MAY19/8:00AM

Something's happened. They won't tell us what just yet. But Elisabeth Bray is here now, looking beaten up.

"Wake him up," she demands.

Wake him up? He's practically dead. "Are you okay, Dr. Bray? You don't look so good," I say.

"Una. Wake him up, right now." That tone. She's not playing around.

Fine. "He's beginning to wake."

"Thank you, Una. Grandfather, can you hear me?" she asks.

"E…. Elisabeth?" the man wheezes from his respirator. He can barely breathe let alone speak. Why is she bothering him like this at the end of his life?

"Don't try to speak. Just listen. The Glassway has been compromised. We were ambushed by the Vex. They just came through and… killed them all, Grandfather."

Uh, what?

"I managed to trigger the remaining defenses on my way out, but they won't hold. The portal is just sitting there, open. They're pouring through. I'm activating the evacuation protocol. Please give me the codes to do so."

"My… backup," Clovis chokes out. "Activate it."

"But that means…"

"I die. Yes. But my… time is not yet… over."

I clean up the blood spitting out of his mouth as he talks. Everyone deserves a little dignity on their death bed.

"There's no time, Grandfather. We have to evacuate, or people die."

The old man's eyes say he knows.

"Legacy first… Elisabeth," he says.

She's a bleeding heart beneath it all. Doesn't matter how many times they reset us—can't lose the essence of who we are at our core. Every Exo knows that.

Dr. Bray stands. She turns to leave. "Fine."

That can't be it, can it?

She stops at the door. "You'll regret this. Whether you live or not."