The first bar woke and leaned toward YES. A second later, NO remembered it had a job and rose half as fast. The hedge breathed like a set that has done this before.
"Ten seconds on the poll," the floor murmured, eyes on the monitor where numbers try out being truth.
Vivian watched the bar like a sommelier watching a pour. Her phone sat open to a draft with hearts that believed in themselves.
Rita kept her phone at sternum height where truth lives. "Standards has our plate," she said. "If your social review_v5 runs, it runs with a window tag or it becomes misleading on paper."
"Audience engagement," Vivian said, gentle weather. "We aren't claiming anything."
"Your question implies a status," Aisha said in our sleeves, clean as a gavel. "Is he taken? implies information you cannot put on record without consent. Reframe to process or pair the window. This is not optional."
The floor tapped a finger. "Three," they said.
A producer in black tried to be clever and drifted Serena's wide two steps toward Evan's vector like magnets might fall in love on command. Boone shifted weight by a coin. The air discovered new respect.
"No unannounced intimacy," he said. The producer nodded like it had been her idea.
"Two," said the floor.
The bars twitched one last time like fish deciding. YES settled at seventy-two. NO at twenty-eight. The graphic didn't gloat. Neither did the room.
"Result," the host said, voice even. "Seventy-two percent YES to Should shows ask for consent before framing romance? Thank you for voting."
The Brand Rep's mic woke before his caution did. "That's exactly our value," he said warmly. "At Halcyon we believe in consent-first storytelling and we -"
"Caption window for the replay," Rita said over the shoulder of the control monitor. The plate popped in at lower left on the program feed like context keeping its promise.
" - will post our window tonight," the Rep finished, suddenly pious.
Nolan's voice slid from the press pen toward every open microphone. "Off record," he called, too loud to be off anything, "America just watched a catch."
Rita's phone vibrated against bone. She flicked once and showed me a crop: my body tilting, Evan's forearm under my ribs, the instant before gravity remembered who it was. The caption Nolan had chosen enjoyed its own reflection: He caught her. We know what that means.
"Incident log at 19:02," Rita said, calm. "Two angles. Assault, not accident. Hands visible."
"CC Standards," Aisha said. "I'll add: 'cropped to exclude context' equals misleading. If his deck goes paid, they'll enjoy consequences."
"Logged," Rita breathed.
Evan didn't look at the crop. He looked at me. "Clock," he said. "Post on mislabel only."
"Paper first," I said, and checked the twelve words we had shaved clean. "Say it exactly."
He nodded once, like weight that knows the right shoulder. "I haven't consented to romantic staging. If you see it, it's editing, not my consent."
"Add 'tonight'," I said. "Make it verifiable."
He tasted the revision. "I haven't consented to romantic staging tonight. If you see it, it's editing, not my consent."
Rita typed, fast and neat, into a rectangle that would become the only version anyone had to argue with. She linked the window plate as an image, small, honest, with the time stamp a little proud.
"review_v5 social poll in ninety," Vivian said to the corridor and to the conversation and to the idea of control. Her smile invited rain to think kindly of roofs. "Hearts test well. Audience enjoys choosing sides."
"The Consent Poll already gave them the right side," I said. "If your hearts go live, we answer with window and we escalate."
Vivian's eyes flicked to a space none of us could see. The assistants nearest her became quieter. "We love letters," she said, and her teeth weren't a joke.
The host read a cue the way men read responsible weather. "We'll roll a replay with the window plate and then I land the hour," he said. "No squeeze questions. No winks."
Victor breathed a millimeter. "Room tone stays honest," he said. "Let silence be a word."
The replay ran in the monitor with the caption window sitting like a little flag. The audience made the low sound people make when they like being read like adults. The floor counted us into the last beat of the block. The arch sang its exit chord.
"Cut," the floor said.
The tally cooled. Air put its work clothes back on.
Rita's phone lit: a push from Nolan's feed, the crop already sprouting comments that wanted to audition for decency. She shoved a pointer to Aisha and then showed me Evan's draft one more time, cursor waiting.
"Window paired," she said. "We post only if Vivian's hearts go live without plate."
Vivian tilted her head a degree, as if listening to a polite ghost. "Two," she said. "We're pushing the hearts in two."
"Window on the hearts or you admit you're implying," Aisha said in our ears. "Your call, Vivian."
A PA who is a clock became visible again, holding a number that had learned new math. "In thirty to tuck," she said. "Graphics loaded with 'Consent Poll Result'. The void approved this sentence: 'We heard you.'"
"Say it and land," the host told himself as much as us. "No drift."
At the wing a different producer tried a smaller geometry cheat, sliding a roaming camera to catch the angle of my hand and Evan's shoulder in one friendly accident. Boone breathed. The camera learned manners.
Serena's handler kept her in the far wide, human, not plot. Serena glanced across the space and let her eyes say still civil. That's a skill.
Rita's phone tapped twice, the tone she uses when paper moves without her hands. "Hearts scheduled," she said. "No window tag in the preview."
Aisha didn't sigh. Lawyers rarely do. "Post the line on mislabel," she said. "Time it to their push. Document the delta."
Evan watched the invisible clock as if it were a living thing he could carry and not drop. "On your count," he said to me, because people should not push sentences into rooms without a witness they trust.
"Make the first word 'I'," I said. "We don't outsource verbs."
He nodded. "I haven't consented to romantic staging tonight. If you see it, it's editing, not my consent."
Rita copied it into the box that makes rooms honest or worse.
Vivian smiled as if we were discussing centerpieces. "We're up," she said. "Hearts travel faster than law."
"Window travels longer," Rita said.
The PA lifted a hand. "In ten," she said for the tuck. That was a different clock. We were watching two.
Rita held her phone to me, the post ready, the plate nested like a seal. "You count," she said.
I watched Vivian's eyes, because the eyes of rooms tell time. Somewhere a social manager's thumb hovered, hungry.
"Three," I said.
Nolan's crop ticked upward, comments multiplying like beans on wet paper.
"Two," I said.
Evan's thumb waited above a button that is not dramatic until it is.
"One," I said.
He hit Post.