The brass key groaned as Elian forced it into the final turn. A sound like a thousand glass panes shattering simultaneously erupted from the walls of the tower, followed by a vacuum-like pull that threatened to drag their very consciousness out through their pores. The world outside the windows didn't just fade. It folded. The aurora-static sky, the shifting monoliths of the valley, and the encroaching wall of digital fog were pulled into the single, piercing point of light radiating from the pedestal.
"Hold on!" Elian yelled, grabbing the edge of the stone platform.
The room buckled. A wave of white light, devoid of any information or data, washed over them. For an instant, Elian felt his identity dissolve. He wasn't a hacker, a ghost, or a catalyst. He was simply a sequence of impulse
