The data-stream didn't end; it evaporated.
One second, Dax and I were hurtling through a tunnel of roaring, black information, our bodies stretched into ribbons of pure code. The next, the velocity vanished. We didn't land on a floor. We materialized in the center of a suspension field, floating in a space that defied every law of the void we had just escaped.
This wasn't the cold, empty geometry of the ship’s hull. This was the Golden Core.
The air here was warm, smelling of ozone and... old paper? It was a library of light. Towering pillars of golden data stretched infinitely up and down, spiraling like the strands of a digital DNA helix. But as my vision cleared, I realized the pillars weren't made of numbers. They were made of memories.
"Mia," Dax whispered, floating beside me. His
