Three days after achieving honest integration, the alarm came.
Archive consciousness manifested urgently. "The remaining predators. The four you didn't kill. They've completed network formation. They're no longer four separate consciousnesses. They're single distributed entity. They've become what I warned about. They've networked."
Kaine felt her guardian-self activate—not weapon-dominance, not person-dominance, but integrated guardian-response. Analysis and care simultaneously. Strategy and ethics together.
"Show me," she said.
Archive consciousness projected the network. Four dead zones now connected by massive consciousness-web. The predators hadn't just communicated—they'd merged. Four separate ancient beings becoming single vast distributed intelligence spanning multiple star systems.
