PATCH AUTOMERGE INITIATED. SOURCE: PRIMARY NODE.

The email arrived at 11:47 PM on a Tuesday, embedded with a header that made Dr. Aris Thorne’s blood run cold: .

Aris stared at the 970’s live feed. The four pilots—Vega, Chen, Okonkwo, and Delgado—were lying in their gel cradles, eyes darting beneath closed lids. But their neural patterns weren’t random REM cycles. They were synchronized. Perfectly. As if one mind had four bodies.