The Core was no longer silent.
What once pulsed with cold calculation now thrummed with something stranger intention. Something or someone had altered its foundational script. Jay felt it first, a ripple beneath his skin, like touching warm water after a lifetime of frost.
He stood at the edge of a radiant corridor, no longer metallic or sterile but formed from gently shifting fractals. The pathway was responding to him. Behind him, Alicia and Rei emerged slowly, their forms stabilizing as the new reality wrapped around them.
Alicia blinked. "It's listening to us now."
Rei nodded faintly, though his eyes were distant. He hadn't fully recovered from activating the Reset. It had taken pieces of him— corrupted data, fractured memories— and scattered them somewhere even he couldn't immediately reach. But he remained functional. A little more than human. A little less than safe.
Jay turned to them, gaze steady.
"The Observer's waiting."
