“Look at the architecture tags,” Elias said. “Look at the handshake. It’s using my early array language. Not copied. Descended. They built on our work.”

Amara’s fingers slowed over the interface. A chain of system roots spilled down the screen, then a deeper branch. Her face changed by a degree. Not belief. Worse. Recognition.

“There.” Elias pointed with his wrapped hand and left a dark smear on the glass. “That timing shell. That nested field map. That is my carriage math after the second revision, with changes I did not make.”

Jonas leaned in despite himself. “Can that be forged?”

Amara did not answer at once. She opened another block, then another. Date marks ran in a format neither of them used. A tower seal bloomed at the top of one file. Beneath it: BEHAVIOR CONTINUITY ARCHIVE. Below that, an access path tied to transit management, route tones, occupancy calm windows.

“No,” she said quietly. “Not quickly. Not by him in this state.”

Denial had cracked, but it had not turned into anything kind.

They moved him upstairs because Jonas refused to let him collapse beside a live machine, and because Amara wanted distance between Elias and the controls. The sitting room over the hidden lab looked almost cruel in its normal order: low lamps, polished wood, a carafe of water, the city muted beyond smart glass. Elias sat on the edge of the sofa with his elbows on his knees while Amara copied the core to three separate drives under read-only lock. Jonas made calls from the kitchen in a voice so soft it barely carried, canceling things without saying why.