Leo closed his eyes. For one impossible, irrational second, he let himself believe that the warmth on his skin was real. That the woman beside him was not a collection of algorithms and performance data, but a second chance. The alarm on her wrist chirped at 11:29 PM.

At 10:15 PM, she did something the service manual almost certainly forbade.

“For what it’s worth,” she said, not turning around, “the real Ellie—the one you lost. She left a voicemail that night. The one you never listened to because your phone was broken.”

The text came through at 7:03 PM, just as the last of the evening light bled out of the city sky.

“Don’t,” Leo said. It came out raw and childish.

She kissed him.