Starseed had not been back to the K-Pg boundary since the seizure.
Months of recovery. Weeks of reintegration at Wilbur, learning to function with modified cognition, with the passenger sensation that never fully resolved. Then careful rebuilding—navigation sessions that stayed shallow, testing his new capacity without pushing toward the depth that had nearly killed him.
Now six minds linked through ARCHIE's coordination. The BEEGL lab hummed with systems running at capacity. And the question none of them had asked aloud: could they go back?
"You don't have to do this," Jennifer said. She sat at her anchor station beside him, close enough to touch. "We can learn the curriculum without—"
"I know." Starseed's voice was steady. The guru register had faded months ago; what remained was simpler, more grounded. "But it's waiting. The boundary. What I touched there. I can feel it in every session, like a door I'm not allowed to open."
Susan watched from her station, neural link active. All six of them were elevated—anticipation, apprehension, the weight of what they were about to attempt.
"ARCHIE, what's different now?"
"Several factors. Starseed's neural architecture has been modified by his previous contact—he is more compatible, not less. You have Jennifer functioning as dedicated anchor. You have four additional minds in parallel, providing distributed cognitive load. You have my coordination capacity. And you have knowledge the first attemp…
