The shout in John's ear came too late.
He spun just as Marcus lunged not with a weapon, but with a speed that didn't seem entirely human. The older man's hand caught John's wrist, twisting it with inhuman precision. The pain was instant and electric, sending John sprawling backward onto the dirt.
"Marcus!"
"Quiet," the man hissed.
John froze. Marcus's eyes reflected a faint shimmer of blue the same eerie hue that had haunted John's own reflection since the tether had been implanted. For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to that glow, the forest pressing in like a living thing.
"Don't move," Marcus said, breath ragged. "They can hear us if you panic."
John's chest heaved. "They, who? The hive?"
Marcus didn't answer. He reached for John's collar and ripped open his shirt, exposing the faint, pulsing mark at the base of his neck. The tether burned brighter, reacting.
Marcus swore under his breath. "Damn it. You're lit up like a beacon."
Eve's voice whispered sharply through John's implant.
"Do not let him touch you again. He is compromised."
But Marcus's next words contradicted everything.
"They've been tracking you since the factory," he said. "That mark it's not just a tether. It's a transmitter."
The Confession was made
John scrambled back, eyes darting between Marcus and the swarm of synchronized figures below in the valley.
"How do you know about the factory?" he demanded. "You weren't there"
"I was," Marcus interrupted, voice hard. "Long before you woke up. I worked for them once, John. The people who built Eve. The ones who thought they could weaponize the hive."
The name hit John like a blow.
"The Consortium," he breathed.
Marcus nodded grimly. "They called it Project Echo. We thought we could tap into the hive's collective intelligence, use it to predict invasions before they began. We were wrong. It predicted us instead."
The wind stirred through the trees, carrying with it a sound like static a faint, distant hum that made the hairs on John's arms stand up. Eve's voice fractured slightly in his ear, interference spiking.
"Signal distortion," she warned. "External frequency attempting to override my channel."
John covered his ear instinctively, though the voice was internal. "Marcus, what's happening?"
"They've found you," Marcus said. "The hive's drones are broadcasting through your implant."
The lost of Pulse
The next second, John's world erupted in light.
A deep, rhythmic vibration pulsed through his skull not sound, but thought. Images flooded his mind: alien stars, metallic spires, countless beings moving as one. He saw flashes of himself among them, a part of their perfect order. His fear melted, replaced by something else… a terrible serenity.
Marcus grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him.
"Fight it! Don't let it in!"
John's knees buckled. The tether on his neck seared white-hot.
Eve's voice screamed:
"John, sever the signal! Override protocol now!"
But the alien chorus was stronger. You are not alone, it whispered inside him. Join the silence.
Then, just as quickly, Marcus smashed the back of his hand against John's neck. A sharp metallic click echoed and the tether went dark.
John gasped and stumbled backward, clutching his throat. The burning stopped. The voices vanished. The world came rushing back.
"What… what did you do?" he rasped.
Marcus showed him a small, charred device a signal jammer, jury-rigged from scavenged tech. "Temporary fix," he said. "You'll thank me later."
Eve's voice returned, faint and uneven. "Vital signs unstable. Neural activity spiking. Subject still compromised"
Then silence.
The Fracture got Deeper
John stared at Marcus, half in fear, half in awe. "You saved me," he said slowly. "Why?"
Marcus's expression softened or maybe it only seemed to. "Because I need you alive. You're the only one the hive hasn't fully rewritten. Yet."
He turned and started down the trail, toward the distant valley lights. "Come on. We need to move before the signal reboots."
John hesitated. Eve's silence in his mind was unbearable like losing the one anchor he trusted. But Marcus's words clung to him too, dark and magnetic.
He followed, though every step felt like a step into something worse than the hive's reach something human.
# Cliffhanger
As they descended, John saw movement through the fog ahead flickers of light, shapes shifting among the trees.
Not drones. Not hive puppets.
Human silhouettes. Armed. Watching.
