Chapter 28 · Reset Protocol - Chapter 28: The Core Grows a Heart

"You can't have both."

Erin's voice came from the cracked tablet screen, thin and breaking up like bad radio. Mark gripped the edge of the dispatch counter hard enough that the laminate creaked under his palm.

"There's always a third option," he said.

"Not this time." The static got worse. "The core's already rewriting her. You saw the scans. Vera's not Vera anymore, she's substrate. She's architecture. You pull the plug, she stops."

Mark looked at Lucas, who stood three feet back with his arms crossed and his jaw tight. The older man hadn't said a word since they dragged Erin's signal back online five minutes ago. His daughter's voice was gone. He'd cut it himself. Now he just watched Mark like he was waiting to see which way the knife would fall.

"Then I don't pull the plug," Mark said.

Erin laughed. It sounded like glass in a garbage disposal. "You let it run, the whole district gets archived. Forty thousand people, Mark. You, Lucas, everyone you ever delivered to. Specimen shelf in some alien vault."

"I know the math."

"Do you?" Her face flickered on the screen, pale and too sharp.