Story code: ST-000783
Part 3: Make It Run Straight
Nobody moved when the hologram formed that half-second too early. Evelyn’s mouth had already shaped Nina’s name before Darren’s hand settled back on the tablet, and that timing did more than the replay had done. It put his fingers and the voice in the same frame.
Mara looked from the projection to the dock again. The clear-sided drive still glowed white from beneath. Darren kept his body angled between it and the family seating row now, not enough to block the view entirely, just enough to make the movement look practiced.
Nina saw it too. “Don’t ask for another volunteer,” she said. “Just let it run from where it is.”
Darren gave a quick answer. “That’s not the cleanest way to demonstrate the memorial flow.”
“Do it anyway,” the older uncle said.
It was the first time anyone besides Nina and Mara had told him what to do. Darren glanced toward the uncle, then back to the tablet. “Unstructured playback can produce awkward transitions.”
Mara heard Caleb shift beside the front row chair. “Awkward is fine,” he said, quieter than before. “If it’s real, awkward shouldn’t hurt it.”
Darren’s jaw set for a moment. He lowered his eyes to the screen and lifted one hand slightly, the kind of gesture meant to quiet a room he no longer fully had. The hologram remained standing in soft blue light. Backyard photos kept sliding behind her face.
“Proceeding from current sequence,” Darren said.
He touched the tablet.
Evelyn’s hologram turned her head with that same measured delay. “Nina,” she said, and then stopped.
The stop hung there long enough for the projector hum to come forward in the room.
Darren tapped again.
“Sit down,” Evelyn said. “We are not doing this revisionist version again.”
Nina did not answer her. “Run it again. No reset. Same point.”
Darren looked up. “That isn’t how families usually experience this service.”
“Run it again,” Nina repeated.
Mara watched his thumb hesitate over the glass. When he replayed from the same point, the hologram did not begin with a full sentence. It entered in pieces.
“Nina,” Evelyn said.
A beat.
“Sit down.”
Another beat, longer than the first.
“We are not doing this revisionist version again.”
The line had split apart. Not naturally, not like a person choosing her words, but like separate pieces being called in and lined up.
Caleb stared at the projection, then at Darren. “Why did it do that?”
Darren answered too fast. “Latency variance.”
“Latency changed the sentence into chunks?” Mara asked.
He did not look at her. “These systems assemble from layered assets. That can occasionally sound segmented in replay conditions.”
Nina took another step toward the front presentation area. She did not raise her voice. “Then do one thing for me. Make her say it after I speak, not before.”
Darren shook his head. “This is becoming counterproductive.”
“You said it’s responsive,” Nina said. “So let it respond.”
The uncle in the front row nodded once. A cousin near the wall folded her arms. Nobody told Nina to stop.
Darren pressed his lips together, then gestured with the tablet. “Fine. Briefly. Ms. Vale, address the memorial.”
Nina kept her eyes on the hologram. “Mom, did you ever call me revisionist?”
The projector gave a tiny chirr. Darren’s thumb moved. Evelyn’s face remained calm and polished.
“Nina,” the hologram said. “Sit down. We are not doing this revisionist version again.”
Nina let the answer stand there untouched. Mara did not miss the order of it. The hologram had not answered the question. It had gone back to the same prepared stop.
“Again,” Nina said. “But this time don’t touch anything after I finish speaking.”
Darren’s head lifted. “I need to manage the system in real time.”
“Why?” Mara said. “If the trigger conditions are the same, why do you need to steer it every second?”
The room stayed on him. Darren looked down at the tablet but did not speak. The showroom smile was gone now. In its place was a careful stillness, shoulders high, elbow tucked close to his ribs.
Caleb took one slow step toward the dock. He did not touch it. He only looked through the clear casing at the drive inside. “Can it say anything else to her right now?”
Darren shifted immediately, blocking him with one shoulder. “Please don’t crowd the equipment.”
That answer landed harder than if he had said yes or no.
Nina spoke to the room, not to Darren. “He can replay that line perfectly. He can trigger it before I speak. He can split it into pieces. But he still can’t tell us why it’s there.”
Mara saw the older uncle rise from his chair. He walked to the front with the deliberate pace of someone who did not want the moment to look dramatic. He stopped beside Nina and looked at the dock.
“Take your hand off the tablet,” he said to Darren. “Let it run once with all of us watching.”
Darren did not move.
The hologram’s mouth opened again on Nina’s name while his thumb was still resting on the screen.