CHAPTER 296: CATALYST CONVERSATION

The morning haze hadn’t lifted entirely, but the apartment was already full of warmth—sunlight catching the table’s edge, the smell of eggs still lingering, the faint scrape of Sienna finishing the dishes. It felt like the kind of calm that rarely lasted in our lives.

Which meant it was time to ruin it.

I padded softly into the hallway and headed for the bedroom where all 3 girls were sleeping on the bed, starting with Evelyn.

"Evelyn?"

She stirred instantly, blindfold still secure, body already turning in the direction of my voice. Her Cain Protocol reflexes were still intact.

"I’m up," she murmured, sitting up with slow precision. "I smelled breakfast earlier."

"Still warm," I said. "Come join us."

She nodded once and stood with the kind of smooth efficiency that only someone who’d been trained to kill in her sleep could pull off. No complaints. No grumbling.

I turned toward the next one.

Alexis.

"Come in," came the flat, alert voice from within.

She was already sitting up, hair slightly tangled from sleep but posture perfect. Her notepad lay beside our pillow like it had been gripped until the moment her eyes closed.

"You already awake?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I never fully sleep," she said simply, standing and stretching her neck. "What time is it?"

"A little after eight. Breakfast’s ready."

"I’ll be there in two."

Of course she would.

That just left the demon.

I turned to Camille.

Immediately, a groan as if she felt my presence.

"No. No no no. Go away," came the muffled voice from under a cocoon of pillows and duvets. "I know that voice. That’s the voice of betrayal. The voice of a task."

"It’s breakfast," I said innocently.

"It’s a trap," she moaned. "How could you do this to me? I’m only like this because you want me to fix the coat and you won’t even let me sleep after? You’re a tyrant, Rey. A monster. A paint-covered bully."

I smirked. "You haven’t even started fixing it."

Silence.

Then—

THUMP.

She sat bolt upright, hair shooting in every direction. "You went into my office?!"

"I didn’t touch anything."

"You entered my office?!"

"Barely. I stood in the doorway."

"Do you have any idea how many volatile fibers are on that table?!"

"Which is why I didn’t touch anything."

Camille narrowed her eyes suspiciously, then slowly climbed out of bed, muttering under her breath. "If one of those bobbins is unwound, I swear I’ll sew your coat shut and trap you in it like a fashion mummy."

But she was awake.

And by the time we were back in the kitchen, everyone was seated. Evelyn took small, deliberate bites. Alexis ate silently, reviewing something invisible in her mind. Camille sulked for the first three minutes, then started stealing potatoes from Sienna’s plate with surgical precision. Sienna didn’t even bat an eye—just tapped her fork like she was keeping score.

It felt good.

After breakfast, Alexis stood and quietly made her way to her office, the door clicking shut behind her.

I glanced at Sienna, who was stacking dishes.

"You got these?"

"Go," she said, smiling without looking up. "I figured you’d want to talk to her about the System."

I bent forward and kissed her forehead. "Thanks."

She nudged me with her hip. "Don’t forget to breathe when she starts monologuing."

I grinned and left.

Alexis’s office was organized chaos. Vials. Blueprints. Digital projections locked in motion. Every piece had a place, and every place had a logic that only she understood.

I knocked gently.

"Come in," she said, not looking up.

I entered and closed the door behind me.

She turned on her chair, adjusting her fogged-up glasses absently with a sleeve. "What can I do for you?"

I took a breath and leaned on the edge of her desk.

"I think the System might be alive."

Her eyes flicked to mine.

"Define alive."

"Responsive. Reactive. Possibly aware. It stalled when I tried to Copy one of Sienna’s skills. Then gave me a message that said: ’Skill not fully registered in Public Domain. Please wait.’"

Her eyes widened slightly. I continued.

"Then Sienna got a notification asking for domain access approval. Once she accepted, I was allowed to Copy it."

Alexis leaned back slowly in her chair, her fingers tented in front of her lips. The glasses fogged more.

"That shouldn’t be possible, what even is a ’Public Domain’ in this context?" she muttered.

"Exactly. From what I’m thinking it’s because Sienna’s skill was available to her alone, but the System’s never stalled before. Never acknowledged domains. It used the word ’wait.’ That’s... almost conversational."

I watched her carefully.

She didn’t respond immediately.

Instead, she let out a sharp breath that might’ve been a laugh. Then another. Then a short, clipped giggle that didn’t match her usual tone at all.

"Alexis...?"

She grinned. Actually grinned.

It was subtle, but real. Her cheeks slightly pink. Her fingers now twitching toward a notebook that was already half-filled with formulas.

"Oh, Rey," she said softly, eyes glowing behind the fogged lenses. "You have no idea how long I’ve waited for something like this."

Her voice had an edge now. Excitement. A shade of thrill I hadn’t heard since we first cracked the Cain Protocol facility’s firewall.

"An anomaly?" I guessed.

She nodded quickly. "The biggest one."

She stood, pacing now.

"I had a theory," she said. "Three years ago. Right before I met you. Back when I was still working at the hospital. I was interviewing patients and asking how their System’s worked and behaved. Each person’s System was slightly different in how it worked."

"You thought it was evolving?"

"No," she said, turning to me. "I thought it was fully conscious."

I blinked. "That’s... worse."

She grinned again. "That’s what made it fun."

I folded my arms. "So what are we looking at? An AI that’s gone rogue? A piece of adaptive code?"

She shook her head slowly. "The possibility of AI is there, but I’m not sure how that would match up with what we know about the System."

"And what do we know?"

She walked back toward me, sat down again, eyes still sharp with energy.

And then, her tone dropped.

Softer. Quieter.

Less answer. More question.

"Rey," she said.

"Yeah?"

"What do you think are the origins of the System?"