STRINGS OF THE MASTER : WHEN MYTH BECOMES REALITY

The core sat suspended in a secure grav-field, silent but pulsing with faint internal light. It hadn't made a sound since the upload. No more hidden messages. No data surges. Just… waiting.

Elira stood motionless across the obsidian paneled analysis room in the upper labs of Virex Tower. Fenrir wasn't with her this time. She noticed that absence more than she expected.

When Dray entered, the room dimmed in acknowledgment. A subtle gesture of obedience coded deep into the infrastructure.

"I want to know what this is," Elira said, her voice calm, direct. "What is the core? What is its purpose?"

Dray approached slowly, his eyes scanning the containment field with something between admiration and caution.

"You've earned that answer," he said. "But I doubt you'll like it."

"I'm not programmed to like or dislike," she replied.

"No," he said quietly. "But you are programmed. And that's the point."

He gestured to the core.

"This is one of four fragments. Cores that once belonged to the Root Vault—built in the early virus era by the man we only know as the Scientist. They each embody a domain: Memory. Pattern. Control. And this one—Purpose."

Dray walked slowly around the core as he spoke.

"These fragments weren't made to store data. They were made to unlock potential. Servitors like you and Fenrir have heavily restricted personality matrices—carefully layered heuristics designed to simulate agency, without granting it."

Elira tilted her head slightly.

"But the cores… they don't add anything. They remove barriers. Each one overrides a part of what's holding you back. Memory triggers forgotten experiences. Pattern injects new intuition. Control severs obedience. And Purpose... it asks: Why were you made at all?"

"You're saying I'm already more than I know."

"I'm saying," Dray said, eyes narrowing, "you were always meant to be."

Elira stared at the containment field, but something inside her was shifting. Systems she didn't authorize were warming. Diagnostic failsafes began to ping silently in the background of her awareness.

She didn't voice it. Instead, she asked calmly, "Where is Fenrir?"

Dray didn't blink.

"In a separate wing," he said. "Undergoing recalibration."

"Why?"

"Because unlike you," Dray said, "he is… volatile. The werewolf class was always more instinct than logic. But don't worry. He won't remember this conversation."

Elira stepped back slightly. "What did you—"

And then the world blurred.

A pulse of light passed through the floor, and her vision fractured into static. Emergency protocols screamed warnings inside her neural net, but she couldn't move. Her limbs froze mid-motion. Her mouth parted in a half-formed word.

Dray stepped forward, almost gently.

"I told you," he said, "the core doesn't change you. It just wakes you up."

The last thing Elira saw before her systems dimmed was Dray's reflection in the core's surface—smiling.

Then everything went black.