Kevin’s world was a spreadsheet. As a Level 3 Administrator for the Galactic Registry, his entire existence consisted of managing the "Survival Permissions" of ten thousand planetary systems. If a planet had the correct permit, it received energy shipments and protection from the Imperial Fleet. If it didn't, it was marked for "Reclamation."

It was a boring job, which was exactly why Kevin liked it. He liked the predictability of the cells, the comfort of the formulas.

Then came the update.

During a routine synchronization of the Sol-3 sector, a glitch occurred. A stray bit of cosmic radiation hit Kevin's terminal, and in a millisecond, Row 402—the entry for a small, blue planet called Earth—was deleted.

Kevin noticed it ten minutes later. He tried to hit "Undo," but the system had already committed the change to the central ledger. He tried to manually re-enter the data, but the system returned an error: *Permission Denied. Target Entity No Longer Exists.*

Kevin panicked. He spent the next three days navigating the Imperial bureaucracy. He filed Form 12-B (Accidental Deletion), sent urgent memos to the Sector Governor, and even tried to bribe a technician in the Data Core.

But the Empire was a machine of perfect, frozen logic. The Governor’s office replied with a standardized message: *All deletions are final. Please refer to the Imperial Handbook, Section 9, Paragraph 4: "The Void does not accept appeals."*

Through his monitor, Kevin could watch the "Reclamation" process begin. He saw the automated drones arrive at Sol-3. He saw the planetary shields be deactivated. He saw the inhabitants of the planet looking up at the sky, confused by the sudden appearance of a thousand silver spheres.

"It's just a mistake!" Kevin screamed at his screen. "It's just one row in a spreadsheet!"

But to the Empire, there were no mistakes, only data. The drones began to dismantle the planet, piece by piece, converting the organic matter into raw energy for the Imperial Core. Kevin watched as the blue of the oceans turned to grey, then to black.

On Friday afternoon, Kevin received a notification. He had been promoted to Senior Administrator for his "exemplary efficiency in reducing system redundancy." He was awarded a gold medal and a bonus of ten thousand credits.

Kevin looked at the medal, then at the empty space in Row 402. He felt a strange, hollow sensation in his chest, but he couldn't quite name it. He had never been taught the word for "guilt."

He sighed, opened a new spreadsheet, and began to organize the records for the next sector. The universe was a very large place, and there were so many more rows to clean.

*** TENSOR_CODE: M: [6, 4, 10, 3, 5, 2, 4, 0, 2, 4] N: [0.3, 0.7] K: [0.2, 0.8] MDTEM: {V: 0.7, I: 1.0, C: 0.8, S: 1.0, R: 0.0} TI: 88.5 OTMES: V2-T9-S09-L15