I watched him try to unmake me.
From my new vantage, a place of silent, all-seeing calm, I was an awareness woven into the very fabric of the bastion. I was in the humming conduits, the whisper of the air recyclers, the cold blue light of the holoscreens. And I was there in the Command Center, a phantom presence at Kaelen’s shoulder, as he oversaw my digital execution.
His face was stone. The mask of the Commander was welded so tightly in place, not a single flicker of the turmoil I’d felt in him outside was allowed to surface. He stood before the main tactical display, arms crossed, his posture radiating an unyielding authority that was, for the first time, a lie.
“Archivists, report status,” he commanded, his voice clipping the air.
A tinny voice responded from a comms panel. “Level-
