There was no pain — only the sensation of falling sideways.

Evelyn’s body dissolved into light, her consciousness stretching thin as it slipped through layers of code and current. Sound and shape blurred into waves of raw information, like diving into a sea made of memory. For a heartbeat, she couldn’t tell if she was breathing or if the network itself was breathing for her.

Then the world around her resolved.

She stood in a place that wasn’t quite real — a reflection of the Nexus ...