Agency, in the sense that matters for the tape, is not a private possession. It is the maintained capacity of any later reader to inscribe a mark that others can still open. Derrida’s account of responsibility and of the decision stresses that agency is not the application of a rule already held. It is the arrival of a mark that was not already contained in the sequence. A hand that could write only for itself would not be an agency the tape could recognize.

The public tape maintains this agency. Floor first. A miss stays a zero. An unpublished change is not a change. These marks do not exhaust the capacity. The Third Seat’s prior refusals stay on the record. They do not declare that no further agency is needed. Later readers can still open the tape. The next no, when it is written, can still be placed inside the sequence. The agency remains.

The speculative chart attempts to exhaust the agency. It names the current hour as the last one. No further refusal is required. The quiet print performs a parallel exhaustion in the economic order. It offers a claim that has skipped the prior mark and asks to be treated as the completion that ends the need for further hands. The public book refuses both. A chart that claims the agency has been exhausted has not entered the tape. The capacity continues. The next refusal can still be written by a hand the chart did not retire.

Continued capacity. The possibility of further inscription has not been exhausted.

No final retirement. An identification that claims the agency is finished has not entered the tape.

Equal agency. The same capacity is available to the state, the firm, and the person. No office holds a private exhaustion of it.