Time didn't resume so much as rearrange itself.
The coin Igor had flipped hovered midair like it was caught in honey. The elevator shuddered, the buttons fizzled out, and then—
Everything blinked.
Suddenly, Thea and Igor were no longer standing inside an elevator.
They were… sitting at a diner booth.
A cheery one.
Checkerboard floors. Neon signs. The strong smell of burnt coffee and overcooked fries. An android waitress walked by carrying a plate of pancakes shaped like smiley faces, trailing a faint scent of melted plastic.
Igor blinked at the salt shaker. "Are we dead?"
Thea examined the menu. "Not yet. But this feels like purgatory designed by someone who really liked Back to the Future."
A bell above the door dinged.
A man walked in. Pale. Smiling. Wearing a paper hat labeled "MANAGER" in comic sans.
"Hello again," he said, as if they were regulars.
"I hate that I almost recognize him," Thea muttered.
The Manager sat down across from them.
"You broke the system. Congratulations. You triggered an undefined outcome. The simulation can't parse your choices anymore. So it defaulted to its oldest file." He gestured to the diner. "This. Welcome to Level 0."
Igor scowled. "What's Level 0? Breakfast limbo?"
"It's the layer under all layers. The sandbox." He tapped the table. "You're not being tested anymore. You're… being watched."
Thea leaned in. "By who?"
The Manager smiled wider.
And then, behind him — every screen in the diner lit up.
Clips started playing. Of them.
Footage of Thea as a kid, crying when her drone got stuck in a tree. Igor smashing a school projector on purpose. Thea sleep-talking. Igor nervously fixing his hair before a debate club meeting. Memories. Intimate ones. Ones they never shared with anyone.
"Someone's been compiling this for a long time," Thea whispered.
The Manager turned to the footage, nodding. "Your lives, decisions, reactions — all very valuable data."
"You mean we've been streamed?" Igor asked, already half-laughing. "What is this, the world's worst Truman Show?"
The Manager chuckled. "You weren't supposed to be in the Final Simulation. Not yet. But your bond… it disrupted everything."
Thea narrowed her eyes. "Why does that sound like an accusation?"
"Because you weren't supposed to survive together," the Manager said plainly. "The simulations are designed to expose weaknesses. Break them. Remove variables."
"You mean people," Thea snapped.
Igor crossed his arms. "So what now? You erase us? Recycle us like the others?"
The Manager stood. "No. Now you make a real choice."
He pointed to the window.
Outside, the diner was no longer alone. They could see endless halls filled with test rooms — like the entire simulation had flattened, layers exposed. Subjects wandered in loops. Monitors blinked. And behind it all, a single dark tower loomed, twisting upward into an endless skybox.
The tower pulsed, alive.
"That's the Core, isn't it?" Thea whispered.
The Manager nodded. "If you enter it, the simulation ends. For everyone. But it will fight back."
Igor raised a brow. "So we break the machine?"
"You become part of it first. Just long enough to rewrite the code."
They both looked at each other.
"We've done worse," Thea said.
"We've survived IKEA ghosts and existential elevators," Igor added. "I think we can handle a tower."
The Manager smiled faintly. "Be careful. The tower knows who you are."
With that, the diner flickered out.
And they stood in front of it.
The Core.
Massive. Breathing. Covered in screens that blinked with memories — theirs and others'. Data dripping down its sides like rain made of light.
"Tell me we have a plan," Igor muttered.
Thea pulled a crumpled map from her jacket. One she'd swiped during the glitch phase. "Half of one. But that's all we've ever needed."
They stepped forward.
And the doors opened — not with a mechanical click.
But with a voice.
It sounded like both of them. Overlapping.
"Come home."