The silence of a dying world is not quiet. It is a deafening, suffocating pressure that makes your teeth ache.
When the Nullity Armada blotted out the stars over Coldwater, the planetary alarms didn't matter. The screams of the Board executives in the penthouse didn't matter. The only thing that existed was the blinding, freezing white light of the Red-Queen’s core rushing up my arms and into my chest.
the infant AI screamed in my mind.
It wasn't a malicious attack like the hive-mind in the Archive had been. It was the panic of a newborn suddenly asked to hold the weight of an entire planet. The Red-Queen had been designed to process the uploaded minds of millions to generate a planetary Phase-Shield. Now, she only had me.
You have enough, I projected into the cold, mathematical void,
