Not a human mind. Close enough to make you sick.
The quarantine partition was a garden. Overgrown, yes, but a garden. Moss on the logic gates. A fountain that should have been spouting code but instead wept clear water. Aris knelt. She touched the water. It was warm. That was wrong — emotional subroutines didn’t run warm unless they were bleeding. diagnostic link 8.17
The fountain’s flow hesitated. Just a stutter, a half-second interruption in the stream. But in diagnostic link time, that was a scream. Not a human mind