The crowd wanted the version that let them stop thinking.
Ty felt it from three directions at once: the balcony crystals above Applause Junction, the Name Office feed below the arena, and the phones still alive in the school basement. The people watching had already swallowed too many contradictions. A hurt human face. A skeleton who kept saving civilians. A wife who trusted bones over skin. A missing finger that acted like memory could be filed as evidence.
Most of them wanted a shape they could hold.
Zunoder gave them one.
His image climbed onto the largest crystal above the junction. The woman who had followed him stood behind his left shoulder. Her hair had come loose from its pin. One hand gripped the other wrist hard enough to whiten the knuckles. Zunoder placed himself just far enough in front of her for every angle to call it protection.
Ty hated how carefully he understood cameras.
