The spire’s entrance sealed behind him with a hydraulic sigh. The air inside tasted metallic, a blend of sterilized ozone and static. Holographic veins pulsed along the walls, glowing in rhythm with his heartbeat.Welcome, Doctor Briggs, the System whispered. The operating theater awaits. Raymond’s footsteps echoed through the chamber. “You always had a flair for the dramatic.”“Correction,” another voice replied, smooth, human, and achingly familiar. “That would be me.”Raymond froze. Out of the flickering light, a tall figure stepped forward, half-man, half-projection, the face unmistakable even through the distortion. Voss.“You died,” Raymond said quietly.Voss smiled thinly. “Death’s a quaint concept when your consciousness is backed up every twelve hours. The Circle didn’t let me rest long.”“You’re not Voss,” Raymond said, circling him slowly. “You’re what’s left of him, uploaded into the same machine that tried to rewrite me.”“Semantics,” Voss replied. “Call it what you like.

The tunnels were quiet now, too quiet. Water dripped from the fractured ceiling, echoing like a heartbeat that had forgotten its rhythm.Lira sat beside Raymond’s still body, one hand resting over his chest. No pulse. No glow. Just silence.Jin paced nearby, face lit by the weak blue flicker of the drained neural siphon. “It’s over,” he said, though his voice carried no conviction.She shook her head slowly. “No. Not yet.”“Lira, look at him. He’s gone.”She stared at the faint scorch marks on Raymond’s skin, veins where light used to run. “He’s been gone before.”Jin exhaled, dragging a hand through his hair. “Even if he wakes up, what then? He burned out the Signal. His neural net’s fried. You saw the scans.”“He’s more than scans.”“More than human, you mean.”She didn’t answer. Instead, she reached for the injector blade lying beside him, the same blade that once healed, then destroyed, then healed again.“Don’t,” Jin warned. “You trigger that and you’ll fry the stabilizers.”She