Up close, Malachi didn't look like a god.
He looked like a corpse on life support.
His skin was thin as paper. Blue veins showed through like wires under plastic. Real wires ran from a heavy collar around his neck into the glowing column of light behind him. His bare feet stood in a shallow pool of coolant. It made tiny wave with every pulse from the Core.
But his eyes— they were something wrong about them.
They weren't eyes anymore. They were two blue screens, flickering like a glitching computer. Updating. Scanning. And Never still.
"Flesh," he said, flexing his fingers like he was testing them. "it feel Strange. It's like wearing an old coat. It's Heavy. But… familiar."
I stepped off the elevator platform.
Below us, rows of sleepers stretched out into the darkness. Pods stacked high in rows. Hundreds. Thousands. Each one glowed a soft, sick blue.
Above the nearest row, a timer floated in the air.
[HARVEST CYCLE 7]
[DISCONNECT IN: 09:59]
