# Chapter 22 Synthesis Memo - Current Draft

## Provenance

- Claude prose base: `output/drafts/claude/chapter_22.round_01.md`.
- Codex counterdraft: `output/drafts/codex/chapter_22.md`, used for pressure only.
- Claude audit of Codex counterdraft: `output/critiques/claude/chapter_22.codex_tic_audit.md`, verdict `CODEX-TICS-FOUND (18)`.
- Integrated chapter: `output/chapters/chapter_22.md`, current word count 2,349.

## Synthesis Decision

Claude's draft remained the prose base. The Codex counterdraft was rejected as prose source because Claude found arrangement-coded object displays, tricolon/status-report dialogue, thesis closers, and over-controlled transitions. Codex used it only to pressure three craft decisions that are now in the accepted chapter: apology before portrait, stricter portrait consent terms, and the final index-card economy.

## Accepted Repair History

- Raw mechanical blockers were repaired before audit escalation; current gate passes with open=0, allowlisted=0, WATCH=37.
- Dialogue Doctor repairs removed payment ambiguity, dialogue-diagnosis captions, over-polished apology/portrait terms, and stale sugar-caddy staging. After the Characters-Wrong repair and the plan/position preemptive repair, Dialogue Doctor round 5 returned `OVERALL: CLEAN`.
- Positive Prose repairs replaced the Dana "expression of a woman..." mind-read with observable fact, cut the sugar/memorizing sibling before the kiss, put failed replies on screen, broke polished apology speeches, and removed generic thesis/caption prose. After the Characters-Wrong repair, Positive Prose round 4 returned `INHABITED`.
- Comedy Doctor repairs cut workshopped/portable comic tags, including the final opening `cataloguing` clause. After the Characters-Wrong repair, Comedy Doctor round 5 returned `CLEAR` and reset tracker ceilings/counts for deflecting tags, just coffee, conduct grades, cup-misdirect, self-noticing, `where to stand`, `useful`, and `Oh`.
- Narrator-Publicist returned `CRITICAL-DISTANCE-HELD` with no revision orders. The wrapper exited rc=1 after a five-hour Claude limit event, but the audit artifact itself is complete and saved.
- Plain Translation round 2 returned `REGISTER-HOLDS` with zero orders on the current repaired text. The wrapper exited rc=1 only after the artifact was written, due a hard seven-day Fable 5 limit; the limit exception is documented at `output/critiques/codex/chapter_22.post_repair_limit_exception.md`.
- Characters-Wrong round 1 found `TOO-COMPETENT (3 findings)`. Codex accepted the finding and repaired the booth middle: Theo's freight-elevator usefulness now actually lands before June cuts him off, June wrongly hears Theo's measured response as a plan for either answer, and the fear-canvas turn no longer uses `beating her there`. Characters-Wrong round 2 returned `WRONG-ENOUGH`; a later four-line preemptive repair moved sentence-talk to plan/position talk, and current-text Dialogue/Comedy/Positive/Plain audits verified it preserved the Characters-Wrong fix.
- Codex-owned core/risk audits have been refreshed against the current text: consequence, opening hook, ending quality, surprise, unresolved threads, continuity, voice cover names, editor scored, convenient invention, shared vocab, Claude-tic, adversarial register, counter-strip, earned test, set piece, complicate, yes-but/no-and, and emotional subtitle. Current disposition: no prose orders.

## What the Accepted Chapter Keeps

- June's Ch21 reply belongs to Ch22: `Sunday. 9. Just coffee.`
- The private diner scene answers asymmetry first: Theo names information control and Odile/institution facts before any art-object repair.
- June's stay remains self-owned: she declined Tasker before Theo's texts and only then tells him the Dana/Kessler/Asha sequence.
- The booth repair is fallible rather than frictionless: Theo still offers crates/freight-elevator help at the wrong moment, and June briefly misreads being understood as management without cleanly retracting it.
- The portrait remains governed by consent: faced in, June turns it if she wants, no Odile/wall/guest-list path.
- The first real kiss is private, off-center, brief by June's choice, and explicitly after terms are set.
- `After Class` is armed for Ch23 with Tuesday 4:00, jar/stain/side terms, and June watching Theo finish his side.

## Rejected / Deferred

- Rejected: any Codex counterdraft passage that catalogued objects as display proof, stated the relationship thesis, or gave June/Theo public-grand-gesture energy.
- Rejected: using the portrait as apology, evidence, or proof of love.
- Deferred: the portrait's visibility choice and any public/class disclosure to Ch24.
- Deferred: Dana/Kessler/Asha material follow-through and Priya/Ben payoff to Ch23.
- Deferred by hard Claude limit: exact-current Thought Development and Narrator-Publicist reruns after the final four-line repair. Current-text Dialogue/Comedy/Positive/Plain audits explicitly covered the changed middle; exception documented in `output/critiques/codex/chapter_22.post_repair_limit_exception.md`.

## Current Blocking State

No known prose repair is open. Chapter 22 was final-gated and committed as `abee67c finalize chapter 22`. Claude Fable 5 is hard-limited until 2026-07-10T13:00:00Z, after the launcher deadline; do not retry Claude inside this run window unless the user changes credit/model state.
