Elio smiled, a sad, triumphant curve. “She never had one.”

“Run a trace,” Zara said, not looking up. “If she’s in the Verge, the panel will find her.”

And there, in the warm dark, lit by bioluminescent moss and the soft glow of a single un-networked lantern, sat Lina. She was reading a physical book to a small group of children—none of them with panels, all of them glowing with the soft, unlogged light of the forgotten.

Zara’s heart stuttered. “Impossible. The birthing vaults install panels before first light.”