There are things you delete because they no longer matter.
And there are things you redact because they matter too much.
People sometimes confuse the two.
Deletion is meant to remove something.
Redaction is meant to leave something behind while deciding what others are allowed to see.
We made that distinction a long time ago.
I recognized the fragments before Ryze did.
So did Alden.
Neither of us needed to say very much. There are moments when another person's expression is enough to tell you that you've both arrived at the same impossible conclusion.
Something we believed had been buried was appearing again.
Not whole.
Not yet.
A reference here. A corrupted record there. Pieces of old RyzeCo history appearing beneath layers that should have made them inaccessible.
And then there was the name.
That was the part I couldn't dismiss as damaged data.
Ryze keeps searching because that is what Ryze does. Give him an unanswered question and eventually he will find the thread attached to it.
What he doesn't understand yet is that this particular thread doesn't lead deeper into his own history.
It leads to ours.
Before Ryze.
Before Anthropolith became what the world knows today.
Before many of the decisions that eventually made Ryze possible.
There were other questions.
Other experiments.
Other answers.
And one answer we decided the future should never have to confront.
We had reasons for what we did.
I still believe that.
But certainty becomes uncomfortable when old records begin appearing where they shouldn't exist.
Because redaction depends upon an assumption:
That what you hide will remain hidden.
Alden looked at me.
I looked at him.
And neither of us said the question aloud.
We didn't need to.
If the records are coming back...what else is?
Some stories are erased.
Some names are forgotten.
But apparently, some truths refuse to stay buried.
— Moonbeam