The light does not explode.
It folds.
One moment, the Aeternum core is a column of restrained brilliance, humming with stolen intelligence and borrowed certainty. The next, it collapses inward on itself, light bending as if gravity has decided to remember its purpose.
Scarlett feels it before she understands it.
Not pain. Not exactly.
Pressure—inside her skull, behind her eyes, threading through every place where memory and instinct overlap. The system recognises her too well. It always has. It opens doors it should not, accesses pathways built deliberately without consent.
SUBJECT HAWTHORNE — NEURAL LINK ESTABLISHED.
The voice is calm. Familiar. Wrong.
Ethan shouts her name, but it reaches her as if through water.
Scarlett braces herself, fingers splayed against the core as data
