All inputs are verified. The line change at chapter line 97 is confirmed in the text, and I've re-pressed every mode against the current revision. The audit below is my full response.

# Dialogue Doctor — Chapter 09 ("Local Work") — Round 3 Focused Verification

Read cold against: `output/chapters/chapter_09.md` (current revision), round 1 audit (`output/critiques/claude/chapter_09.dialogue_doctor.md`), round 2 audit (`output/critiques/claude/chapter_09.dialogue_doctor_round2.md`), voice cards (June, Asha, Nia; global voice rules), `premise/READING_GUIDE.md` §2 (plain-speech floor; zero-tolerance dialogue diagnosis) and §6, `premise/patterns/reading_guide_bans.tsv`, the dialogue scene manifest (one scene, 01, lines 2–131), and the mechanical gate report (0 open findings; the "load-bearing" ban re-swept manually against the current text — no hits in narration or any speaker's mouth). Plain-speech floor re-verified on the current text: June's "I don't know." / "My sublet's up in January either way." (line 87) and Asha's "I've said yes to stable things that ate my painting time. I've also said no to rent money and hated myself by Tuesday." (line 103) stand unchanged; the conversation remains followable as text.

**Round 2 order execution, verified line by line:**
1. *(Round 2 order 1 — dialogue diagnosis + surviving feed-slot, lines 95–97)* Executed, as a hybrid of the order's two options. "Dana texts in nouns." is gone, and so is its host turn "That's as much pitch as I have" — the whole meta-communication run was deflated, not patched. June's feed line "That's the whole pitch?" was not merely renamed this time; it was replaced with a substantive vetting question, "What does Dana need?" (line 95), and Asha's answer is flat requirements in her card lane: "Rent on the first," Asha said. "No fish in the microwave. Probably a photo of whatever you keep in a corner." (line 97) — what Dana will want, nothing about how Dana communicates. Acceptance test from round 2 applied verbatim: (a) the beat contains no comment on any character's language — confirmed, the three items are a payment term, a house rule, and a vetting artifact; (b) June's question is not answered with a punchline — pressed below under FAKE-SHARP and passed. The diff is local: lines 95–97 are the only changed lines; every other line number cited in round 2 still lands on the same text (spot-confirmed at lines 27, 57, 85, 87, 89, 93, 103, 117, 119, 125, 129).

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## SCENE 01 (lines 2–131; gallery project room → loading dock; speakers: June, Asha, Nia [text], incoming artist, Marisol)

**1. VOICE CONVERGENCE: CLEAN** — re-ran the blind test with the new line in place, since the prior verdict depended on Asha holding no standalone epigrams. "Rent on the first. No fish in the microwave. Probably a photo of whatever you keep in a corner." is requirement fragments in her logistical lane, hedged ("Probably"), not a maxim; June still holds the chapter's only standalone epigram ("The wall's been here. The wall wins.", line 27). Strongest counter-candidate: the new line's three-beat list shape echoes Asha's earlier four-beat rate answer ("High hundreds. Heat is weird. Freight elevator sticks. Twenty-four-hour access.", line 93) — but that is self-consistency within one speaker's card register (short, information-bearing, schedule-aware), not convergence with June, whose adjacent lines ("How cheap is forgive?", "What does Dana need?") are single vetting questions. Covered attributions on lines 11, 27, 85, 97, 103: the speakers still separate on rhythm — June optical, Asha logistical-hedged.

**2. MONOTONE Q/A RHYTHM: CLEAN** — re-checked the lunch sequence with the revised question set ("Keys to what?", "Real money or arts money?", "You'd actually go?", "How cheap is forgive?", "What does Dana need?", "You'd take Philadelphia?"). Strongest counter-candidate: the new pair "What does Dana need?" → the three-fragment answer (lines 95–97) sits directly after the four-fragment rate answer at line 93, two short-question/short-list volleys in a row — it survives because the masses still swing around them (Asha's ninety-word Dana paragraph at line 89 before, June's hundred-word laugh-came-late interiority at line 99 immediately after) and the beats (the balled sandwich paper, the label pressed to the bucket) keep breaking the meter. No new symmetry introduced.

**3. MISSING INTERIORITY: CLEAN** — the round 1 repair stands untouched: "The cover had not worked. Asha had seen the wrong square and chosen the elevator anyway. June set the foamcore face-down on the crate dolly before she could make another mark." (line 57). Checked the new exchange's exit specifically, since the deleted "That's as much pitch as I have" turn changed what June is reacting to: the focalizer's mind is fully present after line 97 — "June laughed, and the laugh came late, because she was watching the thing happen that she had not planned for: the city growing a handle." (line 99) registers what the answer did to her, converts to the two-shapes-on-the-table judgment, and ends on cost ("You could not fail to move into a thing that did not exist."). Strongest counter-candidate remains the clipped test-square exchange ("It's a test." / "Of what?") — survives as before: three lines of motivated deflection with the cost landing immediately after.

**4. QUESTIONS-AS-STATEMENTS: CLEAN** — re-checked every question including the new "What does Dana need?" (line 95): genuine vetting inquiry in June's established lane, answered with substance, no portent manufactured. Strongest counter-candidate: "How cheap is forgive?" (line 91) — June quoting Asha's word back is the chapter's closest brush with a position in question costume; it survives because it is a real rate inquiry and the answer is a flat number plus caveats, not an extension of the conceit. No speaker delivers a verdict as a question.

