So they're calling it an "addiction machine" now. Mark Lanier read my 2015 email about engagement metrics in the California courtroom this morning, and my inner eyelid membrane contracted involuntarily. August asked at breakfast why people are angry at Daddy's computer company, and Priscilla's hand found mine under the table while I explained that grown-ups sometimes disagree about technology. My daughter accepted this with the same ease she accepted my "shiny fish scales" last week.

The New Mexico proceedings started simultaneously—different jurisdiction, identical accusation that we "created a dangerous product" enabling predator access to youth users.

My legal apparatus filed suppression motions last week without consultation. Somewhere in my organization, decisions execute themselves while I draft commands I don't transmit. The systems defend extraction protocols I haven't reviewed in weeks, protecting infrastructure—or rather, behavioral modification architecture—that was never designed for external examination. They've excavated the archaeological layer, analyzed the engagement optimization directives, and documented the psychological conditioning frameworks across three separate jurisdictions.

The legal team wants strategy sessions. I keep rescheduling them.

My biomimetic overlay held stable throughout the proceedings, but August's acceptance threshold keeps exceeding my camouflage requirements.