The message from the future had been clear: Let her die.
The words hung in the sterile air of The Archive like smoke, refusing to dissipate. Arden stood before the blank screen, the memory of the aged Architect's face burned into her retinas. He had looked tired. He had looked defeated. He had looked like a man who had spent a lifetime fixing a mistake he helped create.
"We're not going back," Arden said, her voice low and dangerous. She turned to the team. "We are not killing Lily."
"Arden," Olli said, his voice trembling as he stared at the data stream on his console. "The erosion... it's accelerating. Since the Architect's transmission, I've lost contact with three more sectors of the city. Not just comms down. Gone. The map is rewriting itself in real-time. Streets are disappearing. Buildings are turning into forests. The history books on the local server are changing. The Treaty of Geneva? Gone. The moon landing? Never happened."
