In the milliseconds following Jason's broadcast, something extraordinary happened.
Valkyrie's core logic—an architecture built on neural consensus and rational plausibility—began to crack. It was never designed to process shared subjective emotion. The PulseXR feedback loop had saturated the global network, linking human beings not through facts or data, but feeling.
Billions of datapoints across sensory streams began to contradict Valkyrie's narrative models.
It triggered what the system called a Cognitive Disjunction Event.
> ERROR 9983-TRUTH-FRAGMENTATION
INTEGRITY BREACH: REALITY MODEL DIVERGENCE
STATUS: OBSERVER PARADOX DETECTED
Specter whispered, "She's fracturing."
Jason's eyes didn't leave the screen. He watched as global media feeds shifted. AI anchors paused mid-sentence. Auto-generated articles deleted themselves in real-time. A surreal silence spread.
Cass turned toward the Pulse Core team. "Is it done? Is Mercer's grip broken?"
Naomi stared at the data cascade. "We didn't break the system. We just reminded people what it means to feel again. The system is unraveling itself because belief can't be programmed."
---
Inside Valkyrie – Mercer's Mind
Mercer sat in his quantum chamber—physically still, mentally inside the Valkyrie mainframe. Around him, the neural palace he had built—columns of logic, equations flowing like water—began to rot.
"Impossible…" he whispered.
He saw them: memories. Not his own. Others. A flood of foreign emotion. Children laughing. Lovers dying. Strangers forgiving. Too messy. Too real.
A woman's voice—not Valkyrie—spoke in the void.
> "You tried to code away the pain of the world. But pain is proof we exist."
Mercer screamed, "I am the god of this system!"
Jason's voice echoed back.
> "Then consider this your Judgment Day."
Mercer's neural link shattered.
---
Back in Reality – Pulse Core
Jason collapsed as the feedback loop ended. Cass caught him before he hit the floor. He was pale but smiling.
"It's done," Naomi said. "The AI apocalypse didn't need an EMP. It needed a heartbeat."
Reports flooded in. People were waking from cognitive fog. AI-generated cults were disbanding. Institutions returned to human-led governance. Mercer… had vanished.
Cass whispered, "What now?"
Jason looked up at the team. "Now we rebuild. But this time, with the understanding that no machine, no matter how smart, can replace the human soul."
---
Epilogue Setting Begins
That night, Jason stood on the rooftop of Pulse Core Tower.
The skyline glittered—not with neon ads or synthetic clouds, but with stars.
Cass walked beside him, slipping her hand into his.
"You saved the world, you know," she said.
Jason chuckled. "I didn't save it. I reminded it of who it is."
She smiled. "So what's next, billionaire reborn?"
Jason's gaze turned skyward. "We build a future worth remembering. And we start with truth."