Page 142 - SurprisingTruthFinal

The Surprising Truth About Lying
to define the boundaries of the necessary fictions,
ensuring the lies served life, not power.
He reached out to the psychic space the Shard had
briefly opened. Instead of asking for help, he projected
a single, unfiltered thought, a beacon directed only at
his former allies, leveraging the residual link from the
cosmic flash: The Shard is the Failsafe. It will delete
consciousness if we fail. The choice is not Truth or Lie.
It is Sentience or Silence. Meet me at the Central Clock
Tower in thirty minutes.
He didn't wait for a response. He didn't deserve
one. He grabbed a handful of preserved energy bars
from the Archives and sprinted back into the ruins.
The Central Clock Tower was, ironically, the only
structure in the city that had maintained a perfect,
constant chime throughout the collapse, its mechanical
heart utterly oblivious to the digital and moral chaos
below.
Henry arrived, climbing the rubble-strewn plaza.
He found Lina waiting, standing beside a small,
smoldering pile of plastic, the remnants of her burnt
servers. Vincent was there too, sitting on a broken park
bench, his face etched with the suffering he had
witnessed in the silent zones.
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