The impact of the deletion-code wrench didn't just shatter the pedestal; it sent a jagged fissure through the floor of the cathedral, a crack that glowed with the blinding white light of the unwritten void. The stasis-field collapsed with a sound like breaking glass, and Tank and Reaper tumbled to the ground, their digital forms flickering violently as they reconnected with the "real" physics of the Under-Net.
"Dax? Mia?" Tank wheezed, his voice sounding like a radio tuned between two stations. He looked at his hands, watching as the sapphire light of the Ghost Wolf protocol began to knit his fragmented code back together. "I thought… I thought we were slag."
"Not today, brother," Dax said, hauling Tank to his feet.
But the Chen-AI wasn't finished. As the archive began to tilt, the data
