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I look at the projection.

She is right.

I hate how often that keeps happening.

The model layer glows faint red when my attention touches it, unfolding examples of social pressure points, mythic dependency structures, institutional fracture vectors, military doctrine vulnerabilities, religious counter-reaction triggers, nihilist cult formation rates. Even seeing the category headings feels like handling poison with cracked gloves.

“No collapse models,” I say.

The archive resists.

It wants integrity. It wants completeness. It wants preservation in a way that ancient systems often do, without enough concern for the fact that living beings have to survive knowledge rather than merely store it.

I push back through the interface. “No. Strip the models. Preserve hazard warnings only, abstracted and encrypted.”

The red layer dims, then folds into a locked warning seal.

Rolaev watches me as if she expected a different answer and does not know what to do with this one.

I meet her eyes. “What else?”

Ghar’s attention sharpens beside me.

Rolaev looks toward the next layer. “Full First One recreational origin sequence. Seal it.”

“We already are.”

“Seal the sensory imprint too.”

Sira frowns. “Without sensory imprint, future stewards may not understand why the record is psychologically destabilizing.”

“With sensory imprint, future stewards may not remain stewards,” Rolaev says.

Sira’s face tightens. “You assume fragility.”

“I have seen fragility murder children.”

Sira does not answer immediately. Her grief rises in her eyes, but not surrender. “Then preserve a moderated imprint. Not the full experience. A contextual echo, filtered through consent protocols and staged access.”

Rolaev looks at her, and for a moment, the two women stand on opposite sides of an old wound with no clean bridge between them. Then Rolaev inclines her head once.

“Acceptable.”

Brakk blinks. “Did we just have productive collaboration with the murder priestess?”

“Do not ruin it,” I say.

“I ruin nothing. I annotate.”

I turn back to the shard. “Moderated First One contact record. Consent-locked. No involuntary sensory overwrite. No direct emotional induction.”

The archive pulses.

Accepted.

The pressure inside my skull eases by the smallest possible amount.

The next layer opens.