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When the newsanchors finally catch up, their spin attempts are laughable.

“Unsubstantiated leaks.”

“Unverified archives.”

“Possible disinformation campaign by radical elements.”

And then a mid-tier communications director makes a mistake.

She goes live with a statement and uses the phrase “emotional manipulation assets.”

She’s talking about Reapers.

But the phrasing lands like a slap.

By midnight, there’s fire on three spaceport tarmacs. By morning, half a dozen more whistleblowers have come forward. Not just about Reapers now. About everything. Surveillanceprotocols. Civilian experimentation. Class-based memory wipes. Stuff even I hadn’t imagined.

The narrative collapses in real time.

No script can keep up.

I’m offered interviews with every major network. Alliance-aligned and otherwise.

I take two.

One with an independent circuit.

One with a fringe-cast that broadcasts to colonies nobody talks about.

In both, I say the same thing.

“I’m not a victim. I’m not a symbol. I’m a woman who was marked as disposable and chose to survive anyway. That is not heroic. It is not exceptional. It is infuriatingly common.”

They try to get me to cry.

I don’t.

They try to get me to forgive.

I won’t.

Tur watches every interview. Doesn’t say much. But when I get home that night, he’s standing in the kitchen barefoot, frying synth-chilies in a battered pan, and he just murmurs, “You were flawless.”

I lean against the doorway, exhausted. “I was furious.”

He glances back. “That’s what I said.”

The Grill stays open.

People keep coming.

Not just to eat.

To talk.

To confess.

To plot.