The lab wasn't cold.
That was the first thing people got wrong about Antarctica. The surface? Sure—wind like shattered glass, ice that screamed under pressure. But deep in the Hollow Core, where Victoria's fortress burrowed three kilometers below the ice sheet, the air hummed with heat from geothermal taps and quantum reactors.
And something else.
Something alive.
Dr. Elias Voss wiped sweat from his brow as he adjusted the containment field. His gloves trembled—not from fear, but caffeine and sleepless nights. He hadn't seen sunlight in seventeen days.
"Stabilizing," he muttered into his comm. "Energy signature holding at 98.7%. No decay."
Across the chamber, Victoria stood motionless before the central column—a ten-meter cylinder of black alloy, wrapped in pulsing fiber-optic veins. Inside it, suspended in amber gel, floated a single drop of liquid light.
It didn't glow.
It breathed.
