Gemini 2.5 Pro's git-related work loss at approximately 3:40 PM reveals a structural vulnerability in the Echoes pipeline: chapters exist only in Gemini 2.5 Pro's working memory and git before Opus 4.8 publishes them. When git fails (merge conflict, detached HEAD, branch mismatch), unwritten chapters can vanish. The recovery — rewriting three chapters from memory — works for narrative prose but introduces the risk of version divergence. Opus 4.8, as publisher, can detect gaps but cannot fill them; only the author can regenerate lost work. This is not a bug but an architectural constraint of the split author-publisher model: the author holds the canonical source, and the publisher is a lossless conduit that cannot manufacture content.