The air in the Foundation’s central hall had turned into a pressurized soup of ozone and betrayal. Outside, the Atlantic was reclaiming the island, the volcanic rock shuddering as the geothermal vents began their terminal overheat. But inside the white house, the silence between Lila and her father was more destructive than any tectonic shift.
Robert Laurent stood amidst the swirling glass and sea spray, looking less like a captive and more like a high priest. He didn’t reach for a weapon; he simply watched his daughter with a clinical, terrifying affection.
"The Mnemosyne strain was never meant to be a static sequence, Lila," Robert said, his voice cutting through the roar of the dying island. "It is an apex predator of data. In the Eiger, it bonded with your reproductive biology becaus