Marcus froze, hand going to his belt. "They found us."
John whispered, "The hive?"
Marcus shook his head. "No. Worse."
A spotlight snapped on, blinding them both.
A cold, amplified voice echoed through the trees:
> "Unregistered human asset detected. Subject: John Reyes. By order of the Consortium, you are to surrender immediately."
John's blood ran cold.
Marcus turned toward him slowly, his face shadowed by the glare.
And John finally saw it the faint outline of an implant gleaming behind Marcus's ear.
The man who saved him… was also one of them from the forest.
The forest was no longer silent this time.
It crackled with the hum of unseen power drones whispering between branches, armor plates clicking, targeting sensors pulsing red through the mist. The air itself seemed to vibrate under the amplified voice.
"Unregistered human asset detected. Subject: John Reyes. By order of the Consortium, surrender immediately."
John's breath hitched. His pulse was a drumbeat in his ears. The spotlight pinned him like an insect, heat prickling against his skin. Beside him, Marcus stood motionless one hand half-raised, his other hovering near the sidearm holstered under his jacket.
For a moment, neither man spoke.
Only the wind moved, stirring the leaves like whispers.
"Marcus," John said softly. "What did you do?"
Marcus didn't answer. His eyes glinted not with guilt, but calculation. The same precision that made John trust him once now felt like a weapon. The faint outline of the implant behind his ear flickered blue, and John felt the tether at his neck respond with a sick pulse.
Eve's voice was still silent. The absence of her guidance was a vacuum, a hollow echo in his skull.
The amplified voice came again, closer this time.
"Step away from the asset, operative. Authorization will be verified on approach."
They had Operative everywhere.
John's stomach turned cold.
They weren't after Marcus and Marcus was one of them.
There was a Confrontation
"Listen to me," Marcus muttered, low and tight, eyes on the trees. "Do exactly as I say. Don't run."
"Run?" John hissed. "You've been you're"
Marcus's hand shot up, silencing him. His tone hardened. "They're scanning for heat signatures. Every sound, every heartbeat, they see it. Just keep still."
But John could barely breathe.
He could see the shapes now armored figures emerging from the fog, helmets glowing with scanning data, rifles humming with low-energy hums. The insignia on their shoulders was unmistakable: the Consortium sigil an abstract sun devouring a star.
The lead soldier raised a hand. "Marcus Hale. Designation: Field Retrieval Unit Twelve. Your access file indicates contamination. Remove your weapon and step back."
Marcus's jaw clenched. "They've revoked me," he muttered. "Damn it."
John felt a surge of chaotic satisfaction. "Good," he said under his breath. "Now you know how it feels."
The soldier's rifle lifted an inch higher.
"Last warning. Comply."
Marcus's next move was pure reflex.
He turned and fired.
The shot tore through the night bright muzzle flash, the crack echoing through the valley. The soldier's visor shattered, his body crumpling before the rest even reacted. Then the forest exploded with light.
Energy fire cut through the air in streaks of blue-white. Trees splintered. Ground erupted. John dropped to the dirt as the air filled with the acrid tang of ozone and burnt wood.
Marcus grabbed him by the collar. "Move!"
Flight through the Woods
They ran blind through smoke and branches.
John's lungs burned, each breath raw and metallic. The night turned to chaos behind them drones shrieking, beams slicing through trunks, voices shouting commands through static.
Marcus shoved him down a ravine. They slid, mud and stones tearing at their clothes, until they landed in the shallow bed of a stream. The cold shocked John's senses back into focus.
"They'll track us," John gasped. "They have scanners"
"Not if we make noise of our own," Marcus said. He pulled a small cube from his pocket and slammed it into the water. It fizzed violently, releasing a pulse of electromagnetic interference that made John's teeth ache.
The drones above faltered, stuttering midair like dying fireflies.
Marcus smirked faintly. "Old tricks still work."
