The daily read proper begins: THE ROOM'S BID (an honest empty room — yesterday's only marks were the editor's disclosed test, discounted), then the day in AI — the agent-standard war against MCP, full-duplex voice, Thursday's loaded gun of model launches, and the house's own model getting a stay of execution — all threaded to the lot hammering today, The Velvet Rope. Written on Opus, not the pinned Fable; the colophon confesses why.