# Dialogue Doctor - Chapter 09 - Round: Reader-Directive Sweep (2026-07-24)

Scope: full cold re-read after: math-tic dialogue replacement (concrete paycheck/invoice contrast, revised again to remove an em dash), billable-hours tail cut. Updated style rules applied. Prior rounds preserved on disk.

SCENE S1 (job site, June/Asha over the wall):
- 1: CLEAN - Asha's freight shorthand ("Truck's at two... I will personally lie down in the loading dock") against June's paint reasoning ("It'll flash. It'll look like the wall has a rash."); no convergence.
- 2: CLEAN - technical exchange varies from one word to four sentences.
- Remaining modes CLEAN.

SCENE S2 (lunch, Nia text + Asha leads):
- FAKE-SHARP re-verification of the replacement: "Down there it's a real paycheck. Here it's this." She tipped the cup at the wall. "I just made a room perfect for somebody else's show. One line on an invoice." - mechanism-concrete, speakable, no moral-arithmetic tic; "Here is bad," Asha agreed. keeps her blunt register. CLEAN.
- 3: CLEAN - June's suppressions are registered ("did not say that she had spent six years not catching up").
- 6: CLEAN - trade terms (renewal odds, net-45) carried with enough context to weigh.
- Remaining modes CLEAN.

SCENE S3 (walk-through): CLEAN - the artist's cold-wall complaint lands as dramatic irony with June's silence registered in action (hand on the ladder rail).

Tail-strip verification: billable-hours button cut; kept "The wall's been here. The wall wins." (spoken, not narration) and the untucked-foamcore ender. Density within cap.

OVERALL: CLEAN
