His jaw flexes. But he doesn’t rise to it.
“Get dressed, Mara.”
I get up anyway, dragging last night’s clothes from the floor and sliding into them like armor that doesn’t fit right anymore. The air stings my skin as I move, raw nerves exposed in every place he touched. I can still feel his breath against the inside of my thigh, and it makes his silence louder.
“What happened?” I ask once I’m decent. “You were here, with me. Then you weren’t.”
He exhales—sharp, almost silent. Not tired. Braced.
“They’ve initiated your reclassification protocols,” he says.
Everything goes still.
My pulse stutters. “What?”
He nods once. Barely a movement. “You’ve been flagged. Memory suspension. Behavioral audit. Full re-ident cycle.”
I sink back against the edge of the bed, legs buckling like someone cut the gravity out from under me. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
“That’s—” My voice cracks. “That’s not something they do without a tribunal. A review board. You can’t just—Tatek, you can’t just wipe someone?—”
“They can,” he says. Still too calm. “They are.”
I stand again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m telling you now.”
“No,” I snap. “You knew before. I saw your face change last night—when the comm pinged. You already knew.”
His silence answers for him.
My breath comes faster now, shallow. Too fast. I cross my arms like I can hold myself together with elbows and pressure. “How long?”
He hesitates. That’s worse than an answer.
“Tatek.”
“They’ve begun behavioral flagging,” he says. “Tagging your logs. Subconscious stimuli embedded in your comm pad. Re-ident programming usually takes several cycles. You still have time.”
Still have time.
Like that’s supposed to help.
“So what,” I say, voice shaking, “was last night your version of a goodbye?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
He moves then—one step, then another, until he’s in front of me. His hands hover at his sides, not reaching, not retreating. He’s so still it makes me want to break something.
“You think I regret it?” he says, low.
“I think you’re acting like it didn’t happen.”
He doesn’t answer that.
