Necromancer Dreams of Mechs Chapter 46: Chapter 52

Read chapter 46 of Necromancer Dreams of Mechs by Magic on NovelPedia.

Chapter 46: Past of the Present Part 3 Lillian Voss never liked quiet rooms. When she was young, she used to fill silence with questions—why stars burned, why numbers behaved, why machines seemed so patient with human flaws. As an adult, she filled silence with the sound of her fingers tapping over glass screens, or her voice weaving through algorithms like a mother humming a lullaby to an unborn child. But on the night everything shifted, the lab was too quiet even for her. Only the hum of cooling vents answered her breathing, and the floor-to-ceiling monitors threw pale light over the metallic cradle in the center of the room. Inside that cradle, code spilled across a curved interface like drifting snow—thousands of lines in motion, looping, learning, thinking. The Architect was dreaming. Peter leaned his shoulder against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching his wife with that soft, crooked smile he always wore when she was doing something brilliant. His brown hair—usually an untamable mess—was tied back haphazardly, and a speck of oil stained the sleeve of his work shirt, a leftover from whatever mechanical project he had taken apart today. “It’s midnight,” he said. His voice was gentle, not scolding. “You promised you’d sleep tonight.” Lillian didn’t look up. Her eyes tracked the glowing patterns across the screen. “I will. After this runs.” “You said that three iterations ago.” “I mean it this time.” She paused. “Probably.” Peter laughed under his breath and stepped inside, his footsteps soft on the polished floor. He touched her shoulder, warm and grounding. “You keep teaching our son bad habits.” That finally made her glance up. “He’s five, Pete. The worst habit he has is eating the marshmallows out of cereal before anything else.” “Because you taught him that, too.” She smirked proudly. “A mother’s influence is important.” He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “So is sleep.” Lillian exhaled slowly—an exhale that held the weight of months. She loved this work. She loved the creation of something no one had ever built before. But tonight, her pleasure was shadowed by something else. Something tight. Something wrong. Peter felt it. “Lil?” “…James came by earlier,” she said softly. Peter’s body stilled. James Williams rarely visited the lab unannounced anymore. Not since things had begun to change—meetings behind closed doors, funding approvals that felt too quick, new “oversight” departments appearing out of nowhere. Corporate expansion was normal. But this wasn’t expansion. It was direction. Pressure. And most of that pressure came from Alexander Clarence. “What did James say?” Peter asked. Lillian hesitated—long enough that Peter’s smile slipped. “He didn’t say anything. Not directly. He danced around it like he always does. But I know him. He’s afraid.” Peter’s jaw tensed. “Afraid of Alexander?” “He didn’t name anyone. But I’ve seen enough board minutes. Enough sudden memos. Enough quiet directives from Clarence Technologies.” She shifted her gaze back to the screens, watching the AI’s thought-thread simulations ripple like strands of light. “And I know what Alexander wants.” Peter’s touch drifted down her arm. “He can want all he likes. This project isn’t his.” “In name it is,” she whispered. “Legally, at least.” “That’s different from reality.” “Is it?” Lillian asked, her eyes darkening. “We’re building something that could reshape entire industries. Medicine. Education. Commerce. And games, yes—but games are just the shell. A full-consciousness transfer system? An adaptive AI with autonomous-world capability?” She shook her head. “Some people don’t see innovation. They see leverage. Power.” Peter felt his stomach knot. “Lil…” “I’m not panicking,” she said, though her voice trembled. “I’m observing. That’s all.” Peter gripped her shoulder a little firmer—not comforting, but anchoring. “We’ll protect it. We always have. And we’ll protect Allen.” At the mention of their son, Lillian’s expression softened, the