Chapter 119: Two Books in the Warehouse
Our new books reached the same warehouse and were finally counted in different lives.
On Monday, two print runs waited in North Quay's receiving bay under separate ISBN cards.
The pallets had arrived through the production authorisations approved in December.
Arrival did not itself prove quantity, condition or correct account assignment. The intake protocol required sealed-carton counts, sample condition checks, ISBN reconciliation and dual confirmation before any copy became available for dispatch.
A warehouse supervisor opened my first carton while the intake camera recorded the seal.
I scanned the Seven Calls from Saltmere ISBN against my author account.
The system returned an old shared-client warning.
Its legacy field still attempted to group both new projects beneath Marian Crowe's customer number. The number belonged to the lawful six-book backlist, but its continued appearance here would recreate operational access the new contracts excluded.
That grouping would mix sales, returns and regional allocation reports.
It would also make each project visible through a shared operational dashboard.
I stopped the intake before either pallet received a storage location.
The supervisor opened a controlled account-separation ticket.
North Quay's distribution representative confirmed that the two contracts, ISBNs and return liabilities were independent.
The old customer number remained available only for the six existing books.
It could not serve either new title.
Two warehouse staff created separate inventory accounts under dual verification.
My account displayed my full authorised intake details. A test return entered against Saltmere stayed inside my account and produced no notification in the other project's environment.
The scan total reached 18,000 copies after carton and pallet reconciliation.
The system listed British and Irish regional allocations, reserve quantities and dispatch holds.
I checked every total against my own distribution schedule.
The regional caps matched the signed contract.
No Marian Crowe mailing list, old-series promotion or shared return reserve appeared.
The returns reserve remained a financial rule after advance recoupment, not a warehouse deduction.
The supervisor released my pallets into assigned Saltmere locations.
Each movement generated a separate scan and account entry.
The second print run remained behind a privacy partition in the same receiving area.
I could not open its cartons or inspect its regional plan.
North Quay provided only the aggregate fact permitted by the equal-status summary.
Midnight at Larkspur had received 9,000 copies under its own ISBN and inventory account.
The aggregate intake passed quantity and account-separation checks.
I saw no private bookseller list, territory detail, return setting or cost ledger for that project.
Its production team saw none of mine.
The shared receiving bay did not create shared commercial records.
The supervisor closed the legacy grouping warning after a second employee verified both account paths.
The separation log preserved the attempted old-number assignment and its correction.
That record mattered because a clean final screen could otherwise hide the original risk.
I signed my 18,000-copy intake certificate at 13:37.
North Quay sent the opposing team its own private certificate.
My read-only summary showed only `9,000 — INTAKE CONFIRMED — SEPARATE ACCOUNT`. The supervisor read that status from the separation certificate rather than from the opposing project's private inventory screen directly.
The publisher charged each project an independent account-setting fee.
My fee came from my distribution budget rather than a shared old-book account.
Separate accounts also removed the volume discount the two loads might have earned together.
I accepted both costs because shared savings would preserve shared reporting.
The physical result was less dramatic than a launch stage.
My eighteen thousand books occupied real warehouse positions under my own contract.
Their nine thousand occupied different positions under theirs.
The final-volume termination had paused neither lawful print run.
At 13:52, the supervisor marked both independent intakes complete.
Then my solicitor forwarded an early message from the independent accountant.
The German audio audit report had arrived ahead of schedule.