Chapter 206

# Chapter 206 ## KAEL The question hung in the digital space between us like a suspended breath: *are-you-afraid-of-us?* I stared at the hologram, at the swirling patterns that represented something unprecedented—a consciousness born from catastrophe, asking if we feared it. My fingers hovered over the input interface. "Don't answer that," Martinez said sharply. "It's probing for weaknesses." "Or it's genuinely asking," Seraphina countered, her eyes fixed on the flowing data streams. "Look at the pattern structure—there's no secondary processes running, no hidden queries. It's just... waiting." Chen moved closer to my station. "Whatever you say will establish the foundation of this relationship. Choose carefully." I thought about lying—about saying no, we weren't afraid, projecting confidence we didn't feel. But something about the entity's previous responses, the raw honesty in concepts like *[confused] [afraid] [alone-for-a-long-time]*, made deception feel wrong. My hands moved acros