The short ball gets chased, intercept gets legs, the vignette gets corners

Second recorded session: 5 wins and a deuce war to 5-6 — the mode is a
contest — but all seven losses shared one signature: the ball died in court
1.4-2m short of him while he ran 0.2-0.5m. Three defects:

The pace cut created dying rollers. Slow returns bounce and die at z 18-20,
outside intercept's near zone, so nothing chased them, and the rolled-dead
rule hands the point to the zombie. They also arrive at his feet below legal
contact height — the "ball arrives right at the player" feel. intercept keeps
an anyHit candidate now: the earliest reachable point on his half where the
ball is still at hitting height, so the assist runs forward onto the short
ball. Verified: he sprints z 23 -> 16.4 and meets it at gap ~0.

intercept computed reachability with autoAssist — 0 on any fine pointer — so
a desktop match's planner answered "home" every time. He had legs, his
destination was always the baseline. assistK() is shared by mover and
planner now.

And the vignette was a radial gradient in a portrait canvas: the circle
reaches the corners but hits the side edges at fraction zero — "red pulsing
from below" was the bottom edge being the only place it got close. Four
linear edge fades now, hugging the rectangle on any aspect.

48 tests, 12 seeds clean.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

PROJECT.md

@@ -986,6 +986,30 @@ himself in live play.
   trails. It ended a three-round guessing match in one session — his reports and my autopilot
   measurements kept disagreeing because the autopilot had legs he did not.
 
+**TWENTY-FIRST PASS — the short ball, the home-bound intercept, and the portrait vignette.** Second
+recorded session: 5 wins and a deuce war to 5-6 (the mode is a contest now), but all seven losses
+shared one signature — the ball DIED IN COURT 1.4-2 m short of him while he ran 0.2-0.5 m. Plus his
+note *"there seems to be a problem when the ball arrives right from the player"* and *"still no
+vignette. just a slight red pulsing from below"*. Three distinct defects:
+- **The pace cut created DYING ROLLERS**: slow returns bounce and die at z 18-20 — outside
+  `intercept`'s near zone, so nothing ever chased them, and the rolled-dead rule gives the point to
+  the last hitter (the zombie). They also arrive at his feet below legal contact height, which is
+  the "ball arrives right at the player" feel. `intercept` now keeps an `anyHit` candidate — the
+  earliest REACHABLE point on his half where the ball is still at hitting height — so the assist
+  runs FORWARD onto the short ball, which is the tennis answer. (Zone points still win: deep is
+  better.) Verified: the chase test shows him sprinting z 23 -> 16.4 and meeting the ball at gap ~0.
+- **`intercept` computed reachability with `autoAssist`** — 0 on any fine pointer — so a desktop
+  match's intercept thought nothing was reachable and answered "home" every time: he had legs
+  (matchAssist) but his destination was always the baseline centre. `assistK()` is the shared
+  helper now; both the mover and the planner use it.
+- **THE VIGNETTE WAS RADIAL IN A PORTRAIT CANVAS.** The circle reaches the corners but arrives at
+  the left/right screen edges at fraction ZERO — "red pulsing from below" was the bottom edge being
+  the only place the circle got close. It is FOUR LINEAR EDGE FADES now, hugging the actual
+  rectangle on any aspect, sqrt(dmg) curve kept, inset deepening with damage. Posed at 6/8 hp: all
+  four edges carry visible red.
+- **Test-measurement trap for the log**: reading `P.z` after the chase loop proves nothing — the
+  point reset teleports him home. Measure the minimum DURING the chase.
+
 **Open, and every one of them is Oliver's call after he plays it:**
 1. ~~**A ball that carries through the lane can complete two steps at once.**~~ Largely CLOSED by
    the slice removal (seventh pass) — a cut ball picking its own next victim was the main way this