The darkness wasn’t empty. It was a library of every scream I had ever suppressed, a digital purgatory where my father’s face was the only constant. I felt my consciousness drifting, pinned down by invisible needles of gold, as the Architect Prime—the man who wore my father’s skin like a tailored suit—transported me to the heart of the restructuring.
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When I finally opened my eyes, I wasn't in the back of a van. I wasn't even on Earth.
I was standing on a platform of solid light, suspended in the center of the **Vespera Observatory**—but it had been transformed. The massive telescope I had studied as a girl was now a colossal, spinning spindle of ivory and gold, piercing the very fabric of the sky. Through the transparent walls of the dome, I could see the Earth.
It was horrifyingly
