This is Lane. I’ve run the tape on Chapter 18. The rhythm is heavy—industrial and wet—which suits the transition from digital to analog. Marcus’s internal processor is redlining, and the prose reflects that jittery, diagnostic-heavy state. However, we have some "voice bleed" where secondary characters are starting to sound too much like Marcus’s source code.

### 1. STRENGTHS TO PRESERVE
*   **Physicality of the Machine:** The description of the track hoe is excellent. "It looked like a dinosaur waiting for a command that would never come" (Line 42) and "The bridge screamed. Not the high-pitched whine of a server fan, but the deep, agonizing protest of heartwood..." (Line 73) provide the necessary transition from Marcus’s digital past to the brutal physical present.
*   **Marcus’s Sensory Overload:** The "diagnostic" narration in the third person is a perfect execution of his Imperfection Signature.
*   **The Ending Hook:** The "predatory violet" (Line 99) returning just as Marcus achieves a physical "commit" creates a high-stakes contrast between his two worlds.
*   **Voice Differentiation:** 
    *   **Marcus:** YES. His internal monologue and "system alerts" are unmistakable.
    *   **Elena:** YES. She is clipped, directional, and focused on the mechanical ("I need the architect").
    *   **Sarah:** **NO.** She is currently leaking Marcus’s technical jargon (see Must-Fix).
    *   **David:** YES. His regression to "runnin'" and "hopin'" isn't here yet, but his focus on the "North" aligns with the Vance legacy.

### 2. MUST-FIX — CONTINUITY
*   **The Texas Lilt vs. The System Wipe:** Sarah is described as having a Texas lilt, but her dialogue is "Error 404: Breath not found" (Line 15).
    *   **Error:** Sarah’s voice signature states she uses tech-support jargon like "escalating" or "hard reset," but "Error 404" is a Marcus-tier internal diagnostic. It makes her sound like a robot rather than a grieving mother/logistics pro.
    *   **Correction:** Replace "Error 404: Breath not found" with something grounded in her logistics background. 
    *   *Suggested:* "David? Acknowledge. I’ve got no intake, Marcus, he’s not cycling air. Come on, David."

### 3. MUST-FIX — CLARITY
*   **The Tablet's Presence:** "He reached into his jacket and pulled out the ruggedized tablet" (Line 95).
    *   **Issue:** In Chapter 17, Marcus was "soaked to the bone" and dragging a man out of a river. There is no mention of how he kept a tablet dry or secure during a high-alpha rescue. 
    *   **Fix:** Add a single line earlier in the chapter (perhaps when he plants his knee in the muck) about the weight of the device in his waterproof pocket or its tether, so it doesn't feel like it materialized for the ending.

### 4. OPTIONAL SUGGESTIONS
*   **Rhythm Economy:** 
    *   *ORIGINAL:* "The weight of David’s life was a hardware reality that no telemetry could have predicted, a heavy, shivering mass of wet denim and broken ribs that anchored Marcus to the mud."
    *   *SUGGESTED:* "David’s life was a hardware reality no telemetry could predict—a shivering mass of wet denim and broken ribs anchoring Marcus to the mud."
    *   *Rationale:* Deleting "The weight of" and "that" tightens the opening punch. Let the nouns (denim, ribs, mud) do the heavy lifting.
*   **Dialect Check (Sarah):** 
    *   *ORIGINAL:* "Sarah was there before the mud had even settled."
    *   *SUGGESTED:* "Sarah was there before the silt settled."
    *   *Rationale:* Alliteration is a bit "pretty" for this muddy scene. "Silt" feels more specific to the Ocklawaha.

### 5. FORBIDDEN CHANGES / NON-GOALS
*   **Do not remove Marcus’s "One, two, three, four" tapping.** This is his cardinal grounding habit and must remain even when it slows down the prose.
*   **Do not "smooth out" the track hoe’s screams.** The personification of the timber is intentional; Marcus is learning to "hear" physical stress the way he used to hear server lag.
*   **Do not remove the "Texas colloquialisms."** Though Sarah sounds technical, her roots should remain in her cadence (the "clipped, lethal cadence" mentioned in Line 21).

### 6. LINE-LEVEL AUDIT (ORIGINAL → SUGGESTED)
*   **ORIGINAL:** "Marcus didn't calculate the physics; he reached into the churn and pulled." (Line 2)
*   **SUGGESTED:** "Marcus bypassed the math; he reached into the churn and pulled."
*   **Rationale:** "Didn't calculate" is a bit flat. "Bypassed the math" reinforces his role as a developer ignoring his usual protocols.

*   **ORIGINAL:** "The river didn't want to let go." (Line 8)
*   **SUGGESTED:** "The river held its grip."
*   **Rationale:** "Didn't want to let go" is a cliché. Giving the river an active "grip" matches the physical struggle.

*   **ORIGINAL:** "He looked at his palms—raw, bleeding, stained with the red clay of the bank." (Line 25)
*   **SUGGESTED:** "He looked at his palms—raw, mapped in red clay and blood."
*   **Rationale:** Use the "mapped" metaphor to bridge his analytical mind with the gore of the scene.

**VERDICT: REVISE** (The Sarah/Marcus voice collision on "Error 404" is a logic break that needs to be untangled before this passes.)