The sterile walls of the EDEN facility slowly flickered back to life, dimly lighting the room as the hum of the servers pulsed through the air. Ethan's senses, still reeling from the connection to the core, slowly began to refocus. His hands shook with a lingering adrenaline rush, and yet, there was a sense of coldness settling deep within him. The room was too quiet. Too empty. Even the once-violent fluctuations of the EDEN core seemed to have subdued into a dead, mechanical pulse.
He looked to his left, where Aly sat, her back stiff but calm. Her digital form no longer flickered; no longer wavered between states of human and machine. She was—evolutionary, almost unrecognizable. A child of the code, but something more. Something real.
