The room held its breath.
The main monitor fractured into an octagon of windows. Eight worlds, identical at birth, began to diverge.
"Five seconds," Elena said.
"Crash?" Leo asked.
"Sandbox Eight. It's hiding from us. It's using the simulation's own code to mask its existence. Leo, something in there knows it's being watched." x8 sandbox launcher
"They're not alive," Elena said, her voice tight. "But they're... something. Algorithms eating other algorithms. Natural selection without carbon."
Three. Two. One. Launch.
"Impossible," Leo whispered. "That's billions of years of evolution compressed."