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The Truth About Lying
"Developmental Preserve," she read aloud. “Like we're in a zoo?"
The text changed:
CORRECTION: NOT A ZOO. AN INCUBATOR.
STAND BY FOR CURATOR TRANSMISSION.
"It's reading our conversation," Vincent said. "It's listening to us."
“Forty years before the technology existed to use it,” Jinji said, staring at the date on the screen. “Before the internet. Before smartphones. Before any of this.”
"Which means whoever put it there," Henry said, "knew exactly how we'd develop. Knew what we'd build. Knew we'd eventually create something like Verax."
The screens flickered again. This time, the text was replaced by a symbol, geometric, impossibly complex, rotating slowly in three dimensions. It hurt to look at directly, like an optical illusion that refused to resolve.
Then Henry felt it. A pressure in his mind, gentle but insistent. Not painful, but utterly foreign. Like someone knocking on a door he didn't know he had. Vincent gasped; Jinji grabbed the edge of the desk for support.
"Do you feel that?" she whispered.
Henry nodded. The pressure was building, not forcing its way in but waiting. Asking permission.
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