The sound of the footsteps stopped a few feet behind her. Cattleya didn”t turn around. She couldn”t. Her limbs felt like they were woven from heavy, unstable light, tethered to the ground by a gravity that belonged to the machine, not the earth.
She stared into the vast, digital horizon of the vault. It was an impossible space”an endless expanse of glowing, golden server racks stretching into a ceiling of swirling, violet nebula. It was the "Nursery" in its raw, unrendered form.
"I know that voice," Cattleya whispered, her own words sounding like a chime of breaking glass.
"Do you?" The figure stepped into her peripheral vision. It was Rusty”or a perfectly constructed simulation of him. He wore the same charcoal coat, but there was no wear on the fabric, no dirt from the tunnels, no blo
