diff --git a/tools/port/verify-menu-audio b/tools/port/verify-menu-audio
index a8b3579a..bb037621 100755
--- a/tools/port/verify-menu-audio
+++ b/tools/port/verify-menu-audio
@@ -1,7 +1,18 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
 # Does the port actually MAKE SOUND on the P5 walk, and the RIGHT sound?
 #
-#   tools/port/verify-menu-audio
+#   tools/port/verify-menu-audio            # assert
+#   tools/port/verify-menu-audio --control  # can it fail?
+#
+# 🔴 FOR WEEKS THIS COULD NOT FAIL. It computed the verdict, printed a red line
+# when a cue was silent -- and the python had NO EXIT PATH, so it returned 0
+# every time while `check-all` registered it `must-pass`. A cue could stop
+# sounding and the suite would print the failure and stay green.
+#
+# That is this project's recurring defect one level up: not an instrument that
+# sits below the thing under test, but an instrument that SEES the failure and
+# does not report it. Ask of any check: what would this still report if the
+# feature were absent -- AND what would it EXIT?
 #
 # This is the P6 gate check. P6's gate is "sound on the P5 gate", and until this
 # existed the only evidence for it was that `audio.play("move")` appears in
@@ -29,6 +40,7 @@ set -euo pipefail
 cd "${PROJECT_DIR:-/work}"
 export DISPLAY="${DISPLAY:-:97}"
 OUT="${OUT:-${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/verify-menu-audio}"
+CONTROL=0; [ "${1:-}" = "--control" ] && CONTROL=1
 mkdir -p "$OUT"
 [ -d port/.godot ] || godot --headless --path port --import >/dev/null 2>&1
 
@@ -72,7 +84,18 @@ for c in move confirm back; do
     exit 2; }
 done
 
-python3 - "$OUT" <<'PYEOF'
+# THE CONTROL. Replace the walk with the run that already had `move` silenced, so
+# the cue is genuinely missing from the baseline. Silencing it again can then
+# remove nothing, the diagonal cannot drop, and the check MUST fail. Built from
+# the tool's OWN suppression machinery rather than a second mechanism -- a
+# control built a different way tests the control, not the check.
+if [ $CONTROL -eq 1 ]; then
+  cp "$OUT/sup_move.wav" "$OUT/walk.wav"
+  echo "control: analysing a walk in which \`move\` never sounded"
+fi
+
+rc=0
+python3 - "$OUT" <<'PYEOF' || rc=$?
 import array, math, subprocess, sys
 O = sys.argv[1]; SR = 44100
 def dec(src, dst):
@@ -184,6 +207,14 @@ for row in ("move", "confirm", "back"):
         print("      🔴 silencing %s did not remove %s -- that cue is NOT SOUNDING" % (row, row))
 print("  => %s" % ("all three cues SOUND: silencing each one collapses its own signal"
                    if ok else "at least one cue is not sounding"))
+# 🔴 THE VERDICT EXITS. Everything below this line is REPORTED, not asserted, and
+# deliberately so: the no-op-silence line and the cue-order line both carry
+# DOCUMENTED cross-run instability (whole-buffer recording shifts; a 0.15 margin
+# this file's own comments show going to 0.109 on a sounding cue). Making either
+# binding would produce red on correct audio, which is how a suite gets ignored.
+# The diagonal has no threshold to drift: silencing a cue either removes its own
+# signal or it was never there.
+VERDICT_FAILED = not ok
 # 🔴 THE VERDICT IS THE DIAGONAL ONLY, and the first version of this asserted the
 # off-diagonal too -- "silencing a cue must not move the others". That failed, and
 # the material is why: `confirm` lands at 1.12 s and `back` at 1.21 s, 0.09 s apart
@@ -198,5 +229,18 @@ times = [t for _, t, hit in found if hit]
 print("cue order vs script order  : %s"
       % ("CONSISTENT" if times == sorted(times) and len(times) == 3
          else "check %s" % [(c, round(t, 2)) for c, t, _ in found]))
+raise SystemExit(1 if VERDICT_FAILED else 0)
 PYEOF
-echo "artifacts in $OUT"
+
+if [ $CONTROL -eq 1 ]; then
+  if [ $rc -eq 0 ]; then
+    echo
+    echo "  🔴 CONTROL FAILED -- the check passed a walk with \`move\` silenced, so it"
+    echo "     cannot detect a cue that stops sounding."
+    exit 1
+  fi
+  echo
+  echo "the check rejects a run with a cue missing (rc=$rc)"
+  exit 0
+fi
+exit $rc