Some buttons, he decided, are meant to be pushed. Not because you’re curious. Because you owe the ghost in the machine—and the ghost in yourself—the chance to ask the question one more time.

The first layer was a childhood he’d forgotten—a mother who didn’t die, a father who stayed. The second layer was a career in terraforming, not scavenging. The third layer was love: a woman with kind eyes and a laugh like wind chimes, who looked at him like he was whole. He lived forty years in three minutes. He built a house. He watched children grow. He grew old.

Kaelen laughed nervously. "Do not recompile," he muttered. "That’s like putting ‘do not push’ on a button."