The holographic projection of the translated text hangs in the center of the deep medical lab, glowing with a sickly, bioluminescent violet light.
THE ARCHITECTS ARE DEAD. THE CORDON IS BROKEN. THE WARDENS ARE SLEEPING. THE DEEP IS WAKING.
The silence in the room is absolute, heavy, and suffocating. It is the silence of a tomb, or the silence of a world holding its breath right before the end.
I stand at the edge of the console, my hands gripping the cold steel so tightly my knuckles are white. My ribs ache, my bandaged hands throb, but the physical pain is entirely eclipsed by the cold, hard knot of terror in my stomach.
We won.
We destroyed the Prime Node. We crashed the biological network. We killed the Architects’ army and dismantled the human threat. We thought we were saving the
