She stumbled backward, knocking over a rack of optical cables.
They hadn't learned to trap light.
"Dad?" Elara's voice cracked.
The ghost of light didn't respond. It wasn't a soul. It was a recording. The most perfect recording ever made. Every photon that had once touched his face, bounced off his flannel shirt, and scattered into the room had been forced to march backward. To reconvene. To be . rtgi 0.17.0.2
He looked exactly as he did on a Tuesday afternoon. Worn cardigan. Reading glasses perched on his nose. A faint smell of pipe tobacco and worn paper. He wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the window, at a sun that had set three years ago. She stumbled backward, knocking over a rack of
[rtgi 0.17.0.2: Light does not forget. Light waits.] The ghost of light didn't respond