The mountain air was no longer a sanctuary; it was a digital executioner. As the house dissolved, the timber and glass didn’t splinter; they de-rezzed, falling away in shimmering, square-shaped pixels that vanished into the violet hum of the atmosphere. Lila felt the floor beneath her boots turn into a lattice of translucent light. Gravity became a suggestion, a flickering variable in a world being rewritten by the New Board.
"Ethan!" Lila screamed, her voice distorted by the electromagnetic interference.
Ethan didn't respond with words. His amber eye had flared to a blinding, sun-like brilliance, the ghost of Sarah Blackwood surging through his neural pathways to provide a counter-signal. He stood over Gideon’s rigid, white-eyed body, his hands glowing with a chaotic mix of violet and
