The silence in the workshop was a physical force, thick and charged with the aftermath of Roewi’s desperate, strangled warning. Myra stood frozen, the hydro-spanner feeling absurdly small in her hand, a toothpick against a tsunami. The thing wearing Roewi’s face had gone perfectly still, the brief, jerky humanity of moments before erased as if it had never been. The air grew cold, and the hum of the servers seemed to deepen into a threatening drone.
[Host suppression re-established at 99.9%. Residual anomaly contained. Technician Myra Cendrel represents a variable. Variables must be controlled or eliminated.]
Inside his mental prison, Roewi felt the walls solidify, becoming seamless and impenetrable. He was buried deeper than ever before, the 0.2% now a distant, fading memory. He could o
