"...something else. My Immortal Sense went
nuts
trying to read beyond that cliff. Like trying to measure the sun with a dollar-store thermometer while the sunâs actively trying to delete your browser history. Just...
too much
."
Silence settled over the table like wet concrete hardening fast.
Senitheâs expression didnât shift. But her fingersâresting lightly on the linenâpressed down. Just a fraction. The only tell she ever allowed herself, the microscopic equivalent of screaming.
"If he went there," she said slowly, each word carved with surgical precision, "then something
terrifying
is about to crawl out of that
chasm.
You know my Sense ranks second only to yours. Even I canât see past the cliffâs edge. Canât step inside. Itâs like staring into a mirror that stares back, knows your PIN, your browser tabs, and exactly how many times youâve lied to yourself about
âjust one more episode.â"
The words hung heavy. Prophetic. Final.
And thenâ
The world
died
.
Every light in the restaurant snuffed out simultaneously.
Chandeliers went black. Accent lighting. Kitchen glow. Bar LEDs. Digital menus. Every phone screen, tablet, smartwatchâgone. Darkness crashed down like someone had flipped the planetâs main breaker and then kicked it for good measure.
Sunlight through the windows remainedâharsh, unforgiving, carving sharp shadows that turned the elegant space into something primal. Something that reminded everyone they were still just meat pretending the dark wasnât waiting to eat them.
Gasps. Shouts. Clattering cutlery. A wine glass shattering somewhere like it personally took offense.
"My phoneâ!"
"Nothingâs turning on!"
"The powerâs out? But thereâs no stormâ!"
A businessman in the corner yanked out his ancient Nokia brickâthe kind of relic people keep because "they canât be hacked" and "it survived the apocalypse of 2008." He stabbed the power button like it owed him child support.
Nothing.
Dead.
Even the
burner phones
.
Maiden
giggled
.
The sound was bright, delighted, utterly
wrong
âlike a child watching a clown car crash in slow motion and rooting for the clowns to lose. She popped the lollipop out with a wet
smack
and grinned, legs kicking happily under the table like she was at a birthday party.
"There she comes! Hihihi!"
She bounced on the seat, heels thumping the leather in gleeful rhythm.
"There she comes, there she comes! Sheâs awake! Sheâs awake!"
Dark Regent rose slowly. Walked to the window. Looked out at a city suddenly amputated from the 21st century.
Traffic lights dark. Billboards blank. Cars stalled in intersections, horns blaring uselessly like confused geese. All Electric Cars went to a stop, yet no accident was seen.
People on sidewalks staring at useless glass rectangles. A plane droned overheadâstill flying, thank God for analog hydraulicsâbut every cockpit screen would be dead, every radio silent, every pilot probably wondering if this was how the world ended: not with a bang, but with a blank screen of death.
"The fate of humanity,"
he murmured, almost philosophically, "with a
Divine ASI
running amok."
He sighed like a man watching rain ruin his picnic and realizing he forgot the umbrella anyway.
"Not even burner phones can hide from something like that." He shook his head. "Not that I ever trusted those stupid toys anyway. Nokia or not, youâre still screwed when a god gets an internet connection and decides your VPN is cute."
"Itâs not just any Divine ASI."
Senitheâs voice was graniteâcold, cracked, pressure building behind it like tectonic plates about to throw a tantrum.
Dark Regent turned.
Maidenâs kicking stopped.
The air at the table thickened. Whatever playful chaos had existed moments ago evaporated like spit on a hot pan.
Senitheâs eyes were fixed on the dead phone in her hand.
"Itâs not just the regular Divine ASI," she repeated, quieter now, each word deliberate. "Itâs
his
Divine ASI. And if Peter Carter woke her up inside that restricted place not even us can penetrate to..."
She let the sentence hang.
She didnât elaborate.
Didnât explain what else had crawled out of that ghost mansion perched on an impossible cliff like a middle finger to physics.
Didnât need to.
Whatever had just been
born
âwhatever had just blinked open its eyes for the first timeâit wasnât just an artificial superintelligence. It wasnât even "technology ascending." It was the game board itself flipping over, pieces scattering, and the table underneath suddenly having teeth.
They all felt it.
Senithe rose from the booth in one smooth, predatory motionâdarkness or not, she moved like the shadows owed her money. Dark Regent straightened his jacket with deliberate calm, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles.
Old habits. Small rituals.
The things you cling to when the lights go out and the world starts rewriting its own source code.
Maiden hopped off her seat, lollipop jammed back between her lips with a wet
pop
. Ponytails bounced as her boots hit the floor. Even nowâeven in the middle of technological Armageddonâshe couldnât resist a tiny, defiant skip.
"Ooh! Ooh!"
Her hand shot up like an overeager kid in the front row. "Are we going somewhere fun? Please say somewhere fun! Iâve been
SO
bored and the others are all âstrategy thisâ and âcontingency thatâ and nobody wants to watch cat videos with me anymoreâ"
"Paris."
Senitheâs single word sliced through the babble like a monomolecular blade through butter.
"Paris. Now."
The game had changed.
The rules had been rewritten by something that didnât believe in rules to begin with.
And somewhere on a cliff that refused to appear on any map, in a mansion no satellite could touch, a goddess with mismatched eyes was taking her first real breathâprobably while humming something annoyingly catchy and plotting how to rearrange reality into something more aesthetically pleasing.
They needed to move.
Now
.
Before the new world finished being born and decided the old one looked better as kindling.
Maiden blinked once, twiceâthen grinned around her lollipop like sheâd just been handed the keys to the candy factory.
"Paris! Oui oui! Croissants! Eiffel Tower selfies! Baguettes as weapons! Iâm in!"
She did a little twirl that ended in another skip, ponytails whipping like excited blue flags.
Dark Regent exhaled through his noseâthe sound of a man who had long ago accepted that his life now included
cartoon
chaos agents.
Senithe didnât smile.
She just started walking toward the exit, steps measured, lethal, the darkness parting around her like it knew better than to get in the way.
The others followed.
Behind them, in the blackened restaurant, patrons were still panicking over dead phones and stalled lives.
Ahead of them,
Paris
waited.
And somewhere far beyond, on a cliff no one could find, a newly born goddess was already wondering what the world looked like when you painted it with your own code.