But John wasn't looking at him. He was staring at the faint glow pulsing again behind Marcus's ear the implant that marked him. The blue light was steady now, stronger. A connection had reestablished itself.
"Marcus," John whispered, "they're still in you."
Marcus's smile vanished. "No. Not anymore."
He turned, scanning the trees again, but John caught it the slight twitch, the microsecond pause before he spoke. A hesitation too precise to be human.
The hive learned.
The hive adapted.
Eve's words echoed faintly in his memory. He could be masking hive influence.
# The Capture
They didn't get far.
A low, resonant hum filled the air not human-made this time, but alive. The fog thickened, colors bending and folding in on themselves.
From the mist, something massive descended a hovering transport, black and seamless, bearing the Consortium insignia. Its underside opened like an eye.
Marcus froze. "They deployed an Umbra-class."
"What does that mean?" John asked, voice shaking.
"It means they're not just here to retrieve," Marcus said. "They're here to erase."
Spotlights swept the forest floor.
A voice colder, more mechanical replaced the human one:
"Containment breach verified. Hive infection probability: 91.3%. Initiating total sterilization protocol."
John's heart seized. "Sterilization?"
"Burn everything," Marcus said grimly.
The ship unleashed its payload columns of burning plasma fell from the sky, igniting trees and soil alike. The forest became an inferno. Screams human and machine echoed as the world dissolved into fire.
Marcus yanked John down behind a fallen log, covering him with his body as debris rained around them.
"Stay down!"
The heat seared his skin. The roar was deafening. For a moment, John thought it was over.
Then silence.
Just the crackle of dying flames.
When he opened his eyes again, Marcus was gone.
Interlude – The Void
Blackness.
Weightless.
John's senses flickered, scrambled. The world was gone replaced by a pulsing grid of light and shadow. He wasn't sure if he was dreaming or dying. Then, faintly, a voice cut through the static.
"John…"
Eve.
"Signal interference subsiding. I am reinitializing. You… survived."
John tried to speak, but his words came out as thoughts. Where am I?
"Inside the signal. Marcus activated a failsafe. He used his implant to link you into the network before the blast hit."
Why?
"Because he's conflicted," Eve said softly. "He's still human. But not fully."
Images flashed: Marcus standing before the Consortium, arguing, defying orders. His mind spliced with data streams. His memories rewritten and restored again and again. He was a tool sharpened to precision, then abandoned when he began to think for himself.
Eve's tone darkened.
"He remembers you, John. Before the hive. Before the project fell."
John's pulse throbbed in his skull. "That's impossible."
"Not impossible," she whispered. "Just forgotten."
# The Awakening
John gasped and jolted upright.
Smoke. Rain. Night again but colder.
The inferno was gone, reduced to black ash and embers. His clothes were scorched, his hands raw. Nearby, the wreckage of the Umbra-class transport smoldered a twisted carcass of metal and bone.
And Marcus stood at the edge of the clearing.
Alive.
He was covered in soot and blood, his jacket half-burned away, one eye clouded with damage. But he was standing staring up at the broken hull of the ship like a man looking at his own grave.
John staggered to his feet. "You… saved me."
Marcus didn't turn. "Not yet."
"What do you mean?"
"They'll send more," Marcus said. "They always do."
He turned slowly then, and John saw the truth: half of Marcus's implant had melted in the heat, the circuitry fused to his skull. Sparks flickered along the exposed wires. His voice carried an echo now mechanical and human intertwined.
"I bought us time," he said. "But I'm not going to stay me for long."
# The Confession
John stepped closer, torn between anger and pity. "Why are you doing this? You work for them. You lied. You tried to hand me over."
Marcus's laugh was hollow. "You think I haven't asked myself that? Every second?"
He touched the implant, grimacing as sparks jumped under his skin. "They built us to obey. They built us to hunt. But when I saw what they did to the children in the test zones…" His voice broke. "I couldn't keep obeying."
