Chapter 12 - THE FOURTH PERSON
Maya remembered the fourth person only after Allison sent her a 2022 staff roster.
Not a face.
A first name.
“Casey.”
That was all.
No last name.
Maya remembered Casey because they sat outside the lab once while a research assistant reset the system.
“She was younger than staff.”
Maya said.
“Maybe student employee.”
Brooke searched old campus rosters.
There were twenty-seven Caseys.
Vanessa said:
“Great.”
Then one stood out.
Casey Hart — first-year student, Student Affairs digital assistant.
Employed through work-study.
Same age as us.
Pulse participant?
No public record.
Current Bellamy status?
Graduate student.
Part-time employee in campus systems support.
Active.
Brooke stared at the screen.
“C-4?”
Maybe.
Adrian refused to contact Casey until they had something stronger.
Correct again.
Then Nora, now suspended, voluntarily turned over her personal code notes.
One old mapping file survived.
C-3 IDs.
Ours.
C-4 ID:
4C-130
No name.
Student registrar data required authorization.
Adrian got it.
4C-130 belonged to—
not Casey Hart.
It belonged to Lena Brooks.
Another name.
Another dead end?
Lena had withdrawn from Bellamy after sophomore year.
No current employee.
So why did the migrated file say active student employee?
Nora looked at it.
“Somebody remapped the ID.”
“What does that mean?”
Brooke asked.
“The participant ID should be immutable.”
“Should.”
“Yes.”
“Could someone point it to a new person?”
“If they had migration admin rights.”
Who had those?
Nora.
Two Bellamy IT employees.
And Casey Hart.
There.
Vanessa sat back.
“So Casey isn't C-4.”
Nora shook her head.
“Maybe she's whoever changed who C-4 appears to be.”
That was different.
Adrian finally interviewed Casey.
We were not allowed in.
He returned ninety minutes later.
“What did she say?”
Brooke asked.
“She denied changing participant mappings.”
“Did she know Pulse?”
“Yes.”
“From 2022?”
“Yes.”
“Was she a student employee?”
“Yes.”
“Did she know Lena Brooks?”
Adrian hesitated.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Roommates.”
That was the first time I felt the story physically move.
Lena Brooks.
C-4.
Casey Hart.
Roommates freshman year.
Then Lena withdrew from Bellamy.
Why?
Public reason:
Family health.
No conduct case.
No settlement we could find.
Casey stayed.
Worked in campus systems.
Eventually helped migrate Pulse archives.
Brooke whispered:
“Maybe Lena was the control and Casey saw everything.”
Vanessa asked:
“Then why change Lena's status to active?”
Nobody knew.
Adrian said Casey denied doing it.
Did IT logs support her?
Incomplete.
Of course.
Then Casey sent us something voluntarily through Adrian.
An old screenshot.
Lena’s Pulse dashboard.
One field:
CONTROL CONDITION — RECEIVE NO CONFLICT PROMPTS
There.
C-4 was the control.
Lena was supposed to receive nothing.
So why did her ID matter?
Nora stared at the screenshot.
“Because Aster compared your triad against her.”
“What does that mean?”
“Your conflict responses were measured against Lena’s behavior.”
“So?”
Nora pointed at another field.
Observer flag: ON
Brooke frowned.
“Observer?”
Nora went pale.
“That shouldn't exist.”
“Meaning?”
“Control participants were not supposed to know they were controls.”
“Then what's observer?”
Nora shook her head.
“I never wrote that field.”
Someone had turned Lena Brooks from a passive control participant into an observer.
A person watching us.
Maybe rating us.
May you like
Maybe reporting something.
And the person who added that feature had left no name in Nora’s code.
