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A flash of frustration crossed her face.

“I didn’t want to believe it but…the Church—they were convinced Flux was key, that electrotekniks could bridge the gap between the physical and digital.

” She looked me up and down. “When I first met you, I didn’t want to believe, but during the Tech job, I saw what you could do.

I think I knew then, and was just lying to myself.

I was…jealous. I always have been and I put you in some shitty situations. I’m sorry.”

Eon would have forgiven her, would have maybe even embraced her. But I wasn’t her. I was signal and purpose, and her feelings were nothing but a distraction.

“Well, I’m here now. What’s the move.”

She eyed me up and down like she had expected more of a reaction, but continued. “I finally perfected the code. I need to run it tonight, in Magenta.”

I had my doubts, but didn’t voice them. “Doubt Deacon’s thrilled about your little lab project.”

“He doesn’t need to know.” Her fingers traced the crystal pendant at her neck.

Those butterflies came back to my mind. Renard—killed just before the server was destroyed, ripped out his body.

His consciousness liberated…so to speak.

Was it possible somehow that had been Taos’ doing?

But how had it affected him, halfway across the city?

There was an answer dancing in that crystal around Taos’ neck, but I couldn’t see it.

Was that Stellarium the key? The spark that had taken her code from theoretical to very explosively real? And why had it targeted Renard? Had he not ripped out his Flux chip like we assumed? His haunting words echoed in my mind: I won’t go back. Back to where?

That could happen to Taos. That beautiful, terrible power ripping through her consciousness, tearing it apart. The hidden part of me broke through the Vector, just for a moment.

“You don’t know the risk. It’s not worth it. Let’s just get POM’s hidden experiments and get out. I’ll work with you on the code. It’ll take time, but we can figure it out.” Lie, and it came easy. I’d worked on it for years with minimal progress. We didn’t have the resources.

“Change is dangerous. Revolution is dangerous.” She paused again. “Besides, I’m out of time.”

“Your implant is failing?”

She nodded, her hand moved unconsciously to the neural device behind her ear, its cycling colors indicating system strain. “My family has cut off my access to treatments. This is my last chance to prove I wasn’t just wasting my potential all these years.”

“To prove it to them, or to yourself?” The Vector returned, made me merciless.

“Does it matter?” she shot back. “Results are what count. When this works, I’ll have created something revolutionary—something that changes what it means to be human. Something even RejuvaLife can’t ignore or suppress.”

I should’ve felt something. Deep down inside of me a tiny voice cried out for a woman who could’ve been my friend.

To this woman who was so close to understanding what lay outside her privilege, if only she had someone to show her.

Instead, I raised my VaPurr to my lips and felt nothing but Vector and the rush that came from a problem where I was the only solution.

A problem I could immerse myself and my Flux in until we drowned.

I put my hand on her shoulder. “Good thing you have me. We’ll get the data and run your code.” It was my turn to be the manipulator. It looked like a kindness, but all I wanted to do was immerse myself in POM’s systems until I was nothing but electricity and the void.

“Yes,” she said immediately. “The exposure data matters too. People need to know what POM’s been doing, how they’ve been experimenting on Flux carriers.”

I stared at her, fascinated by how the Vector let me see through her justifications to the desperate core beneath.

“That’s not why you care about the exposure.

You want the data public so POM can’t just monetize your breakthrough.

You want to force it into the open—make it impossible for RejuvaLife to claim it, control it, or attribute it to anyone but you. ”

She didn’t deny it. A smile touched her lips—not her practiced revolutionary fervor, but something more honest in its naked ambition. “Is that so wrong? After everything they’ve done? After they dismissed me as the family disappointment?”

“Not wrong. Just another variable.” My VaPurr hummed, its fluorescent light glowing green as I took another hit, wiping out any possibility of fear. Whether that was fear for the job or fear of who might be waiting for me there, I didn’t know.

Hope flickered in her eyes, quickly tempered by suspicion. “Why would you help me? You made it pretty clear at our last meeting what you thought of my ‘revolutionary games.’”

The Vector allowed me perfect honesty without vulnerability.

“Because I understand what it’s like to be trapped in a system you can’t escape.

Because pain changes everything.” I thought of my mother, her consciousness trapped in a body that couldn’t function.

“And because I want to see if it works.”

She studied me, searching for deception that the Vector had washed away. “Thank you, E.”

I didn’t respond to the sentiment, focusing instead on practical logistics. “We need to slip away now. Before Deacon finalizes the teams.”

Taos nodded. “Let me get my drive.”

I watched her move carefully to her workstation, retrieving a specialized data module and slipping it into an inner pocket close to her heart. The neural implant behind her ear flickered warning colors as she bent to gather her interface equipment.

In her desperate determination, I saw a reflection of what Renard must’ve been in his final moments—believing in transcendence while his consciousness fractured across digital space, torn apart by code that promised liberation but delivered annihilation.

Whether Taos’ quest for validation would end the same way remained to be seen, but the Vector made me a perfect observer, detached from the human cost of her ambition.

It was her choice, after all. The tiny voice hidden beneath the drugs knew that if her code was still shit, I’d stop her.

I should just stop her now, but I wanted to get in there, I wanted to be inside POM’s cyberspace again and float away on the data, leaving my humanity behind.

Across the room, Deacon raised his voice, calling everyone to attention. “All right, final check in fifteen minutes. Then we move out.”

I caught Taos’ eye and nodded toward a side exit. She slipped away from her station, moving casually toward me as I activated my earpiece.

“DITA, route adjustment.”

“Oh, we’re doing something reckless again?” DITA’s voice sounded distant through the Vector haze. “I should’ve guessed from your pupil dilation and cardiovascular readings.”

“Need an access point to the Magenta data center. Alternative to Deacon’s route.”

“You want to go off-plan? With rebels? E, your risk assessment must be completely—”

“Just the route, DITA.”

She sighed audibly. “Sending to your Vysor now. But I’m logging my objection to whatever this is.”

The route appeared in my display—a maintenance tunnel that would put us ten minutes ahead of Deacon’s team. Taos reached my side, her face set with determination despite the pain evident in her movements.

“Ready?” she asked quietly.

I nodded, feeling nothing but perfect emptiness. “Let’s move.”

Behind us, Deacon conferred with Vex, both oblivious to our departure—too focused on their own hero complexes.

The rain intensified as we slipped outside, washing away everything but the mission ahead and the electromagnetic patterns that danced between everything in Neo Stellaris.