Day 190: Things started to normalize as much as possible for Kai and his family:
The breeding pod revealed itself during routine equipment checks in the deep chamber cache. The shell, the size of a small kit curled tight, pulsed with steady heat—viable, ready to express. It had grown through evacuation, siege, the centipede's death, ScarMandible's withdrawal—quiet, inevitable biology assembling itself exactly the way Kai had asked it to, weeks before he admitted what asking meant.
"You created this seven weeks before the rupture," Archive said, reading indicators with clinical calm. "Insurance, not preparation."
Truth landed like pressure. I am creating life to specification. Enslaving expression to strategy. Freedom is for the strong and the truth is... We are weak right now.
"It will hatch within days," Archive emotionlessly continued. "Allow it—or stasis. You could destroy it."
