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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.