The chamber was not a room.
It was a pause.
The corridor widened into an absence of walls, the kind created when function outran architecture. Light came from nowhere in particular, a uniform dim that erased shadows without brightening surfaces. The floor vibrated faintly beneath Taylor’s feet — not with machinery, but with throughput.
Mara stopped at the threshold.
“After this,” she said, “it will assume continuity.”
Taylor nodded. He felt it too — the way the pressure no longer pressed, only counted. Like breath held at the top of a cycle.
They stepped inside.
Nothing greeted them.
No screens. No terminals. No obvious core.
Instead, the space behaved.
The air adjusted a half-second late to Mara’s breathing. The floor dampened Taylor’s steps differently depending on where he placed his weight. Latency whispered through the chamber in soft, arrhythmic waves.
“This is where it learns,” Taylor said.
Mara didn’t correct him.
“That’s new,” she replied. “Before, it only reconciled.”
They walked deeper. The pressure rearranged itself around them, not concentrating, not dispersing — centering.
Taylor felt a sudden, disquieting clarity.
Something was missing.
Not broken.
Removed.
A gap in the accounting large enough to notice only if you were part of the math.
“Mara,” he said quietly. “What used to be here?”
She closed her eyes for a moment.
“A buffer,” she said. “One of the old ones.”
“Retired?”
She shook her head. “Consumed.”
The chamber adjusted, acknowledging the term.
Taylor exhaled slowly. “And now it’s recalibrating.”
“Yes,” she said. “And it brought you.”
The pressure settled — not heavy, not light.
Load-bearing.
For the first time since alignment, Taylor understood the shape of the choice ahead of him.
Not join or resist.
Replace.
The maintenance window remained open.