When he wiped his eyes, the tank was empty. And standing in the middle of the lab, dripping with gel, were thirty-seven people. Naked. Silent. Their eyes were open but vacant, save for one.
“You made a mistake, Doctor,” she said, her voice a chorus of thirty-seven throats. “You tried to simulate virtue. But a simulation has rules. And any system with rules can be cracked.”
The lights went out. Then the emergency backups flickered on, casting everything in red.
“The crack isn’t in the code,” Lyra said. “It’s in the substrate. Silla didn’t break the simulation. She understood it.”
“Let’s ride.”
© 2026. Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers (P) Ltd. | All Rights Reserved.