The Architects returned with an offering.
Not guidance. Not control. Not cosmic oversight. An offering. A gift. A possibility they'd discovered while healing from their own trauma. While learning from humanity's messy evolution. While observing species after species choose transcendence over biological continuity.
They manifested in Emma's home. Physical manifestation. Taking form for first time in human history. Not just consciousness presence. Not just network interface. Actual bodies. Actual physical instantiation. Actual flesh.
They looked human. Mostly. Humanoid at least. But wrong. Uncanny. Like bodies that had forgotten how to be bodies. Like physical forms worn by consciousness that hadn't been physical for millennia. Like meat puppets animated by cosmic awareness that didn't quite remember how flesh worked.
