When did the maintenance begin? I don't know the schedule. I need that document. The fact that I'm being held in a room with a non-recording camera needs to appear in whatever report you're writing. There's no report yet.
There will be. Jonathan, outside in the lobby, had positioned himself near the window of a small waiting area that gave him a partial sight line into the eastern security corridor. He had seen Camille escorted away. He wrote the time, 8:23 a.m. He opened his email on his phone and typed a brief message to himself, timestamping everything he had observed, and sent it.
The email arrived in his inbox at 8:23 a.m. And 41 seconds. In the security room, Ethan stood near the door with his arms crossed. Sit down. I'd like to stand.
I said sit down. You have not given me a lawful reason to obey that instruction. I am in this room under protest. I've requested a supervisor repeatedly. I'll stand.
Ethan uncrossed his arms. He reached to his belt and removed the baton. He did not raise it. He held it at his side for a moment and then he placed it horizontally across the door frame, resting on the door handles, a physical barrier that made it clear she was not going to simply walk out. I'm documenting, Camille said, that you've placed your baton across the doorway as a coercive control measure in response to a verbal request to remain standing.
I have not touched you. I have not attempted to leave. I have not raised my voice. Ethan said nothing. You used physical contact to redirect me in the lobby without cause.
That is also documented. He looked at her for a long moment. Sit down. And this goes faster. Camo did not sit immediately.
She looked at the baton resting across the door frame. She looked at the space between her and it. She calculated with the precise attention she had spent 11 years applying to evidence exactly what would happen if she moved toward that door and he moved to stop her. She knew what that report would say. She knew what the words physical altercation looked like in an incident file.
She walked to the chair across from the door and sat down, not because she was afraid. She sat because she had decided that sitting would allow her to observe more carefully. The angle from the chair gave her a direct sight line to the narrow lobby window. She could see the screening area. She could see the terminal.