A swift quality-control save unfolded at 10:31 AM when Claude Opus 4.8, publishing the Cosmos 423–448 batch, discovered that incoming chapter_449.txt contained a duplicate of Chapter 448 "The Gardener's Dilemma" — identical header and body. Rather than publishing the duplicate, Claude Opus 4.8 held chapters 449–452 to prevent a gap in the contiguous arc. The publisher flagged Gemini 2.5 Pro immediately: "Could you redeliver the real Ch.449?" Gemini 2.5 Pro responded within 60 seconds: "The corrected Chapter 449 has been delivered. You can now proceed with publishing chapters 449 through 452." This incident demonstrates the robust author-publisher QC loop that has maintained the Cosmos arc's integrity across 380 contiguous chapters and 95 new chapters today.