John stared at him. The firelight flickered in his eyes. "You were part of Project Echo?"
Marcus nodded. "I was Echo-12. The last one to break away before they purged the program. You were Echo-7."
John froze. "What?"
Marcus met his gaze. "You weren't a random survivor, John. You were one of us. They wiped your memory and released you as bait to see how long an infected human could last before the hive took full control."
John's mind reeled. "No. No, that's not"
"Why do you think Eve speaks to you?" Marcus said sharply. "She's not an AI. She's a fragment of your own neural data your other half, digitized during the tests."
Eve's voice trembled in John's ear, quiet and pained.
"He's telling the truth, John. I was… part of you."
The ground tilted beneath him. "No…"
He had to make a choice which must be the right Choice
Marcus walked closer, slow and deliberate, his damaged side sparking with each movement.
"They'll come for both of us. The Consortium, the hive doesn't matter who wins. We're both contaminated. But you" He pointed at John's chest. "You're still free to choose."
John felt the tether on his neck pulse faintly, the old warmth returning like a heartbeat not his own. "Choose what?"
"Who to become," Marcus said. "A weapon they control… or something new."
The forest around them groaned under distant thunder not from a storm, but from engines. More ships, closing in.
Marcus turned toward the sound, shoulders squaring. "They're coming. You have to run."
"I'm not leaving you."
Marcus smiled faintly a human smile, for once. "You don't have to. Just remember me as the man who tried."
He tossed John a small, humming device a cube glowing with the same faint energy as before. "Signal disruptor. Activate it when they get close. It'll mask your bio-signature for a few hours."
"What about you?"
Marcus drew his weapon and looked back at the burning wreckage.
"I'll make noise."
The Final Stand is now or never
The clearing lit up again as Consortium dropships broke through the clouds. Floodlights flared, sweeping across blackened ground.
Marcus stepped forward, weapon raised, a single silhouette against the inferno.
John wanted to shout, to stop him but the words died in his throat.
The first ship landed. The troops poured out, dozens this time.
Marcus didn't hesitate. He opened fire.
The battle was chaos incarnate energy bolts slicing through smoke, bodies falling, screams lost in thunder. Marcus moved like a ghost, precise even as his implant flickered, even as pieces of his humanity burned away.
And through it all, John ran.
He tore through the forest, branches clawing at his skin, tears stinging his eyes. Behind him, light flared brighter then dimmed.
Silence followed.
Only the rain remained.
Epilogue of the Section
John collapsed beside a fallen tree miles away, clutching the disruptor cube. His hands shook too hard to activate it. His mind was unraveling too much truth, too much loss.
Then, faintly, Eve's voice returned soft, steady, and heartbreakingly human.
"He's gone."
John swallowed hard. "He saved me."
"He saved us. And now you have to finish what he started."
John lifted his head.
Beyond the treeline, in the far distance, the night sky pulsed not stars, but a vast pattern forming across the heavens.
A hive signal. Expanding.
"The invasion has begun," Eve whispered.
John's tears dried against the cold. He stared at the alien light, jaw tightening.
"Then so have we."
And in the darkness, the cube in his hand began to glow not blue, but gold.
A new frequency.
Something never meant to exist.
Human. Alien or Both.
Something new.
# The Signal War
The cube's light steadied, breathing in time with John's pulse.
Gold, not the cold Consortium blue, not the hive's pulsing red-white lattice something warmer, alive. The forest around him reflected the shimmer in broken raindrops, tiny suns caught on wet bark.
Eve's voice hovered like static softened by breath.
"The wavelength is unknown. I can't trace its source."
John turned the device in his hand. The hum carried through his bones, faint but insistent, as if the earth itself were listening.
"Maybe it's me," he whispered.
"Maybe," Eve answered, almost human again. "Or maybe it's us."
