People begin moving toward the walls. Hands lifted toward names in projection. Flowers placed at the base of the stone planes. Personal objects removed from pockets and set down: rings, data chips, folded letters, one child’s toy transport skimmer worn smooth at the edges by years of being held.
Selene’s hand tightens once in mine.
“Do you want to go to them now,” I ask quietly.
“Yes.”
We move toward the Ardent names together.
Garran sees us pass. He still does not approach. He only lowers his head once—a gesture stripped of performance, stripped even of asking. Acknowledgment. Apology, perhaps, if apology could be spoken honestly without making itself the center. Selene sees him. Gives nothing back. Not cruelty. Not absolution. Simply no permission.
Correct again.
At the name wall, the projection resolves when we step close, enlarging the relevant column for family view. Tomas Ardent. Lysa Ardent. Beneath them, corridor data. Transport assignment. Restored timestamping. The whole clean, unbearable chain.
Selene lets go of my hand to touch the light.
Her fingers pass through the projection, of course, but the system registers proximity and the names brighten slightly in response.
She closes her eyes.
I stand at her side, close enough that if she folds I can catch, far enough that the grief remains hers before it becomes ours.
Around us, the memorial breathes with hundreds of private devastations unfolding in public. Soft crying. Murmured prayers in three languages. The rustle of coats. The distant, still-contained protest chanting now reduced to an ugly weather front beyond the barriers. Broadcast drones continuing their smooth predatory arcs overhead because history and voyeurism remain inseparable species.
Selene opens her eyes.
“They look real,” she says, voice rough.
“They are.”
“I know.” She swallows. “I mean—publicly real.”
“Yes.”
The wind picks up again, colder now, carrying salt and static and the far smell of rain threatening a second round by afternoon. It slides under my collar and across the back of my neck. The stone under my boots holds the chill and feeds it upward.
Selene keeps her eyes on the names. “I used to think justice would feel cleaner than this.”
“It rarely does.”
“No,” she says softly. “I guess not.”
A child somewhere behind us asks his mother what “unlawful civilian endangerment” means, and the mother answers with such aching care that I have to look away from the sound.
Selene hears it too.
“We’re really doing this,” she says. “Telling the truth in public.”
“Yes.”
“And they still hate it.”
“Yes.”
A tiny, tired laugh escapes her. “Amazing species-wide commitment to terrible instincts.”
“Across governments, yes.”
