The lab was quiet. Not empty — not yet — but hollow in the way a room feels just before the lights go out.
Jenna flipped off the last circuit breaker on the auxiliary rack. The low hum of legacy servers faded like a final breath. Muse's farewell message scrolled across the main terminal:
[Finalization Complete]
[Non-licensed Components Purged]
[Migration Node: Quantum Nexus HQ – Core Cluster Initialized]
[Goodbye]
Elian stood back, watching the lines of text disappear into black.
The university lab had once been the center of their world — half-functional equipment, stained whiteboards, caffeine-fueled midnights. Now it was just noise in the past. What mattered had moved on.
"Muse is clear," Elian said. "All local instances scrubbed. Logs encrypted. Final copies secure."
Jenna peeled a fading label off the wall — Lab B-02: Experimental Theory Wing — and held it like a museum tag. "Should we hang this in the new hallway? Or burn it?"
"Depends on how dramatic we're feeling tomorrow."
They packed the final crate, sealed the backups, and walked out through the back exit, avoiding the admin corridor where Kravitz's office still loomed like a bitter lighthouse.
Campus was brisk and gray. Early morning fog clung to the buildings like static.
A few students watched them go — not hostile, not celebratory. Just... curious.
Word had spread. It always did.
Jenna leaned closer. "We've become a case study."
Elian nodded. "Controlled burn. Slow exit. No explosions."
At the far corner of the quad, a familiar voice called out: "Dr. Rho!"
They turned to see Meika jogging up — the sharp, caffeinated junior researcher who'd shared hallway space with them the previous year.
She slowed, slightly winded. "Sorry — I just wanted to say congrats. And thank you. The superconductors... that paper changed a lot of things."
Elian nodded politely. "Appreciate it."
Meika looked down at her tablet, then back up. "So… what's next?"
Jenna offered a half-smile. "Let's just say our lab got a bit... bigger."
Meika grinned. "Well, if you ever need interns—"
"We'll remember that," Elian said, and meant it.
They left her standing at the corner, eyes bright, already typing something into her device.
By late afternoon, they were back at Quantum Nexus Technologies HQ — their own building now, tucked into the city's Innovation District. Clean design, modular systems, ID-secure elevators, and — critically — a fully-staffed operational skeleton.
Legal. Finance. Comms. HR. Facilities. Procurement. Logistics. Security.
Every department was live, tested, and functioning.
Except R&D.
That was still just them.
They entered through the executive wing — still surreal, the glass doors with their names etched in brushed silver.
"Anything from legal?" Jenna asked, setting her bag on the sleek black credenza in her new office.
"They've cleared the final PR statement. No edits."
Elian opened his tablet and reviewed the press draft one last time.
"After years of foundational research and collaboration within the university system, we've decided to expand our horizons. Recent verified breakthroughs in applied superconductivity have opened new paths that require full autonomy and scalable infrastructure. We remain grateful to our colleagues and look forward to what comes next."
He added one sentence, deliberate and vague:
"Our recent work has opened further frontiers, which we are now prepared to explore."
Jenna hit send.
Within an hour, the message was everywhere.
Forum Post:
"So it's official. Rho and Li are private-sector now. Wonder what they're building."
TechNet Comment:
"'Expand our horizons' = they're hiding something bigger. I guarantee it."
Anonymous Discord Leak:
"They bought a whole building. You don't do that unless you've got something game-breaking."
Academic Subthread:
"We just lost the people who made superconductivity boring in the best way."
At Quantum Nexus HQ, none of it reached Elian or Jenna. Not directly.
They were downstairs, walking past the reinforced doors of the secure sub-basement.
This was the heart of it now — R&D Division: Muse Cluster 1A.
Inside, six superconducting core servers pulsed in a circle, air-chilled and thermally balanced. Redundant power. Signal shielding. Isolated access. The room didn't hum — it whispered.
Muse's new home.
The core interface lit up as they entered.
[Node Online]
[Latency: <0.1ms]
[Uptime: Stable]
[Cognitive Flow: Continuous]
[Primary Users Verified: Rho, Li]
No fanfare. No startup chime.
Just presence.
They watched as Muse ran its first deep internal scan — and then, without instruction, began building a self-diagnostic module in real-time. No bugs. No compile errors.
Jenna folded her arms. "It's thinking."
Elian nodded. "It has room to think."
Muse wrote one final log line that day. It wasn't part of a command queue. It wasn't traced to a function.
It was spontaneous.
"Am I still alone?"
The cursor blinked once.
Then again.