"She knows we're preserving the test data. She'll review the delivery before it leaves here." Clayton turned the monitor so she could see the twelve unit folders. "We aren't going to broadcast anybody's private footage. We aren't going to post the ugly part for people to argue over online. We're going to give the proper records to the proper people and make sure they can't disappear."
"And the copy we keep?" Erica asked.
"Secured with the lawyer, away from the shop. I learned the lesson when they took the cars." She put a hand over his, then went home to help Hope finish a school assignment about family history. The assignment asked children to draw a place that mattered to their family. Hope had drawn the red sign before she learned it had been taken down.
The copying took most of the day. Sherman stayed beside the installation binder, comparing the list of files against the signed testing schedule. Jaylen checked that every hour had a corresponding integrity value and that the total archive covered twelve vehicles over the required period. Rosa connected by phone several times to ask about retention, confidentiality, and the difference between preserving original data and distributing material that might contain ordinary customers in the lot.
Clayton insisted on the full, unchanged archive. He would not create a dramatic montage and ask a city official to believe it without context. The individual files were accompanied by machine-generated hashes, testing logs, and a list of the exact devices used during installation. When the copying finished near ten that night, the printer produced forty pages of checksums. Clayton counted the pages before clipping them into a neat stack.
Rosa arrived early Monday from Indianapolis. She wore a plum blazer, carried a worn brown briefcase, and had the expression of a lawyer who had read a client's plan and still found parts of it alarming. She examined the archive documentation, then asked Clayton what would stop Sutcliffe from obtaining the city's copy and ordering it destroyed.
"Nothing can make dishonesty impossible," Clayton said. "But a receipt makes disappearance a new act somebody has to explain. Purchasing isn't the same office as patrol. Neither is the records division. The more independent people hold the record, the harder it gets to erase all of it."
Rosa warned him not to trust an office simply because it belonged to a different department. She advised separate preservation through legal channels and confirmed that retaining a secured copy did not violate the contractor's obligations. Together they wrote a transmittal letter identifying the contract section, the archive format, the number of files, the checksum manifest, and the custodian accepting delivery.
At 9:00 a.m. on October 5, Clayton climbed the stairs to the purchasing office in Halcott City Hall. Ingrid Sato met him at the counter. She was small, precise, and composed, with reading glasses low on her nose and silver beginning to show in her black bob. She looked surprised to see him because the fleet contract remained suspended.
"Mr. Reed, I wasn't expecting a delivery," she said.