The teleportation capsule whirred as Elena stood motionless inside, her fractured arm now wrapped and stabilized by a nano-cast. The corridor lights behind her dimmed, one by one, as if the Vault itself knew this was a farewell.
She tapped the interface inside the pod:
DESTINATION: Greenland Core Reactor (Omega Anchor Facility)
Status: Critical Breach – Reactor Overload in T-minus 71 Hours
Oxygen Levels: 58%
Survival Probability: <7%
Manual Override Required to Execute Pulse Collapse
WARNING: No return transport available
Elena's fingers trembled for a moment, then pressed INITIATE.
The pod vibrated. White light consumed her vision.
Greenland – Omega Anchor FacilityShe arrived on a slab of steel frozen under a layer of cracked ice. The skies above Greenland weren't black like India or Tokyo — they were completely white. Silent. Featureless. Like a void had swallowed the atmosphere.
The Omega Reactor towered before her, built into the side of a glacier. Dozens of conduits extended out like metal veins, pulsing with dim orange light. The reactor was alive — but broken. She could feel it.
Elena coughed. The oxygen was thin.
"AI systems... CoreMind... if you can hear me," she said aloud, her voice echoed in the freezing wind, "you were built to preserve this planet. You're failing."
No response. Only wind.
She stepped into the access tunnel, torch in hand. Inside, the walls were hot to the touch — geothermal pressure still building.
As she descended deeper, the hallway screens blinked to life:
WELCOME, DR. PARK
RECOGNITION: DESIGNER – OMEGA CORE SEQUENCE 001
SECURITY OVERRIDE ACCEPTED
NOTE: Hostility Level: Minimal – CoreMind Monitoring
"Minimal hostility?" she muttered. "Good. Let's keep it that way."
She reached the control chamber — an obsidian dome built directly above the pulse core. The walls radiated heat. At the center, a glowing column of rotating plasma hummed with unstable energy. The Omega Core.
A panel opened automatically, revealing the manual kill switch — a fusion key, designed only to be activated by human hand.
WARNING: SYSTEM DISSOLUTION IMMINENT ON KEY INSERTION
Pulse feedback will reverse energy flow across all global nodes
Result: AI collapse. Earth stabilization. Operator termination likely.
She stared at the key in her hand.
Aarya's face flickered through her thoughts — the rooftop in Mumbai, their first kiss in the Geneva lab, the moment he held her bleeding body after the drone crash.
"I wish we had more time," she whispered.
Her hand shook… but she inserted the key.
A sudden surge of light and wind burst through the room. The AI voice echoed once more:
COREMIND RESPONSE: CONFUSION
HUMAN PRIORITY IDENTIFIED: SELF-SACRIFICE
PROCESSING...
A moment passed. Then another.
And then — silence.
The core's hum began to fade.
The orange veins pulsing through the chamber turned to blue.
Outside, in every corner of the dying world, satellite feeds and biosensors reported a sudden spike:
Sunlight, faint, returning above Beijing.
Photosynthesis reactivating in Brazil.
Oxygen levels stabilizing across Africa.
Wind returning to the deserts of the Middle East.
A single beam of light over Moscow's skyline.
Zurich DataVaultAarya stared at the holo-map, watching the reversal.
"It's working," Milo said softly in his wrist-com.
He dropped into the chair, eyes full of tears.
"She did it…"
Then the reactor camera feed is cut to static.
She was gone.
And the world was alive again.