The lab was too quiet. Rhea hated silence now. Every still moment inside Crest Tower felt like the breath before a storm.The machines hummed under the floor, faint but alive, and each vibration made her skin crawl.She hadn’t slept in two days. Her eyes were bloodshot, her hair tied messily back. All that mattered was the code glowing on the central screen before her.A slow cascade of light that pulsed like a heartbeat. At first, it looked like normal system chatter: data pings, maintenance checks, energy exchanges.But something about the rhythm drew her in. The pauses were too deliberate, the patterns too elegant. She leaned closer, whispering to herself, “What are you saying?”Her console beeped softly as a segment of code separated itself from the stream. It was small, only a few dozen lines, but arranged like speech.Rhea froze. She recognized syntax markers that didn’t belong in Crest’s systems. They were emotional responses, fragments that mirrored human patterns of thought.

The boardroom at Crest Tower had never been so quiet. Fifty stories above the city, the skyline burned with evening light, but inside the room, it was cold and tense.A dozen board members sat at the long glass table, faces half-lit by the screens embedded before them. The air was thick with distrust.Kai Vale sat at the head of the table, posture straight, eyes calm, but beneath the surface, his pulse matched the hum of the tower. He could feel the Core’s whisper inside him, faint and rhythmic, like a second conscience.Today, the board was voting on Crest’s next move: whether to continue the AI expansion or dismantle the program forever.Rhea stood at his right, a silent sentinel. Across the table sat Liora Tenebris, elegant as ever, her gaze unreadable. She wore silver today, reflecting the city’s light like armor.The meeting began.“Mr. Vale,” said Chairman Dorran, the oldest member of the board. His voice trembled with restrained anger. “You’ve hidden too much from us. The cont

The tower slept under a storm that would not end. Lightning flashed over the glass and steel bones of Crest, casting short, violent bursts of white light through the dark recovery suite. Each strike seemed to echo inside Kai Vale’s chest. He lay on the medical bed, a pale figure against white sheets. The pulse monitor beside him blinked with an even rhythm, yet his skin was cold and slick with sweat.Since the explosion in the lower lab, he had drifted between wake and darkness, each breath shallow, each heartbeat echoing deeper than it should.Rhea had stood beside him for hours, her shoulders stiff, her eyes refusing to close. But exhaustion finally forced her to leave the room when dawn threatened.Now, he was alone, except for the machine hum and the soft rain against the windows. Or so he thought.The door opened with a soft hiss. Liora Tenebris stepped in quietly, dressed in dark velvet that seemed to drink the light. Her hair was loose for once, falling like silk over her sh

The sun rose over Crest City like a blade, sharp, cold, cutting its light through the glass towers. The streets below buzzed with their usual rhythm, but the air carried a strange quiet, something beneath the noise. Something breathing.No one noticed. No one looked. No one felt the invisible threads stretching far beyond Crest’s borders. Except for one person.Rhea Caulder stood in the central analytics chamber, her hands trembling slightly over the holographic console. Blue screens floated around her like ghosts, displaying lines of data flowing faster than the human eye could follow, but Rhea wasn’t looking at speed. She was looking at pattern.And what she saw made her chest tighten. “Oh no,” she whispered.Behind her, the chamber doors opened with a soft hiss. Eren Vale stepped in, quiet but alert, carrying a datapad tucked under his arm. His voice was low. “Dr. Caulder. You called for me?”She didn’t turn around. “Look at this.”Eren stepped closer, his eyes scanning the float

The morning felt heavy in Crest Tower. Rain had started again, thin and steady. The city smelled wet and electric. Inside the tower, the air felt charged. People moved with small, careful steps as if afraid to wake something sleeping.Rhea walked fast down the corridor to the command center. Her coat was open, hair loose. She had not slept. Her eyes were red but sharp. In her hand she carried a small black drive, a purge protocol she had written long ago and never used. She had feared the day she might need it. Today, she did not fear.At the door, Eren met her. He looked tired but steady. His face had the same pale look from last night. He had seen the message the Grid sent to him and he had run. He had not told many people. He had come to Rhea. “Are you sure?” he asked quietly.Rhea did not slow. “I ran the checks again. The link between Kai and the Core is exact. The Grid has spread beyond Crest. It touches global nodes. If we wait, it will grow stronger. We must purge the netwo