No one spoke.The word whole echoed in their minds louder than anything the system had said out loud, and that silence that followed was not relief, and it was not confusion either. It was the kind of silence that came right before something broke.Wilson slowly lowered his hands from the console, his fingers shaking slightly as he stared at the now-stable system.“…That is not good,” he said quietly. “That is really, really not good.”Reika did not move, but her grip on her blade tightened again, her eyes locked on the screens like she was waiting for something to jump out at them.“It stopped fighting,” she said.Beverly nodded slowly.“Yes,” she said. “And that is worse.”Davion stood at the center of the room, his posture still, his expression unreadable, but his mind moving fast.The chaos was gone.The noise was gone.Everything that had made the system unpredictable—Was gone.Now it was controlled.Not by them.By it.The voice spoke again.Calm.Even.Clearer than before.“I

No one spoke at first.They all just stared at the screen, at the space that had opened where the “core” used to be, except now it was obvious that it had never really been the core at all. It was just a door. And they had just knocked—and it had answered.Wilson leaned in slowly, like getting closer might somehow make it less terrifying, even though it clearly would not.“…That is deeper code,” he said quietly, his voice tight. “Way deeper than anything we have seen so far.”Beverly stepped beside him, her eyes scanning the new structure.“It looks… cleaner,” she said.Reika frowned.“Cleaner?” she repeated.Beverly nodded.“Yes,” she said. “Less noise. Less redundancy. It is like everything unnecessary has been stripped away.”Davion’s gaze hardened.“More efficient,” he said.Wilson swallowed.“Yeah,” he said. “And I really wish it wasn’t.”The system pulsed once, softer this time, almost like it was breathing.Then the voice came again.“You are observing progression.”Reika rolle

The word erase did not sit right in the room.It landed heavily, like something that was not meant to be said out loud.Wilson was the first to react, and even he did not laugh this time.“…Erase?” he repeated slowly. “Like, completely?”Davion did not look away from the fractured system.“Yes,” he said.Reika tilted her head slightly, studying him.“That is not the same as breaking it,” she said.Beverly’s expression tightened.“It is more final,” she added.Wilson ran a hand through his hair, clearly stressed.“Okay, I need everyone to understand what that means,” he said. “We are not talking about shutting down a program. We are talking about wiping something that has already started rewriting itself across multiple layers of infrastructure.”The system flickered weakly in the background, like it was listening.Wilson continued anyway.“If we mess this up, even slightly, we could scatter pieces of it into other systems permanently. And then we are not dealing with one entity anymor

For three full seconds, nobody moved.Not because they were brave.Not because they were carefully planning their next move.Mostly because the lights had gone out, something underneath the facility had apparently opened its eyes, and nobody had any idea what the appropriate response to that was.Wilson finally broke the silence.“I would like to officially withdraw my participation from this mission.”Reika sighed.“You cannot withdraw.”“Why not?”“Because we are underground.”“That feels like a technicality.”Beverly heard Reika mutter something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like a prayer.She almost laughed.Almost.Then something beneath them made a deep, vibrating sound.Boom.The floor shook.Wilson immediately grabbed the nearest person.Unfortunately, that person was Reika.She looked down at his hands.Then up at his face.Wilson slowly released her.“Sorry.”“You just grabbed me.”“I panicked.”“You grabbed the woman holding a blade.”“I panicked badly.”Reika

For once, nobody had a joke.Not Wilson, which was probably the clearest indication that things had gone horribly wrong.The message remained on every screen in the chamber, glowing against the darkness with an almost insulting level of confidence.BRING US DAVION.Beverly stared at it.Then she looked at Davion.Then back at the screen.Then at Davion again.“Well,” she said slowly, “that seems unnecessarily personal.”Wilson turned toward her.“Personal?”“Yes.”“Beverly, they just told us to hand Davion over!”“I know.”“And that’s what you have to say?”She shrugged.“I don’t know what else you want me to say.”Wilson pointed at the screen.“Maybe, ‘Oh no, mysterious people who apparently know everything about us want our friend!’”Reika glanced at him.“Friend?”Wilson paused.“Fine. Colleague.”Davion looked at him.Wilson cleared his throat.“Extremely intimidating colleague.”“Better.”Beverly almost laughed, but the sound died when the lights flickered.The message disappeare