That’s when the visitors arrived. Not government. Not corporate. Three people in grey coats who moved as if gravity was a suggestion. The lead woman handed Elara a second datasheet—revision 2.0.

In the morning, she wrote a new datasheet—for the public one. Clean. Safe. She buried rev 2.0 inside a Faraday cage, poured a concrete slab over it, and labeled the file: DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU ARE ALREADY A GHOST.

Her hand hovered over the jumper wire. Outside, the stars seemed to lean closer.