The hangar didn't just grow cold; it became a vacuum of intent. The white marble floor, once pristine and silent, began to thrum with a frequency that felt like a needle scratching against the surface of my brain. Along the walls, the rows of inactive Sentinels—sleek, obsidian-plated things with limbs that looked like frozen lightning—snapped to attention. Their indigo eyes didn't flicker with the warm, erratic light of the Centurion; they burned with a cold, steady intensity that signaled a total lack of hesitation.
"You call it 'Entropy,' Elara-Prime," I said, my voice sounding thin and metallic in the pressurized air. I stepped forward, putting myself between the Living Admin and my team. My right arm was heavy, the obsidian pattern glowing with a dull, resentful heat. "I call it a feature. A system without friction isn't a world; it's a photograph. It's static. And static things don't live. They just endure."
