Orlov grabbed his arm. "Kael, no. There's nothing over there."
"Cross the line," a voice said. It came from his visor's speakers. It was Lena's voice, but flattened, digitized, stripped of mercy. "Let the memory tear you apart."
"I'm not here to cross the divide," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "I'm here to remember that it was never there."
For a second, nothing happened. Then the machine stuttered. The locket contained a memory the Collective's algorithm couldn't process: a quiet afternoon, a shared ice cream, a laugh at a stupid joke. It wasn't a strategic data point. It was a single, irrational, human moment.
No one cheered. But no one fired, either.
Kael didn't raise his gun. He knew that was the trap. The Command taught him to destroy the enemy. The Collective taught Lena to absorb the past. Both were wrong.
