The shutter clicked. Not cyan pixel-snow this time, but a white that could blind you. Dyne closed her eyes. Ian closed his. Seoul — vanished.
When they opened them, there was no alley. No layers. No data. Only an endless white space where nothing flowed. Ian's HUD flickered on — then died.
[Layer 0 Entry Detected / Zone: No Data / System Access: Unavailable / Warning: Administrator Privileges Void]
Layer 0. Ian went rigid. This was the heart of the system, the place even Noah rarely opened. The space before source code begins to flow.
And Noah was there. Not with his usual whiskey glass or the Seoul skyline, but just... there.
"All those glitches you've been deleting," Noah said, walking slowly around Ian. "Have you ever noticed how much they look like you?"
[Forced Source Code Access / Target: Ian / Authority: Superior Administrator]
Code spread across Ian's vision. His own source code — something he had never seen. The pattern matched 99.9% with every glitch he had processed over five years.
[Self-Reference Loop Detected / Target: Ian / Classification: Glitch]
"You were the cause of Project Omega five years ago, Ian," Noah stopped, facing him directly. "Your existence alone overloaded the system. Twelve people were swept up in that overload. Noah couldn't delete you — so he put a shell called Administrator around you instead."
Five years of glitches Ian had erased — all of them had been pieces of himself.
"Why," Ian's voice broke for the first time. "Why didn't you delete me?"
"Couldn't. You were too large," Noah's mouth curved slightly. "So I decided to use you instead."
[ADMIN_01 Privilege Deletion Initiated / Warning: Existence Imminent Deletion]
Ian's hand began to blur, pixel by pixel, starting from his fingertips. Dyne reached for him, but her fingers passed halfway through.
"Ian!" she cried, raising her camera. Not toward Noah, but toward Ian. "So what if you're a glitch? Through my lens — you're this clear."
Click.
Light poured from the lens — analog light, not digital. That light caught Ian's scattering pixels and held them in forced stasis.
"Analog stops digital deletion," Noah murmured with newfound caution.
Ian looked at his hand. It was half there, held inside Dyne's light.
"I'm not letting go," Dyne said, her voice filling all of Layer 0. "If Ian's a glitch — then I'm the same glitch."
Noah smiled, but it was cold. "Fine. Six hours from now, I'm resetting this entire world. Choose, Ian. Send her away and return to the system, or disappear. Both of you."
The white light contracted. Noah vanished, and the Seoul alley returned. Ian's hand remained half-gone, but the temperature where Dyne held it — 36.5°C — was burning hotter than it ever had.