"There's been an incident," Miller said.
"With whom?"
"Thirty-eight A."
Chloe waited, unsure whether he was referring to the turbulence. "Mrs. Davis? She helped calm another passenger."
Miller tapped the screen. "Passenger insulted the crew, refused safety instructions, and interfered with another passenger during turbulence. That's the record."
Chloe felt a cold sensation move through her chest. "That isn't what happened."
"She was moved for safety and then caused a disturbance."
"She fastened her belt. She was calm. She explained wing movement to the man next to her."
"Which is interfering with the crew's management of a passenger."
"You weren't there."
"I'm the purser. My record is the evidence."
He moved the tablet closer to her. At the bottom was a witness line already prepared with her name. Below it was a recommendation for an internal travel review, the first step toward placing a passenger under additional screening or temporary booking restrictions within Northridge. It was not a federal no-fly determination, but it could still make someone else's life unnecessarily difficult.
"Sign it," Miller said. "And Friday's review says you handled an incident well. Refuse, and it says you disobeyed the senior cabin officer."
Chloe looked at her own name on the form. For an instant she imagined how easy it would be to touch the signature box and make the threat disappear. She had a brother counting on her income and no savings large enough to cushion unemployment. The thought of losing her job for a stranger she might never see again frightened her so badly that she could hear her heartbeat in her ears.
"It says I watched and did nothing," she said.
"It says you confirmed what happened."
"But that's false."
Miller exhaled loudly. "The company reads the file, Anderson. Nobody reads the cabin."
She stared at him for a long moment. Here, finally, was the thing beneath the seat move, beneath the denied water, beneath the apparently polite suggestions that had brought Margaret to 38A. It was the belief that a document written by the powerful could erase the experience of everyone else. Chloe did not know how she would pay next month's rent if her probation ended, but she knew what her mother would have called the form.
"I'm not signing," she said.
Miller's smile vanished. "Think again."
"I've thought about it."
"Then Wilson at the gate can handle it. You and her both."
Chloe swallowed and stepped away from the tablet. "I still won't sign."
Miller closed the document without deleting it. He entered "Witness declined to confirm" in a free-text field and selected an escalation flag before setting the device on the charging shelf. Chloe watched every movement, storing the details in her memory, because she understood now that he was not merely angry with her. He was preparing to use the company's procedures as a weapon.