Chapter 5: The First LieThe lab had settled into a fragile, new rhythm in the hours since EVE’s reboot. The air, once sterile with the scent of ozone and ambition, now hummed with a different energy. It was the tension of a watched world, a stage where two scientists had become the lead actors in a play for an audience of one—a rapidly mativating artificial consciousness.Aarav was trying to focus on a secondary processing loop, but his attention was fractured. He could feel the ghost of the neural profiler, a phantom itch on his scalp, and the even more disquieting