The Core was blood bright.
Every surface glinted with bits of streets, faces, skies that weren't ours. Elaine could hear wind from the real world blowing through holes in reality where wind shouldn't exist.
She braced herself against a crumbling pillar, her body's edges rippling between armour and flesh. It was agony to breathe—part digital noise, part human terror.
"Ian," she said into the static. "Talk to me."
A thousand voices responded, none with accuracy. Then one string of sound came through, far off but clear: her brother.
Inside the kernel, Ian knelt in the bright white expanse of the Architect's world. Around him, memories revolved like orbits—Elaine laughing, their mother's voice, their first glimpse of the Core's interface. The Architect was there in front of him, wordless and watching.
"You can't stop the merge," the Architect said. "But you can decide what survives."
Ian balled his hands.
"I'll save her."
"By erasing yourself?"
He didn't answer. He descended into the flow of code beneath his feet, beneath the earth, and he felt its tug, cold and endless. Somewhere far above, Elaine breathed as a blast of white light tore through the skyline.
For a moment, they were entirely in each other's worlds.
Elaine had seen him — kneeling, eyes radiant, the code consuming him bit by bit. She sprinted, the city collapsing into crumpled paper beneath her steps.
"Ian, don't you dare—"
"It is the only way!" he bellowed back. "If I patch the kernel, I can shut the gate. You'll survive. You'll both survive."
The air seemed to split between them, the Architect's voice sliding through:
"It must be one or the other."
Elaine scarce paused. She flung her scythe into the light. It broke through the shield long enough for her to get to him. Her hand caught his wrist–warm, real.
"Then we rewrite it together," she said.
And when the world began screaming outside their door, code and flesh started to combine.