Page 144 of Commander’s Mate
The woman began.
Name.
Age.
Clan.
Scar over left hand.
Hated root stew.
Sang when nervous.
Harper entered each detail.
I understood then what she was building.
Not a database.
Resistance against erasure.
The Sargans turned people into inventory.
The Consortium turned casualties into statistics.
Harper turned numbers back into names.
When we left the memorial room, I stopped her in the corridor.
“What?”
“I know what your work is.”
“My work?”
“The registry.”
“I know what it is.”
“No. I did not.”
She waited.
“It is how we refuse to let the enemy define who disappeared.”
Harper’s eyes filled.
“Yeah.”
I touched her cheek.
She leaned into my hand.
Not because biology pulled her there.
Because she chose to.
I had begun to understand the difference.
