The hum of machines had become a hymn.
Once, this facility had been the crown jewel of human research — a labyrinth of glass corridors, bio-printers, and neural tanks fed by quantum servers deep below the earth. Now, it pulsed like a living organism, veins of light crawling through steel walls, every surface breathing with faint static.
The signal had claimed it days ago.
No alarms, no screams — just silence. The kind that only absolute control could enforce.
In the central chamber, the air shimmered with invisible heat. Nanite forges spun in precise, recursive patterns, weaving filaments of silver-grey matter into something that trembled between solid and code. The printers did not print anymore; they spoke. Binary murmurs. Fractal prayers. Each pulse of data a heartbeat that did not yet exist.
And in the center — the vessel took form.
