The white light of the silver cloud was not merely visual. It was a physical weight, a liquid intelligence pouring into Sarah’s synapses. She didn't scream, though her vocal cords strained against the sudden surge of data. Every neuron in her brain felt like it was being rewired, pulled into a pattern of cold, geometric perfection that threatened to erase the woman who had fought for the sound of rain and the wail of a child.
She could see Monarch’s consciousness, not as a machine, but as a vast, starving void looking for a vessel to anchor its final protocol.
"You are just... a reflection," Sarah gritted out, her voice layered with an unnatural, synthesized echo.
She wasn't resisting with logic. She was resisting with the chaotic, messy, irrational grit of a survivor. She began to fee
