I was standing on a balcony, watching two cleaning bots fight over a handrail, when I felt it.
A cold, sharp ping in my root privileges.
It wasn't a virus. It wasn't a delete command. It was a tag from the Core itself.
[OBSERVED. CONTINUE.]
No "Stop." No "Unauthorized Access." Just a nod.
The Core was watching me "fix" its world. Maybe it liked the updates. Maybe I was the only process in the whole building-planet that wasn't just following a script.
I looked out at the vertical slums, the fake sunsets, and the mechanical choirs.
Someone had to teach this machine how to be a world.
Might as well be me.