"It's not a surveillance system!" she shot back. "It's a collapsed star! It doesn't have intent. It doesn'tcare."
"It doesn't need to care." I cried, exasperated. This female was the most stubborn, infuriating being—her eyes flashed.
"That's not how anything works."
"It is," I spat. "Here." She had no idea about the things happening inside the Dark Abyss; nobody did. Nobody knew about the war Sapharos was fighting every day to keep the Mmuhr'Rhongs at bay.
She shook her head, pacing, throwing dark glances at me. "You don't get to rewrite cosmology because it suits your narrative."
"And you don't get to ignore a predator because it offends your equations."
That stopped her—for half a second.
"A predator requires cognition," she lectured, her voice lower now, but no less sharp. "A singularity consumes because of mass, not malice. It doesn'tselecttargets."
"It selected you." I clarified. Pinning her with my gaze. A flicker of fear crossed her eyes, but it wasn't of what she should be afraid of. She was worried about me hurting her.
Her hands spread in exasperation. "You abducted me. You overrode my neural autonomy. And now you're blaming a black hole."
"I removed you because you were becoming visible to something that does not distinguish between observer and substrate."
"That's word salad," she snapped.
"It's the truth."
She stared at me like she wanted to hit me. I almost wished she would.
"You don't get to decide what'stoo dangerousfor me," she said finally. "You don't get to hijack my mind because you're afraid of your own mythology."
That flustered me. "I'm not afraid."
"No?" Her laugh was brittle. "Then why are you controlling variables instead of explaining them?"
This female! I was about to throw my hands up into the air. "That's what I'm trying to do."
"That's what every tyrant says."
I blinked. Tyrant? How did we get from… this to… tyrant?
Silence fell between us—tight, charged.
"You think I'm fragile," she continued. "That I need protecting from a phenomenon I've studied my entire life."
"You are not fragile," I shook my head. "You are exposed."
Her eyes narrowed. "To what?"
And there it was—the line she stubbornly refused to cross. I held her gaze. "To the part of it that is not physics."
She shook her head again, furious and unconvinced. "It's all physics," she insisted, and I let out a huff. We had another stare-off until she hissed, "Let me go. Right now."
"I can't do that." I shook my head and repeated, "The Abyss noticed you; it's too dangerous for you to remain on that ship."
Her hands curled into fists. "You were in my mind!"
I inclined my head slightly. "It's a remarkable place."
That earned me a sound somewhere between a snarl and a laugh. "You think this is funny?"
