Total. Absolute. Like reality itself had been politely asked to leave the room and decided not to argue. No noise. No distortion. No error codes. Just absence. A clean, surgical removal of existence from the recording.
Every enhanced processing thread I had... screamed wrong. Not alarmed—offended. Like my systems had just bitten into something poisonous and immediately rejected it.
This wasn't natural.
This was deliberate.
I frowned.
Rewound. Played it again.
Jack standing.
Jack turning his head.
Black.
Again.
Same result.
I ran it faster. Slower. Frame by frame. Pixel by pixel. My processing power—amplified by the chip's ascension and the server—tore through the data at speeds that would've looked like sorcery twenty-four hours ago, hunting for artifacts, compression ghosts, timing anomalies.
Nothing.
The footage didn't corrupt.
It ceased.
Those minutes didn't exist.