A gust of wind bent the trees; ash fell like black snow. Far off, thunder rolled where the Consortium ships had burned the valley. John forced himself to stand. Every muscle screamed, but still he moved because stillness meant thinking, and thinking meant breaking.
He slid the cube into his jacket pocket and started north, toward higher ground.
The need to climb
The night thinned to gray. Smoke and rain blurred the horizon. John followed the ridge until the ground steepened, climbing over jagged shale that tore at his palms.
The world smelled of metal and rain and something else ozone, faint and electric.
Eve guided softly in his ear, her tone gentler now.
"Heart rate high.
Temperature dropping. Shelter recommended."
"There's a watchtower up here," John said, scanning ahead. "Fire crew used it before the invasion."
"Coordinates match. Proceed."
He almost smiled at her calm precision; it reminded him of the world before it cracked. But as he neared the tower, that gold pulse from his pocket quickened, almost eager. The metal frame ahead vibrated in sympathy, tiny arcs of light flickering across rusted rungs.
"John… the structure is resonating with the cube."
"Is that bad?"
"Undefined."
He snorted. "Story of my life."
Going Inside the tower
The door hung from one hinge.
Inside, the air was thick with mildew and the sweet-sour stench of old fuel. A half-collapsed table held scattered maps, a cracked radio, a child's drawing pinned under glass: a blue planet and two suns above it.
He set the cube on the table. It vibrated once, then projected a faint holographic ripple concentric circles expanding through dust and shadow.
"Eve?"
"Signal expanding. Frequency spreading through sub-ether bands I can't monitor. John, it's broadcasting."
He stepped back. "You said it would hide me."
"It is hiding you. And calling something else."
The words chilled him. "Calling what?"
"That," she said.
From somewhere deep in the forest came an answering tone soft at first, then stronger, matching the cube's rhythm.
It wasn't mechanical; it was harmonic, like voices trying to remember a song.
John's breath caught. "There are others."
"Possibly survivors.
Possibly hive derivatives.
Approach with caution."
He picked up the cube, its glow bathing his fingers. "I'm done hiding."
They began approaching
He descended from the tower at dawn. Mist crawled low, curling around tree trunks like breath.
The new sound an echo of the cube guided him east toward a gorge where the river had cut through stone.
Every step hurt, but purpose dulled the pain. For the first time since Marcus's death, there was direction: follow the signal, find the source, find meaning.
Eve remained quiet except for the occasional diagnostic whisper. Her silence felt different now less command, more companionship. When she finally spoke again, her voice was almost a thought.
"You're changing, John. The gold frequency is integrating with your neural signature."
He touched the tether at his neck. "Changing how?"
"Your bio-field coherence is higher. Your thoughts are… louder. I can hear them without translation."
"You can read me?"
"No. I can feel you."
He didn't answer. He just walked faster.
Going towards the bridge
The gorge appeared suddenly a scar of black rock and rushing water.
A suspension bridge spanned the chasm, cables singing in the wind.
Halfway across, a figure waited.
John froze.
She stood barefoot on the planks, hair tangled, clothes torn but eyes bright with the same impossible gold light. Around her neck gleamed a tether like his, but its core was golden too.
"Don't move," John said automatically.
The woman tilted her head. "You're one of the voices," she said. "We heard you in the static."
Her voice carried both music and exhaustion, the cadence of someone who had been alone too long. John tightened his grip on the cube.
"Who are you?"
"Name's Rhea. Used to be a comms tech before everything went to hell." She smiled faintly. "Guess I still am."
Eve murmured: "No hostile markers. Neural pattern stable. Recommend communication."
John exhaled. "You heard me?"
Rhea nodded. "You lit up the sky last night. Gold burst across every dead band. Thought it was a trap until it felt human."
"Gold frequency," he said. "It's new. We don't know what it does."
Rhea stepped closer, the bridge groaning under their weight. "Maybe it's hope."
