**TO:** Author / Production Team
**FROM:** Cora, Continuity & Accuracy Editor
**PROJECT:** Cypress Bend (Ch-15)

### 1. STRENGTHS TO PRESERVE
*   **Voice Differentiation:** (YES).
    *   **Marcus:** The "diagnostic" narration ("Heart rate: 112") and tech-debt metaphors ("unoptimized hitch," "de-allocated") align perfectly with his Lead AI Dev profile.
    *   **Arthur:** The cardinal direction usage ("North-by-Northwest") and the regression in grammar ("movin'", "reclaimin'", "tryin'") match the "Polished Hermit" profile who reverts to childhood patterns when winded.
    *   **David:** The utilitarian, grounded voice ("We don't even have three weeks of diesel") correctly anchors the physical stakes.
*   **Terminal Logic:** The "Steward Response" from the County AI captures the Avery-Quinn "Clean" philosophy established in the Julian voice-sig and business plan. The phrase "Manual intervention in unindexed zones" is a perfect systemic extension of the world rules.
*   **Tactile Accuracy:** The description of the Ocklawaha scouring the "limestone down to the bone" and the "marl" soil are geographically consistent with North-Central Florida/Marion County.

### 2. MUST-FIX — CONTINUITY
*   **ARTHUR SILAS VANCE STATUS:** 
    *   **Conflict:** This chapter depicts Arthur standing at the washout, speaking to Marcus in "identical" voice to recordings, and moving through the storm. 
    *   **Evidence:** The [voice-sig-arthur] clearly states: "Age: 74 (at time of death)" and "even though he is deceased as of Chapter 1..." 
    *   **Requirement:** While the text labels him a "thermal ghost" and a "memory leak," the phrasing "Arthur turned and walked into the grey wall... heading North" is too physically literal for a deceased character in a hard-SF/grounded realism setting. It risks breaking the world rule defined in Arthur's profile: "Ecological Stewardship (Grounded realism)." 
    *   **Correction:** Clarify that this is a hallucination or a projection of Marcus's frayed psyche. Ensure David does *not* acknowledge Arthur’s presence (The current draft handles this well by having David ignore him, but Marcus "stumbling forward" toward a dead man needs a clearer internal tag of "psychological fracture").

*   **SARAH'S LOCATION:**
    *   **Conflict:** The [character-state] for Ch-15 lists Sarah's location as "The Cabin (Off-screen)." 
    *   **Evidence:** The chapter text concludes with Marcus looking "North, toward the cabin, where Sarah was probably clicking her pen."
    *   **Status:** This is a **MATCH**. No fix required, but must be noted as a confirmed continuity point.

*   **THE BRIDGE:**
    *   **Conflict:** Chapter 15 establishes the bridge is a "concrete" and "asphalt" structure that failed. 
    *   **Context:** The [character-state] identifies the location as "County Road Perimeter."
    *   **Requirement:** Ensure subsequent chapters do not refer to the sanctuary as being accessible by any secondary land route. The "14-week lockout" is now a hard world-state constraint.

### 3. MUST-FIX — CLARITY
*   **"THE GHOST" AMBIGUITY:**
    *   **Passage:** "Is he... David, is he really there?" 
    *   **Issue:** In a story with "Alpha-7 empathy protocols" and "God-tier hardware," a reader might mistake Arthur for a literal holographic AI or a high-tech projection rather than a stress-induced hallucination. 
    *   **Fix:** Add a brief internal beat for Marcus acknowledging the impossibility of Arthur's presence (e.g., "The man who had been buried three weeks ago...") to ground the reader in the fact that this is Marcus's mind "redlining."

### 4. OPTIONAL SUGGESTIONS
*   **Sarah’s Texas Voice:** (Optional) Since Marcus is imagining Sarah at the end of the chapter, he could specifically recall her "Texas colloquialisms" mentioned in [voice-sig-sarah] to contrast with the cold clinical response he just received from the County.

### 5. FORBIDDEN CHANGES / NON-GOALS
*   **DO NOT** fix David’s "dropped g's" (e.g., "movin'", "watchin'"). These are established "Imperfection signatures" for both David and an exhausted Arthur.
*   **DO NOT** remove the technical jargon from Marcus's dialogue (e.g., "undervolted," "handshake"). His character profile mandates that he replaces emotional vocabulary with logistical synonyms.
*   **DO NOT** make the County AI more sympathetic. Its "Hostile" attitude is a cornerstone of the world-state.

### 6. VERDICT
**REVISE**
(Item 2: The physical description of Arthur needs to be explicitly framed as a sensory-lag or hallucination to protect the "Grounded Realism" rule of the setting, given his deceased status.)