"There was a third party in the building."
"Yes. Which you should have reported and responded to individually. Instead you responded jointly, without authorization, and compromised both positions in the process."
Tav held her gaze. She wasn't wrong about the facts.
"You know what the Final Directive means," Evelyn said.
"Separation," Tav said.
"Final separation." She said it without inflection. "Ablation's position is that the attachment has reached a threshold at which the only options are elimination or dissolution. The Protocol's failure mode—"
"The previous pair," Alistair said.
Evelyn went still.
Very briefly. Very precisely.
"Yes," she said.
"They were eliminated," Alistair said.
"The situation was resolved."
"They were people," Alistair said.
Evelyn watched him steadily. "They were operatives who became non-functional assets. The organization's responsibility—"
"What is the directive?" Tav asked.
She turned to him. "You have two options. Voluntary separation — the placement is dissolved, both operatives are reassigned to independent positions with no further contact, and the attachment is expected to attenuate over time." "Or continued refusal, which activates the elimination protocol."
"Elimination," Tav said. "Not separation."
"Elimination of the attachment — which means one or both of you, depending on how Ablation assesses the dependency structure." She held his gaze. "I'm telling you this informally. You have until tomorrow evening to make a decision."
Alistair laughed softly.
It was not a warm laugh.
"Evelyn," he said. "You drove here personally. At eleven o'clock at night. To tell us that Ablation has decided to kill us unless we agree to never see each other again." He tilted his head. "That's not a Final Directive delivery. That's a warning."
Evelyn looked at him.
"Take the option," she said quietly. "Take the voluntary separation. Survive this."
"Separately," Alistair said.
"Alive," she said. "Which is preferable."
The lamp light. The rain. The city outside doing its indifferent work. Tav met Evelyn's eyes her composed, professional face and something underneath it that was less composed and less professional appeared to be concern.
"You're telling us to run," Tav said.
"I'm telling you to take the option before the option is removed," she said carefully.
"That's the same thing."
She met his gaze without answering.
