsed.
- After Comedy Doctor round 2 advisory, changed June's exit line from "That's the gallery voice" to "You're still at work" to avoid reading-guide-banned dialogue diagnosis while preserving the beat.
- After Dialogue Doctor round 3, removed Mara's "That's three words" utterance-form rating and kept the pressure as "I have fries coming. Expand."
- Repaired legacy reading-guide banned phrase usage in Chapters 01 and 02 before the Chapter 04 gate, because the gate now carries the guide-derived ban across committed chapters.

## Audit Disposition

- Codex core audits: `claude_tic_audit`, `consequence_test`, `opening_hook`, `ending_quality`, `surprise_audit`, `unresolved_threads`, `continuity_check`, `voice_cover_names`, `editor_scored_check`, and `shared_vocab` all cleared after repairs.
- Triggered Codex risk audits: `complicate`, `convenient_invention`, `reaction_divergence`, `snapshot_conformance`, `yes_but_no_and`, `tension_naming`, `chat_variety`, `adversarial_register`, `counter_strip`, and `zoom_out_04` cleared.
- Claude Dialogue Doctor cleared in round 2 after repair; round 3 found one additional blocker under the amended reading-guide dialogue-diagnosis rule, which Codex repaired. Round 4 returned OVERALL: CLEAN and now occupies the canonical `chapter_04.dialogue_doctor.md` path.
- Claude Comedy Doctor round 1 produced blockers; round 2 verification cleared them. The final advisory produced the exit-line repair noted above.
- Claude Genericization and Narrator-Publicist audits both cleared. Narrator-Publicist flagged one future Theo watch item: credential clauses about his trained observation must be cashed out on the page or avoided.
- Mechanical gate after final line edits: PASS open=0, allowlisted=0, WATCH=260 across Chapters 01-04; Chapter 04 local WATCH count remains 68.

## Current Chapter Function

Chapter 04 now converts the false category from paperwork and class seating into public memory. It gives the cohort a story they can repeat, makes June's truthful lying both competent and dangerous, and opens Ruth's wrong suspicion without exposing the central lie. The committed chapter should leave the reader with warm panic: the table is lovable, and the lie has become easier to believe.