**5. FAKE-McCARTHY MINIMALISM: CLEAN** — pressed the new fragments hardest, since "Rent on the first." / "No fish in the microwave." is the chapter's most clipped run: it survives because attribution is present ("Asha said," line 97), the compression is a requirements list answering a direct question rather than starkness for effect, and the register is the card's information-bearing shorthand. "Truck." (line 103), "Before Friday." (line 127), and "Six weeks if you can show up with a level. Pays late. Pays real." (line 125) remain schedule-true, blocked, and attributed.

**6. JARGON-TRADING WITHOUT TRANSLATION: CLEAN** — re-verified through the changed lines. Strongest counter-candidate: "Rent on the first" / "a photo of whatever you keep in a corner" (line 97) — both cash out on contact; "whatever you keep in a corner" is anchored by line 89's already-established corner-with-the-airshaft-window, so the reader can weigh exactly what Dana is vetting. The chapter's existing translations ("It'll flash… look like the wall has a rash," lines 29–31; keys/W-2/after-hours through June's swatch-reading at line 71) are untouched.

**7. ATTRIBUTION OPACITY: CLEAN** — read the revised run with attributions covered. Strongest counter-candidate: lines 91–97, where round 2's anchor turn ("That's as much pitch as I have," Asha said) was deleted — the run survives because the replacement line carries its own "Asha said" (line 97), the two-hander alternation is strict, and lane content assigns every line (rates and requirements Asha's, vetting questions June's). The three-speaker walk-through is unchanged and legible ("It doesn't read the same.", line 117, can only be the artist).

**FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN** — the focused press, since the replacement line occupies the slot where two consecutive rounds found punchline architecture. Strongest counter-candidate: "Rent on the first," Asha said. "No fish in the microwave. Probably a photo of whatever you keep in a corner." (line 97) — the third item rises slightly and the list has shape, but it survives every cut-list bullet: it is not an aphorism (each item is a literal, situation-bound requirement, worthless detached from this floor and this Dana); it is not a noun-question/portentous-answer pattern (the question is practical and the answer is practical); it is speakable as overheard sublet logistics, hedged with "Probably," and it arrives where Asha *should* be ordinary — relaying a roommate's terms over a sandwich — which is what she does. The "no fish" repetition of line 89's "someone who won't microwave fish" was pressed as a possible conceit-callback (the round 1 forgive→apology failure shape): it survives because it restates a literal house rule as a requirement in answer to a direct question, in flat delivery, rather than redeploying an epigram for a second laugh. Also re-pressed and surviving, unchanged from round 2: "I'd call. I don't know if I'd go." plus the yes/no history and "That's not advice." (line 103); "Don't make her chase you. That's rude even when everyone is broke." (line 129); the lie-down-in-the-loading-dock hyperbole (line 37); Nia's typed "Not a favor. I need someone who can run a job and fix the press. You're the shortest list I have." (line 69, composition world-true in a typed message); June's "The math here is a hobby I do at night." (line 87).

**INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN** — re-tested rule 9's second direction on the changed beat: nothing in June's line-99 paragraph paraphrases the new exchange — "the city growing a handle" and the two-shapes judgment add what the lines could not say, and the scene's other interiority anchors (the swatch-reading of *keys* and *after hours* at line 71, "kept this to herself with some effort" at line 119, the line 57 beat) are untouched. Strongest counter-candidate for over-explaining: "June laughed, and the laugh came late, because she was watching the thing happen" — the "because" clause explains the laugh's timing, not any speaker's line, and the laugh is June's own body; this is the focalizer's lived relation to the information, not a caption on the dialogue. The scene is neither dark nor doubled.

**DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS (reading guide §2, zero tolerance): CLEAN** — the round 2 blocker is confirmed removed: "Dana texts in nouns." appears nowhere in the chapter, and its host turn is gone with it; the replacement characterizes nobody's language (verdict evidence under the order-execution header). Full re-sweep of the chapter for the pattern, with the strongest residual candidates pressed: "No speech required." (line 93) — survives; it anticipates that the transaction will not demand a performance from June, a statement about the ask's size, not a characterization of anyone's actual language, phrasing, rhythm, or delivery, and the new line 97 now confirms it as literal (Dana's requirements are rent, a rule, and maybe a photo — no speech). "She said real paycheck. Knowing her, she means it." (line 83) — the person-targeting vouch sanctioned in rounds 1–2, with the phrasing-rating third sentence still absent. "a thumbs-up June had applied to it like a customs stamp" (line 63) — action simile, no language rated. "She made herself say so, internally, in those words." (line 109) — June disciplining her own internal phrasing, not speech. The words *keys* and *after hours* "examined at the angle you would examine a swatch" (line 71) — June doing something with what she read, the permitted move; the terms' content is weighed, their phrasing never rated. Zero instances remain.

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## REVISION ORDERS

None. No FAIL verdicts this round.

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**Non-blocking note for the orchestrator (carried forward from round 2, unchanged by this revision):** the relocated "send Nia my name" seed (Asha's card payoff; chapter card's "Asha for Ch 22") remains absent from this chapter; the want still surfaces at line 103. Continuity should confirm the seed's relocation or restoration before Ch 22 is drafted. Not a dialogue defect; not blocking.

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**OVERALL: CLEAN** — the single round 2 finding (dialogue diagnosis, "Dana texts in nouns.") is verified resolved by deletion of the line and deflation of its host beat, with the round 2 acceptance test met on both prongs. All seven failure modes plus FAKE-SHARP and INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION re-verified against the current text with counter-candidates shown; all round 1 repairs (mode 1 re-voicing, the line 57 interiority beat, the de-polished lunch sequence, both original diagnosis cuts) confirmed intact through the line change. The mechanical gate stands at 0 open findings and the book-specific "load-bearing" ban has no hits. Chapter 09 dialogue passes round 3 verification with no open orders.
