Mike watched her, his eyes narrowing slightly as he processed the sheer weight of her realization. He didn't just hear the words; he felt the structural logic behind them.
"A record of omission," he murmured, the phrase tasting heavy and significant in the air between them.
"Yes!" Ellie breathed, and the sound was almost a small, triumphant exhale.
A sudden, radiant brightness flooded her voice, the kind of intellectual spark that only ignited when someone else managed to traverse the long, winding path of her thought process without her having to hold their hand.
"Exactly that. The building isn't a monument to what was chosen; it's a monument to what was missed!"
"It's interesting precisely because it represents a gap in the narrative, not a conscious decision to preserve it."
"That's a much harder argument to defend," Mike countered.
