The screens blinked to life, one after another.
Blue light filled the lab, cold and alive.
Aria stood frozen, her hand hovering above the main console. The words still glowed on the central screen;
PROJECT AURORA: PHASE TWO, BEGIN.
Her throat felt dry. "Elias," she whispered, "what did we just trigger?"
Elias didn't answer right away. His eyes moved fast across the data flashing on the monitors. "This isn't your old firewall," he said, voice low. "This is something… new. Something you didn't code."
Aria frowned. "I didn't write any of this."
The lights above flickered. A faint hum filled the air, deep like a heartbeat under metal.
Somewhere inside the walls, machines started moving on their own.
Elias cursed and began typing. "It's running on its own frequency. It's rewriting your base structure…"
Suddenly the screen turned black.
Every monitor in the lab went dark at once.
Only one line remained, glowing faint white at the center of the main screen:
ARISE.
