The City Festival was full of people who had no idea Booth F-19 had entered an incident report.
Music from the main stage shook the air. Food sellers shouted prices. Along the technology row, cheap portable visors sat on the faces of students, couples, and tourists beneath a banner reading: `DREAM IN FIVE MINUTES — NO SUBSCRIPTION`.
Amina and Joel had agreed on one rule before entering: they would buy a sample as ordinary customers, record the consent screen, and touch no other device without permission.
A student stepped out of a visor laughing, then frowned. “That was strange. I smelled my grandmother's house—but she lives in Kisii, not on the coast.”
The seller, Timo, handed him water. “Nostalgia texture. That's the feature.”
Amina paid for a session under her own name.
The consent screen showed one large button: `START EXPERIENCE`. A line underneath said continuing allowed “adaptive improvement and local cache optimization.” There were no separate storage or training choices.
“Can I get a receipt?” Amina asked.
Timo sent one without concern.
“What pack?”
“Rain Home. Best seller.”
Amina entered the visor for two minutes. Rain, blanket warmth, then clove. After the scent came a low unfinished melody—three notes, a pause, one lower note.
She stopped the experience herself.
“Short session,” Timo said. “The full one is better.”
“I need the copy I purchased and its local log for a safety review.”
His expression changed. “I'm a reseller. I don't make these.”
“That's why we need a chain. We are not calling you the source.”
He opened the admin screen, then reached for `CLEAR HISTORY`.
“Don't delete it,” Joel said.
“My device.”
Amina did not grab him. She called the festival security supervisor listed in Ruth's authorization. Wanjiru arrived, read the document, and explained that Timo could refuse access to unsold devices, but the purchased sample and its transaction log could be preserved under festival safety rules.
Joel created a checksum in front of him. Amina signed the chain note. Timo signed that the purchased unit had not been altered after the session.
“Who supplies the packs?” Amina asked.
“DreamKiosk East.”
He opened an invoice. Rain ambience. Body warmth. Urban loops. Then one line:
`K-17 emotional texture / multi-use creator layer`.
It was not described as user data. It was a product line.
Timo said the supplier had presented itself as a LalaLive affiliate. He allowed Amina to scan the invoice and kept the original.
A crowd began to notice the investigation. Timo grew defensive. “If you shut me down, I have three staff. The other packs don't have K-17.”
Amina looked at the shelves. “We are not closing everything without evidence. We are holding Rain Home and any batch with this checksum.”
Wanjiru separated four matching units. The rest stayed on sale.
Before leaving, she asked Amina to record what they had *not* done: no full-booth shutdown, no copying of staff phones, no collection of customer identities. The boundary mattered. If the next audit cleared the other packs, Timo would not be punished because a crowd had started a rumor.
Joel found another detail in the metadata: `JN-snd-44`.
His face hardened.
“That's my creator tag.”
“Are you sure?”
“I sold one sound texture two years ago. Single-project license.”
“Then you are now conflicted on that asset.”
Joel gave a short laugh with no humor. “Of course I am.”
“Declare it before the teardown. We use an independent engineer.”
He agreed.
Timo looked between them. “How do you find the truth if everyone has a conflict?”
“By naming the conflicts instead of pretending they are not there.”
They left F-19 with one lawfully purchased sample, local logs, an invoice scan, and a checksum. They did not arrest Timo. They did not seize his entire stock. But the scope had expanded into a reseller supply chain, and Joel's creator code was embedded inside the disputed package.
Ruth called before they reached the car.
“Do not connect that sample to cloud. Hardware lab. Faraday isolation. Mechanism first, blame later.”
Joel read the invoice line again.
“Creator texture,” he said.
Then he looked at the usage tag carrying his old code.
“They sold something with people inside it as if it were paint.”