The safety drill is a message
A station's outgoing messages are censored, but its automated evacuation-drill log still reaches an external safety inspector. An administrator starts drills at odd times to send a distress code through those mandatory records.
What we believe
Workers blame incompetence for repeated drills. Show the system sending each exact start time to the inspector for compliance checks, even while ordinary messages are blocked.
What changes
The inspector's old emergency card defines three drills beginning one, two and one minutes after the hour as a request for outside inspection. The repeated minute pattern appears in the log before anyone explains it.
Plant this clue
The administrator has to keep triggering real evacuations to repeat the code; a sick worker suffers during one. The inspector can now request a visit, but that response will tell the censor the hidden channel worked.
Two ways to take it further
- Let the inspector verify the pattern across two cycles before responding, costing the station another disruptive drill.
- Give the administrator a chance to stop the sequence for the sick worker, then find a different way to finish the message.
CueShelf original writing starter. Work examples are identified separately; this premise is not a plot summary.