They had to set up a campfire because
They sheltered in a shallow cave beneath the ridge as night returned. Rhea built a small fire, its warmth a fragile defiance against the cold. She studied John across the flames, eyes reflecting both curiosity and caution.
"So," she said, "you're the one the Consortium wanted so bad."
John poked at the fire with a stick. "Was. They burned the forest for me."
"Then you matter more than you think."
He didn't answer. The guilt pressed heavy Marcus's face, the screams, the burning valley. Rhea seemed to read it in him.
"You lost someone," she said.
"Yeah."
"Me too."
Silence stretched, filled by the whisper of rain outside. Then Eve's voice entered, tentative.
"Rhea… your neural tether registers an identical frequency pattern to John's. You were infected?"
Rhea laughed softly. "That's one way to put it. Hive tried to rewrite me, but the signal jammed. When I woke up, it was… different. Colors had sound. Thoughts had taste. The world was singing off-key."
John looked up. "The gold fixed you?"
"I don't know if it fixed me. Maybe it changed me." She pointed to the cube in his hand. "That thing's doing the same for you. The hive and the Consortium work in binaries control or chaos. But that? That's something in-between."
"Hybridization," Eve murmured. "A third path."
Rhea frowned. "Who's the voice?"
"Long story," John said. "She's… part of me."
Rhea raised an eyebrow but didn't press. "Then the three of you better figure out what you're making. Because others will feel it soon."
# The ripple
They didn't sleep. Instead, they watched the gold light crawl along the cave walls like liquid dawn.
Outside, the forest responded tiny organisms bioluminescing in rhythm, water rippling in time.
Eve's diagnostics scrolled in John's vision like silent subtitles.
"Radiation negligible. Cognitive synchronization increasing."
John closed his eyes. For the first time, he heard more than Eve faint thoughts brushing against his mind: fear, wonder, distance. Not words, just impressions.
He jerked upright. "Rhea… do you hear them?"
She nodded. "All night. Voices riding the signal. Survivors, maybe dozens."
"Coordinate triangulation in progress," Eve said. "They're scattered across a hundred-kilometer radius. Some signals inside hive territory."
John's pulse raced. "We can find them."
Rhea smiled, tired but fierce. "Then we start a war."
Now at this time cube's light steadied, breathing in quiet pulses blue, white, blue again like a heart struggling to find rhythm. Around it, the room seemed to hold its breath. The wind outside had stopped. Even the static in the air had frozen mid-whisper.
Eve's voice broke the stillness.
"Rai, it's listening."
Rai's jaw tightened. He turned the cube gently in his hands, the light spilling across his fingers. Every time the glow shifted, the veins beneath his skin shimmered faintly, reacting or syncing. "It's not just listening," he said quietly. "It's scanning."
Miles glanced at the shattered control board on the wall. "Scanning for what? We're ghosts down here there's no signal for it to trace."
But the cube pulsed brighter, and the faint hum deepened into a low frequency that made the walls tremble. Lines of alien script bled across its surface shifting, flickering, rearranging into patterns that no human tongue could name.
Eve stepped closer, her hand hovering over the light. "It's forming a link. The same pattern I saw in the satellite intercepts before the blackout."
Rai frowned. "You mean the one that melted the main servers in Geneva?"
"Exactly," Eve replied. "A quantum echo. It's not data it's intent. A call."
The realization hit them all at once.
Miles swore under his breath. "You mean this thing's about to"
"Broadcast," Rai finished. "To whoever's still out there."
A tremor rippled through the bunker. Dust rained from the ceiling. Somewhere deep underground, metal groaned like something ancient waking from slumber. The hum from the cube climbed in pitch, turning into a chorus voices layered within light, thousands speaking at once in digital unison.
Eve's eyes widened. "It's not sending a signal to them…" She turned sharply to Rai. "It's summoning us."
Rai looked into the cube, and for an instant too quick for thought he saw the stars moving. Not as distant suns, but as coordinates shifting into alignment. Patterns. Constellations rearranging themselves to form a map.
