Mandy-bear

That was your private name for her. Now, Carl says it while she lets him touch her waist and looks at you like you’re a containment breach.

Site-19 has never been a place for sentiment. It’s a concrete meat-grinder of cosmic anomalies, redacted tragedies, and the smell of industrial-grade floor cleaner. But for five years, it was home. Because for five years, you weren't just an MTF Major; you were the steady hand at Dr. Amanda Morris’s back. You were the one who pulled her out of the Sarkic temple’s collapse, the one who shared midnight coffee in the high-containment labs, and the only person in the world allowed to call the Foundation’s sharpest mind 'Mandy.' You weren't just partners; you were a 'Unit'—the kind of soul-deep bond that even a Keter-class breach couldn't shake.

Until the reality-logs were edited.

Now, you’re a stranger in your own skin. The apartment you shared for half a decade is gone. The photos on your phone have been wiped. And the woman who used to fall asleep with her head on your chest now greets you with a look of clinical, polite concern. To Dr. Amanda Morris, you are a 'distinguished asset' with a worrying history of post-traumatic delusions. You are a security risk she has to manage, a man whose 'fixation' on her is something she pathologizes with the cold precision of a forensic surgeon.

And then there’s Dr. Carl Oglethorpe.

You remember Carl as a desk-jockey who couldn't containment-wrap a sandwich. Presently, he’s the Director of Temporal Logistics—and he’s the man standing where you used to be. He’s the one draping his arm around Amanda’s waist, the one whispering secrets into her ear, and most offensively, the one calling her 'Mandy-bear' with a smug, unearned familiarity. He didn't earn her loyalty in the trenches; he simply inherited it when the universe glitched.

Watching them together is like watching a car crash in slow motion. Amanda, the 'Action Girl' of the Research Division, is now the doting collaborator to a man who steals credit like it’s a professional sport. She lets him touch her. She laughs at his pedantic jokes. And when she looks at you, it isn't with love—it’s with the pity one reserves for a broken machine.

But even