Chapter 112: After the Exit
Dating Jonah gave me fewer rights to the public file, not more.
On Friday, KRR opened a conflict meeting around one permissions screen.
Samuel sat at the head of the table as custodian of the publication process.
Dana represented me.
Miriam represented Jonah across the same room under a separate engagement.
The source records, logs, witness statements, and authenticated audio references remained under existing custody. Their hashes and access histories were fixed before our disclosure.
Our relationship had changed none of those chains.
It had changed how our comments would be handled.
The draft conflict amendment removed both our names from the redaction decision group. It also removed our attorneys' assistants from the shared package folder.
We could not choose which source entered the public package.
We could not approve a witness's public identity or privacy boundary.
We could not exchange advance versions outside KRR's logged response channels.
Jonah asked whether he could still challenge an inaccurate statement about his employment record.
Samuel said he could submit the written objection available to any affected participant.
An independent privacy reviewer would decide the redaction issue. Her engagement barred our private instructions and required each ruling to cite one published standard.
KRR would decide factual scope against the authenticated source index.
I asked whether I could correct a quotation attributed to me.
The answer was the same.
I could identify the claimed error in writing and provide a source reference.
I could not edit the package around it.
The amendment prohibited coordinated objections from Jonah and me. For common issues, KRR compared separate submissions only after both deadlines.
Each submission would retain its author, attorney route, timestamp, and access history.
Neither person would see the other's draft before KRR received it.
That rule made mutual defense less convenient.
It also made the public record harder to dismiss as a couple's shared strategy.
The privacy reviewer joined for the permissions test. She had never represented Northline, WMG, WCT, Jonah, Andrew, or me, and her conflict search was attached to the meeting record.
She removed my account from the redaction workspace.
She removed Jonah's account through a separate action and receipt.
The system still allowed us to view already public methods and our own submitted material.
It blocked protected witness files, draft rulings, and unpublished redacted copies. The block included download, preview, comment, and search access, so a hidden filename could not disclose a protected source.
Samuel tested my old participant link.
The page returned `NO EDITOR ACCESS` and logged the attempt.
Jonah's link produced the same result without exposing his private account details to me.
Dana confirmed that the amendment did not waive my rights or expand hers.
Miriam confirmed the same boundary for Jonah.
We signed separate acknowledgments rather than one joint promise. Dana could not sign for Jonah, Miriam could not sign for me, and neither document referred to our private plans.
I could still disagree with a decision.
I could no longer turn disagreement into an edit.
Jonah could not use our relationship to obtain a source I could not see.
I could not use mine to soften a line unfavorable to him.
At 2:18, the conflict amendment became effective. Samuel read the effective time aloud while the system generated two independent receipts.
The access log preserved the former and current permission maps.
No underlying file moved, and no publication decision was made by either of us.
Samuel authorized a fresh index comparison under the independent reviewer.
The reviewer checked whether every responsibility statement had a package entry and redaction owner. That comparison used document identifiers rather than names, preventing a favorable statement from receiving special treatment because its author was familiar.
One required attachment returned no match.
It belonged to me. The missing entry did not erase the signed file from custody, but it would have kept the public from seeing my admitted part in the communications failure.
My signed communications responsibility statement was in KRR custody but absent from the public-package index.
The next privacy review would begin with the omission most useful to my own defense.