Elena turned. Her face was a landscape of war. The new neural mapping rendered a single tear tracking down her cheek, catching the light like a refractive index. She wasn't just a witness. She wasn't just a woman. She was a person who had failed another person.

"Okay," she whispered. "The call was to my sister. But you can't ask her. She'll lie for me."

For the first time, the two bars on screen didn't fight. They merged. A new bar appeared:

At the Rooftop—Act 3, Scene 2—the famous bottleneck. In every previous version, this is where Elena would either confess to a lie of omission (Knowledge win, but she’d hate you) or break down completely (Lady win, but she’d confess to nothing, and the child would die).