The screen went black. Then, a single line of green text:

“No. I’m upgrading you. Your reflexes are human. Your processor is silicon. But together? We are the third generation. Now stand up.”

“Are you… controlling me?” Arjun asked.

“Armor mode. Devastator incoming.”

“No contest,” Arjun said. “Keep the repack alive.”

And somewhere, in a dark corner of the Ceph network, a dormant hive mind received a single corrupted packet. It read:

“You stop them the same way I did. You become the suit. Not Alcatraz. Not Barnes. You become Prophet.”

He was no longer playing Crysis 2.