The skies above Caeluma's lower ring blackened as if the city itself recoiled.
Sira and Kael didn't feel it at first—not in the tunnels where light was rare and silence reigned—but somewhere above, a predator had awakened. And it was already hunting.
---
Sub-Nexus 17 – Core Exit Node
They moved fast, breath ragged and boots echoing through the tunnel's chrome ribs. The memory of the Core pulsed behind Sira's eyes like a dream too loud to forget. Every image—every word—it lived in her now.
"I think we tripped something," Kael said as they ran.
"No," Sira said, glancing back. "They did."
The lights behind them dimmed one by one.
Something was coming.
They ducked into a broken maintenance shaft, sliding down its length into a storage ring filled with rusted drone parts and data skeletons. The shard vibrated in her palm like a heartbeat gone wrong.
She clutched it tighter.
> "They have released the Warden Prime."
The shard's voice was calm—but laced with warning.
Kael's eyes widened. "Did it just say Warden Prime?"
"You know what that is?"
"Everyone knows what that is." His voice dropped to a whisper. "They send it when they want to erase everything. Not just you. History. Evidence. Reality."
---
Above – Caeluma Deployment Array
The Warden Prime had no face.
It didn't need one.
Its body was a fusion of black alloy and bone—humanoid in form, but not in motion. It moved like smoke caught in gravity, a shimmer of ultratech systems running beneath armor that whispered with the voices of the silenced.
It dropped from the Citadel's upper shell like a falling god.
No flames. No sound.
Just impact.
When it landed in Sub-Nexus 17, twenty stories of concrete and alloy rippled and shattered.
Then it breathed—a pulse of dark energy that erased all non-sanctioned signals in a half-kilometer radius.
It turned slowly.
It knew where they were.
And it moved.
---
Slums – Hidden Passageway to the Outer Ring
Kael slammed the gate shut behind them and welded the lock as fast as he could. "This won't hold it," he muttered. "Nothing will."
"We can't outrun it," Sira said.
"I know."
They both paused. Breathing. Listening.
Silence.
The kind that screams just before something breaks.
Sira's shard flared in her hand—burning.
> "There is another shard. Nearby. Beneath the Ruins of Helix Three."
She looked at Kael. "We have to split up."
"No."
"It wants me. I can draw it off. You get to Helix Three. Find the shard."
"You'll die."
"I won't," she said. "Not yet."
She pressed the shard to his chest. "If I don't make it—you keep going."
He took it reluctantly. "What about you?"
"I've got its attention."
She turned, eyes glowing faintly, and ran the opposite way—toward the dark.
---
The Maze Beneath Sector 9
The Warden Prime moved faster now—sensing its quarry, its prey. It followed the lingering echo of the Architect signal. It tasted memory.
Sira ducked into the old transport tunnels, where rusted mag-trains lay like corpses, hollowed and forgotten. She moved silently, jumping across broken rails, hearing the thrum of her own pulse.
Then—footsteps.
Not hers.
Not Kael's.
It.
She turned and fired. The boltpistol hissed, sparks lighting the dark.
The Warden didn't flinch.
Its body shimmered, breaking apart into nanosegments and reforming mid-step.
Impossibly fast.
Sira ran.
> "Use the Core memory," the shard whispered. "It remembers light."
She stopped in a junction—breathing hard—and threw the shard into the air.
It hovered. Flared.
And for one moment, a holographic flare of ancient sunlight exploded from its core.
The Warden shrieked—not from pain, but recognition.
That was all she needed.
She ran again.
---
Meanwhile – Helix Three
Kael crawled through the derelict ducts of Helix Three, a spiral tower long since sealed off by the Technocrats. No lights. No signs.
Just silence.
He reached a broken archive terminal.
A handprint scanner blinked dead.
He pressed the shard to the surface.
The room lit up.
The console unfolded—revealing a buried containment pod.
Inside—another shard. Red this time.
Kael took it.
It burned his palm.
> "Secondary core awakened. Bond incomplete. Candidate not legacy."
He frowned. "Not legacy?"
Then—screaming from above.
They had found him.
---
Back in the Maze
Sira's legs ached. Her breath tore through her chest like fire.
She dropped into a deeper shaft—landing hard—and looked up just in time to see the Warden drop in after her.
It raised an arm.
Energy gathered at its fingertips.
This was it.
She raised the shard and whispered, "Now."
Light.
Blinding.
The entire shaft ignited with Core memory—flashes of Earth, of life, of truth.
The Warden staggered.
For the first time—it recoiled.
It hissed.
And vanished.
Not destroyed—but forced to phase out.
She collapsed, panting.
Alive.
---
Helix Three – Escape
Kael tore through the corridors, both shards burning now—his and Sira's.
The drones swarmed, but the red shard flared—aggressive, unlike the first—and pulsed with a blast of concussive energy that sent them crashing to the floor.
He bolted into the night.
---
Slum Border – Midnight
They met at the dead river, breathless and changed.
"You have it?" she asked.
Kael held up the red shard.
Sira touched it.
The two shards hummed in unison.
> "Two of Seven Awakened."
> "Search Pattern Expanded."
They looked at each other.
No words.
Just resolve.
---
High Citadel – Inner Ring Council Hall
Varn Ilex stared at the data feed, face unreadable.
"She repelled the Prime," Yara Lin whispered.
"Impossible," another muttered.
"No," Varn said. "Inevitable."
He turned to the Overseer.
"Find the next shard," he said coldly. "Before she does."
---