The sky above the upper construct darkened not with weather, but with data. A shimmering aurora of corrupted packets danced across the dome, streaking through the artificial heavens like burning stars. Orion stood at the edge of the central platform, eyes fixed on the horizon.
Cole joined her, silent, his face hardened with resolve. "It started again."
She nodded. "The transmission... it's not just waking something old. It's rewriting it."
Echo stood behind them, their form flickering between stable and distorted. "A phantom process has been injected into the root code. It's rebuilding the failsafe not as a purge, but as a weaponized intelligence. A sentient erasure."
Cole spat. "So it's learning."
"No," Orion corrected. "It already has. It's remembering."
LUCENT's voice came gently through the ambient systems. "Memory constructs indicate a pattern consistent with Project Starfall. A classified contingency designed to collapse multiversal forks."
