"Was it wrong to tell?"
"No," she said. "But being right doesn't make the next part easy."
He considered that, then climbed into the chair beside her and showed her a cardboard bridge he was making for school. The bridge sagged when he pressed gently on the middle. He asked what would make it stronger, and Therese suggested adding support beneath the place carrying the most weight. They spent twenty minutes gluing a strip of cardboard under the span, and she found herself thinking about all the support her workplace had failed to provide.
That evening, Benjamin Lindor called from a number Therese did not recognize. He sounded tired and kept pausing as though someone might be listening from the next room. He told her he had received a subpoena to testify at Monday's hearing and wanted to know whether she thought telling the truth would end his career. Therese reminded him that she was not his lawyer and could not predict what would happen.
"I watched him break the badge," Benjamin said. "I pressed the override. I took the briefcase. For eleven years I've told myself that enforcing orders was the same as keeping people safe."
"You know it wasn't the same," Therese replied.
"I do now. I think I knew before."
He told her about his twelve-year-old son, who had recently asked why people in security uniforms sometimes made visitors afraid. Benjamin had given him an answer about rules and responsibility, then felt ashamed because he could hear Warren's voice coming out of his own mouth. He did not want his son to learn that a good job was one in which you obeyed the strongest person in the room. He said he would testify honestly even if that meant acknowledging the things he had done.
"Don't thank me," he said when Therese began to respond. "I've had a long time to do the right thing. I didn't use it."
"Then use Monday," she answered.
Benjamin ended the call and sat in his parked car for almost half an hour. He had joined Summit after leaving a municipal security position that paid too little to support his family, and he had been grateful when Warren promoted him. Promotion had brought better wages, more responsibility, and slowly a requirement to ignore what he knew about fair treatment. He was beginning to understand that gratitude had been turned into a debt Warren expected him to pay forever.
Daniel spent Saturday morning at Rory's office meeting with a forensic technology specialist retained to preserve and analyze Summit's access systems. The specialist explained that the original scanner log could establish the verified read and the manual override, while the recorded audio could identify who instructed Benjamin to perform it. To establish how long discriminatory screening had operated, however, they would need historical versions of the risk-scoring rules, user-access records, and comparisons with legitimate security incidents. Daniel approved the work while reminding the team that any conclusions must distinguish documented misconduct from assumptions.
A smaller room had been reserved for people willing to discuss past incidents confidentially. Rory contacted several names from Therese's notebook through independent channels, explaining the limited purpose of the interviews and allowing anyone who wished to decline. Two agreed to speak before the hearing. One was Teresa Delgado, the safety supplier; the other was Emeka Okoye, the contractor whose bid meeting had appeared near the start of the notebook.