The atmosphere inside the Glass Cathedral had transcended the physical. The air hummed with a frequency so high it tasted like copper and ozone, a shimmering veil of violet light that threatened to dissolve the very atoms of the room. In the center of the spinning Resonator, the face of Elena Laurent was no longer a fading memory or a digital ghost. It was a harrowing reality: a woman suspended in a state of perpetual, electronic suspension, her consciousness the very lubricant for the Syndicate’s global machine.
"Mother..." Lila’s voice was a broken whisper, lost in the roar of the core. The child in her womb surged in response, a violent, rhythmic pulsing that mirrored the strobe of the Resonator.
"She isn't just the heart of the machine, Lila," Robert Laurent said, stepping toward th
