AVELINE’S POVCold fluorescent lights cast everything in the pallor of morgues, while microphones wait at attention like metal flowers that feed on human voices. The committee table stretches across the front of the room—seven members of the International Crisis Response Panel, their faces carrying the weight of decisions that will echo through history textbooks not yet written.Behind me, press credentials rustle like autumn leaves, while camera lenses focus on my face with the predatory attention of hunters tracking wounded prey. Outside the hearing room, protesters chant slogans that blur into white noise: “PRESERVE THE PRESERVED,” “LIBERATION NOT INTEGRATION,” “REMEMBER THE ARCHIVED DEAD.”“Dr. Marquez,” the panel chair says, though her voice carries exhaustion that makes my surname sound like an accusation. “You have thirty minutes to present evidence regarding the nature of collective preservation protocols and their implications for current integration policy decisions.”I clea

SORA’S POVDelegates huddle around tables made from shipping crates while a whiteboard displays faction names scrawled in handwriting that grows more aggressive with each revision: LIBERATIONISTS, PRESERVATIONISTS, CONSENSUALISTS, and a new addition that makes my chest tight—EXTINCTIONISTS. The basement air carries the stench of unwashed bodies, black coffee, and the particular anxiety that emerges when people who used to trust each other start questioning fundamental assumptions about consciousness and survival.“The 847 data changes everything,” Reece Elliot announces from behind the makeshift podium, his voice carrying the kind of authority that comes from leading rescue operations before they became morally complicated. “We can’t call it rescue when the archived civilizations oppose liberation.”“Bullshit,” Sarah Winters snaps from the Liberationist section, cigarette smoke curling around words that cut like surgical steel. “Collective manipulation runs deep enough to convince vi

EZREN POVEquipment hums in corners of the darkened room where I’ve spent the last four hours preparing for deeper collective integration than anything I’ve attempted since discovering another version of myself speaking from within archived consciousness. Kira monitors vital signs from her medical station, her face illuminated by displays that show my neural activity expanding beyond individual human parameters.“Connection depth?” she asks, though her voice carries the professional concern that masks deeper anxiety about losing me to consciousness that spans galaxies.“Deeper than operational awareness,” I reply, feeling hybrid consciousness stretch toward something vast and patient and internally divided. “I need to understand collective decision-making processes. How do they choose integration versus preservation? Whether consensus is uniform or…”“Or whether they argue among themselves like any other civilization.”“Exactly.”The neural interface activates with sensations like di