Patient Privacy

Morrow formally suspended Ivo the next morning. He called Elias from a park bench while feeding pieces of his breakfast to pigeons.

"Good news," Ivo said. "I have discovered an excellent way to reduce meeting load."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm suspended with pay. This is practically a wellness program."

"You have a mortgage."

"That is why the pay part is carrying the joke."

Elias sat on his sofa with the Continuity notebooks open around him. "They'll blame the archive breach on you."

"No. Camera shows you. System shows you. My crime is being technically curious around an emotionally catastrophic colleague."

"I asked you."

"Yes. I am an adult with a keyboard. You don't get to own all the bad decisions."

The phrase stayed with Elias after the call. At noon Celia summoned him to a legal review, not at Morrow but at an external solicitor's office. Jonah was there, to Elias's surprise, as was a woman he did not recognize who introduced herself as counsel representing former Fallow participants.

Her name was Saira Malik.

"Before anyone releases more archive material to Mr. Venn," Saira said, "I need it understood that these files contain identities and memories of people who have spent fifteen years believing the program was closed. Some are survivors of abuse. Some made allegations they later withdrew. Some have families who do not know they participated."

Elias looked at Celia. "Why am I here?"

"Because you keep asking why we won't open everything," Celia said. "This is why."

Saira slid a document toward him. It was heavily redacted, but one paragraph remained visible. A Fallow participant described a childhood event during therapy. Later reconstruction inserted a particular room layout inferred from a family photograph. Months afterward the participant identified the generated room as the location of the event with high confidence.

"Was the event real?" Elias asked.

"Unknown," Saira said. "That is the point. The allegation may have been true. The room detail was not evidentially supported. After treatment the participant could no longer separate them."

"Did Morrow use the account?"

"Early researchers studied it. Later legal consultants reviewed whether reconstruction could improve witness recall."

Elias felt nausea rise. "For court?" Jonah answered. "Pilot only. It was stopped."

"After what?"

"After we demonstrated confidence increased faster than accuracy."

"And Rohe buried it."

"Rohe ended it," Celia said. "Then failed to disclose enough about why. Those are both true."

Saira leaned forward. "If you expose Morrow by releasing raw files, you may turn every reconstructed memory in those files into public spectacle. People will ask whether abuse happened, whether grief was fabricated, whether family accusations were real. Some questions have no recoverable answer."

Elias looked at the redactions.

"So what do you want me to do?"

"Separate institutional proof from patient content," Saira said. "Find protocols, metrics, executive decisions, software logs. Not people's memories."

It was exactly the sort of distinction Elias would have demanded professionally.

Personally, it felt unbearable.

"Mara copied files," he said. "Did she take patient data?"

Jonah answered carefully. "Some. She was seventeen and frightened. We later helped her strip identities from most of what she kept."

"We."

"Me. Lena. Tess eventually."

"And me?"

Jonah looked at him. "In 2018, yes." Elias almost laughed at the endless discovery of his own participation.

Celia placed a small drive on the table. "This contains non-patient governance records from the Fallow transfer and early Morrow program. You can review it under counsel supervision. It may answer some of your questions without opening anyone else's life."

"Why give it to me now?"

"Because your consent trigger has been met, and because pretending we can contain this by withholding everything has become stupid."

Jonah smiled faintly. "Promotion suits you."

Celia ignored him.

Elias looked at the drive. For the first time, the people restricting him did not appear to be standing on the opposite side of the truth.

They were arguing about who would be injured by it. That made the path forward less satisfying and more real.