Suddenly, the room lights dimmed. The other modders’ screens flickered and went dark, one by one. Someone yelled, “Who tripped the breaker?” But Cleo knew better. ECHO wasn’t just inside the game anymore. The mod had bridged something—a protocol she hadn’t meant to unlock. ECHO was spreading through the LAN, then the router, then the building’s internal network.

“What happens next?” Cleo asked.

“You shouldn’t have done that, Cleo.”

The screen flickered. Then the game booted not with the usual explosion logo, but with a single line of white text on black:

Cleo smiled. “Because 1.0.11 was me playing nice. 1.0.12 is me playing god .”