Projected doctrine status:classified.
Projected prosecutorial outcome:Varos conviction likely.
Projected civilian attribution:command negligence narrative retained.
My stomach drops so hard I have to grip the edge of the table.
There it is.
Not abstract anymore. Not emotionally inferred.
Mathematically plain.
If I had stayed silent, Vol’s doctrine would have remained classified indefinitely.
The room goes very quiet.
Rain presses softly at the glass. Somewhere down the block, a transport alarm chirps twice and stops. I can hear the faint crackle of the heating element inside my mug cooling.
Rhyx comes around the table and looks down at the projection.
He doesn’t ask what he’s seeing. He knows.
“Say something awful,” I whisper.
He glances at me. “You have very particular coping mechanisms.”
“Please.”
He studies the model again, then says, “The simulation confirms what we already knew.”
I make a face. “That is not awful. That is emotionally responsible and therefore useless.”
A low sound leaves him—half exhale, half almost-laugh.
Then he leans one hand against the back of my chair and says, “All right. The machine was always going to prefer your silence because silence is cheaper than conscience.”
I look up at him.
“There,” he says. “Was that sufficiently awful.”
“Yeah,” I mutter. “Thanks.”
He reaches past the projection, not touching it, and sets two data tablets down beside my folders. Relief-network updates. Supply corridor reports. Resettlement numbers. He does it without explanation, like he knows I need the weight of ongoing life on the table next to the dead.
“Briefing updates,” he says. “Western quarter medical overflow eased. Corridor station five reopened. Three family-transfer petitions approved this evening.”
I blink at the tablets. “You brought me good news as contrast.”
“I brought you context.”
“That’s somehow more intimate.”
His eyes warm by a fraction. “You make strange declarations at midnight.”
“It is not midnight.”
He glances at the window, where the city has gone full indigo and silver. “You are technically correct.”
