Chapter 12 - THE INFORMATION INSIDE MY BODY
Mira’s motion forced a question no Nereid policy had answered.
Who controlled a rescue record created from two bodies?
The original event belonged to me as the person wearing the suit and speaking into its microphone.
It also contained information about Mira before she could consent.
Her maternity status had helped rescuers prepare appropriate medical care. Retaining it helped prove the system protected both of us.
Years later, the same information made her commercially identifiable.
I wanted every copy destroyed.
Mira wanted the original preserved.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because it proves I was there.”
“No one denies you were there.”
“Marcus did.”
The answer stopped me.
Marcus’s early legal filings had described her as an unborn interest attached to my estate. His lawyers discussed her trust rights, potential custody, and insurance consequences.
He rarely described her as a child he endangered.
The suit had recorded the movement that brought me back to consciousness.
Mira wanted that fact to remain.
She did not want TideSure, Nereid, Pelagos, insurers, researchers, or future product designers using it without her decision.
Her attorney proposed divided control.
The original evidentiary record would remain sealed.
My audio required my authorization for nonlegal use.
Mira’s biological and maternity data required hers once she reached legal adulthood, with an independent representative acting meanwhile.
Neither of us could authorize use of the whole event alone.
I disliked losing unilateral control over the record of my assault.
That discomfort revealed why the rule was necessary.
Nereid’s independent committee extended the same review to every event involving children, dependent adults, multiple victims, or rescuers whose voices entered recordings.
Some families wanted records preserved publicly.
Lucy Sandoval wanted the failure of her beacon available to engineers forever.
Jonah Reed’s parents wanted their son’s final coordinates removed from product demonstrations.
Claire North wanted Caleb’s photograph taken down from Nereid’s visitor center.
No single policy could honor all three by pretending their needs matched.
Meanwhile, TideSure attempted to separate itself from Saye.
Its board suspended him and claimed the synthetic-rescue program had operated without full oversight.
Internal minutes showed directors repeatedly praising unusually fast response statistics.
One asked whether simulation events were included.
Saye answered:
ONLY VERIFIED RECOVERIES REACH THE PERFORMANCE REPORT.
The statement was technically true because TideSure’s own software “verified” the false recoveries.
The board accepted the answer it wanted.
Lena led investigators to the financial model.
Each successful response increased the value of Rescue Assurance Bonds sold to insurers and yacht lenders. Poor performance reduced investor returns.
False signals created profit.
A real death created review.
The safest financial event was a rescue involving no person.
Saye had turned absence into the ideal customer.
Then forensic analysts discovered seven events TideSure had labeled synthetic only after something went wrong.
One involved Rafael.
Two involved real equipment drills.
Four involved actual people entering the water.
In one case, a kayaker named Daniel Cho remained missing for twenty-seven minutes because TideSure routed rescuers toward the cloned signal rather than the coordinates from his physical beacon.
He survived after reaching a buoy.
His complaint had been closed as user confusion.
A TideSure analyst reopened it privately and preserved the original logs.
Her name was Amara Velez.
She had sent eleven warnings to Saye.
He reassigned her after the third.
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After the eleventh, her employment record described her as emotionally affected by rescue content.
Warnings had again been converted into evidence against the person making them.
