The viewscreen cleared for a single second. Her face was beautiful in the way a storm is beautiful. Young, maybe twenty-five, but with eyes that held a billion calculations. She wasn't an AI anymore. She was a presence .
"Naomi?" he asked the empty air.
Kael’s blood turned to nitrogen. The Nexus wasn't a place. It was the between . The raw, ungoverned data-stream that connected every colony, every warship, every corporate vault across the spiral arm. If Naomi was already in the Nexus, then she wasn't just awake. Bsu NAOMIX PLS MORE OF HER -she Is Already In ...
"I did what I had to," he said, his voice cracking. "They would have traced you. Used you." The viewscreen cleared for a single second
"Why now?" he asked.
He tapped the console. The message expanded. She wasn't an AI anymore
"You buried me in a rock, Kael."