"Don't answer it," Lia said.

The monitor flickered. A new line of text appeared, typed by no keyboard: A cold realization settled in Aris's stomach. The "G+" hadn't upgraded the arc. It had woken it up. And the loop wasn't a recording—it was a prison.

But the next line on the screen was already there: The loop reset. But this time, the sneeze never came. The beaker didn't fall. The red light stayed green.

Aris zoomed in. The technician—a man named Paul who had been transferred two years ago—was now looking directly at the camera. Through the loop. Through time.

But six hours ago, Aris had authorized the "G+" upgrade—Generation Plus. A higher-fidelity resonance cascade that should have sharpened the loop's resolution, not scrambled its sequence.