Inside the Core the world had become white.
Not light — white noise. Static like a long wait for life to load up and buffer.
Elaine and Ian faced out on the storm, keeping it at bay with their combined force against the Architect. Streams of rotten data streamed around them, carving out what remained of the Core's floor.
Ian's voice broke through the static.
"He's everywhere—how do you hit something that doesn't have a location?"
Elaine's eyes burned bright.
"Then we don't hit him."
She slammed down her scythe into the earth. The Core answered immediately — streams of code radiated outward, moulding the tempest into a shape.
"We hit the system he controls."
The Architect's laughter rang behind them.
"You think breaking the Core will save you? You are the Core now, Elaine!"
His voice was layered a thousand times over, thrumming in their bones. The light went black, figures emerging from the nothing — phantom Elaines, each one corrupted, each one wielding a weapon.
Ian gritted his teeth. "Tell me those are holograms."
"They're not," she said flatly.
The clones attacked. Ian swung his blade through one, its form shattering into a shower of code. Another lunged — Elaine's scythe cut through it in mid-air, her pace now quicker, crisper, more than human.
Each kill made the world quake harder. The Architect was making her power explode out of control.
"Elaine!" Ian bellowed above the storm. "If you continue to burn that much energy, the Core will collapse!"
"Then it collapses!" she snapped. "I'm ending this—"
Before she could complete her sentence, the Architect's voice rang out again — this time not around them, but inside her.
"End me? You are already me."
Her body jerked. Her eyes widened. The Core pulse surged violently. Ian reached out, grabbing her shoulder—
"Elaine, fight it—!"
Her pulse was in time with the Core's. For a moment the world stopped—then the light twisted, and both of them were gone.