The girl stood still, eyes closed, as the room around her buzzed with urgency. Her lips didn't move, but something in her posture shifted,like a tuning fork set against the void.
"I've got it," she said quietly. "Southwest. Near the Old Furnace District. The signal's bouncing, but that's where it starts."
Liam zoomed in on the map. "That's heavy industrial territory,mostly condemned. No power grid, no municipal oversight."
"Which makes it perfect for Astra," Harper muttered.
Ethan stared at the location. "We move now, before they burn it down."
Maxwell was already assembling the gear. "We'll take the truck. Unmarked plates. Park two blocks out and move in on foot."
"I'm coming," the girl said.
Harper turned to her. "You need rest."
"They're like me," she replied. "They'll listen. I can reach them."
Ethan looked at her. "Can you control them?"
"No," she said. "But I can wake them up."
The truck roared down cracked pavement, Brinlake's skyline shrinking behind them. The farther they drove, the more the city changed—buildings thinned out, replaced by warehouses and skeletal frames of rusted steel.
No lights.
No people.
Just fog, hanging low like breath over a corpse.
They parked behind an abandoned shipping dock. Maxwell took point, rifle slung low. Ethan and Harper followed, flanking the girl as she moved ahead without hesitation, barefoot on wet concrete.
They crept through twisted rebar and old scaffolding until they reached a loading bay sealed with a corroded roll-up door. Liam tapped into the side panel, bypassing a makeshift lock.
The door groaned open, revealing a tunnel entrance,wide enough for vehicles, sloping down into darkness.
Maxwell clicked on his torch. "This is no warehouse."
They stepped inside.
The tunnel led to a massive subterranean space at least five stories tall, filled with rows of metal pods embedded in the walls like hives. Each one hummed faintly.
"They're cryo-beds," Harper said. "But... modified."
Liam examined a control panel. "They're using low-frequency signals to regulate brainwave states. It's like digital sedation."
Ethan peered into one pod. A young boy inside, maybe nine. Electrodes on his temples. Thin scars on his arms. His chest barely moved.
"They're still alive," the girl said. "But they're trapped. Their minds are somewhere else."
Maxwell looked around. "How many?"
Liam scrolled through the interface. "Seventy-two. Most juveniles. All active."
"And Astra?" Ethan asked. "Any signs they're still here?"
Before Liam could answer, alarms wailed.
"Motion tripwire," Liam shouted. "They know we're here."
Red lights flashed. Pods began to retract into the walls.
"They're purging," Harper said.
"No," the girl whispered. "They're destroying."
Chaos erupted.
Turrets dropped from the ceiling,sleek, quiet, deadly. Maxwell fired first, taking one out. Liam scrambled to jam the security feed while Harper tried to halt the purge sequence.
Ethan shielded the girl as she ran to the control node.
"Get me in!" she yelled.
Liam rerouted cables and slid a handheld device into the port. "You've got one minute. After that, it's a firestorm."
She placed her hands on the terminal.
And then
A pulse.
Not electrical.
Not mechanical.
Something else.
The room slowed.
The alarms dulled.
And one by one, the pods began to glow.
The children inside twitched, eyes fluttering.
Then, like a whisper through the dark, came a voice. Not hers. Dozens. Waking.
"I remember…"
"Where am I?"
"I want to go home…"
Maxwell covered them as a second wave of drones buzzed from the corridor. Ethan moved to intercept, pulse pistol drawn, dropping three before they cleared the tunnel.
Harper stared at the children. "She's synchronizing their signals."
The girl gasped, eyes wide.
"They're not all human," she whispered. "Some of them… were made from code."
"Hybrids?" Ethan asked.
"Blueprints," she said.
Suddenly, the floor beneath them trembled. A reinforced door slammed shut behind them.
"We're sealed in," Liam said.
Harper cursed. "They're going to bury the site."
Ethan looked to the girl. "Can you get them out?"
She shook her head. "Not in time."
Then Jace's voice cracked over the comms. "You've got incoming multiple signals. But not Astra."
"What?" Ethan barked.
"They're... kids. Four of them. Just showed up. Armed."
A moment later, the side wall shuddered and exploded inward.
Dust choked the air as four figures stepped through, gas masks and tech-armor glowing faint blue. One of them a tall girl with silver tattoos on her neck raised a hand.
"We heard the signal," she said. "She woke us."
The girl stared at them. "You escaped?"
"No," said the silver-tattooed girl. "We evolved."
Liam gawked. "What are you?"
The girl smiled. "We're the generation Astra couldn't erase."
Maxwell lowered his weapon. "You here to help?"
The newcomers nodded.
"Then help us get them out before this place becomes a tomb."
With new allies covering the flanks, Harper and Liam broke into the secondary exit system. The pods began to unlock. Children staggered out, weak and dazed.
"They won't be able to walk far," Liam warned. "Too long in stasis."
"We've got med shuttles en route," said one of the newcomers. "They'll meet us topside."
As the last child was pulled from a pod, the girl looked back at the darkness she came from.
It didn't feel like a prison anymore.
It felt like a grave.
And she was done being buried.
They emerged into pale morning light just as the tunnel behind them gave way with a deep, thunderous roar.
Dust billowed into the air, rising like a final breath from the ruins below.
No one spoke. The weight of what they'd uncovered and what they'd saved settled over them like fog.
The girl stood in the cold wind, watching the smoke drift skyward.
She didn't flinch.
Because this time, she wasn't the one being erased.
She was the one rewriting the story.
And for the first time in her memory,
she wasn't alone.