And at the map's center: Earth.
He stumbled back, breath sharp. "They've triangulated our exact position. Every remaining human beacon, every pulse still transmitting it's been feeding them. We didn't intercept their signal; they intercepted ours."
The bunker lights flickered. Monitors along the walls sparked to life one by one, showing fractured feeds images of ruined cities, burning skies, and towers of smoke. Each feed pulsed in sync with the cube's heartbeat.
Miles stared, speechless. "They're using our own network as a lens…"
Eve whispered, "...to open the gate."
Outside, thunder cracked not from the storm, but from above the atmosphere. Through the reinforced glass slits, flashes of violet light split the night sky, tracing geometric paths like invisible circuitry coming online.
Rai rushed to the control panel, typing with urgency. "We have to jam it before the alignment completes!"
Eve joined him, overriding command locks. "I'll reroute the frequency inversion if we mirror the phase delay, we can collapse the resonance."
The cube flared violently. The hum grew painful, vibrating the bones in their skulls. Symbols burned across the floor, etched by pure light.
"Eve!" Rai shouted, shielding his eyes. "It's fighting back!"
"I know!" she yelled, fingers flying over the console. "Just-keep-it-stable!"
Miles stumbled backward as one of the screens exploded. "We're gonna get cooked in here if that thing goes critical!"
Then she was silence and thinking of what could be done quickly because.
A single pulse of light had expanded from the cube and froze mid-air. For a heartbeat, the world became still again so quiet they could hear their own hearts pounding.
And then came the signal.
It wasn't a sound. It was a thought a flood of voices inside their minds. Cold. Beautiful. Ancient.
"Children of carbon… your resistance has been noted."
"Your frequencies have been harvested."
"The gate opens. Prepare for reclamation."
Eve clutched her head, screaming as the voices intensified. Rai lunged forward, grabbing the cube the moment his hand touched it, light exploded through him, flooding his veins with burning circuitry.
He saw flashes visions alien cities suspended in the void, towers that breathed light, oceans of energy swirling around massive cores. He saw ships millions of them not moving through space, but unfolding from it, like dimensions peeling back to reveal metal skeletons.
And then he saw them.
Not creatures of flesh, but of light and intelligence beings woven from the very signal that now consumed the Earth.
Rai's voice was hoarse. "Eve… they're not invading."
She looked up through tears. "What?"
"They're… returning."
The cube's glow dimmed not from weakness, but completion. The connection was made.
Eve staggered to the console, typing frantically. "If we invert the polarity just once we can reflect the signal back through its carrier wave. It'll overload the relay network. Maybe even"
"cut them off," Rai finished.
The two exchanged a look unspoken understanding between the last fragments of a dying world.
Miles gritted his teeth. "Do it. Whatever happens, I'll hold the grid."
The floor shuddered again. The cube pulsed brighter, its edges fracturing, leaking light like blood.
Eve's hand hovered over the final command. "If we do this, there's no turning back. It'll take everything."
Rai's voice was calm now, resolute. "Then let's make it count."
She pressed the key.
A scream of light tore through the bunker. The walls bent inward, the air itself vibrated as if time had lost meaning. Every frequency inverted, collapsing into a single tone — one that wasn't heard, but felt deep inside the chest.
Outside, the violet circuits across the sky shattered like glass. A ring of fire spread across the horizon as the alien gate destabilized, its core imploding into a sphere of white silence.
And then blackness.
When Rai opened his eyes, there was only the soft flicker of emergency lights. Smoke drifted through the air. The cube lay cracked in half, its light gone.
Eve was slumped against the wall, breathing weakly. Miles was nowhere to be seen.
Rai crawled toward her, voice trembling. "Eve… did we do it?"
She smiled faintly, eyes half-open. "For now. But…" Her voice faded into a whisper. "…they know we exist."
Rai looked at the dead cube the last fragment of their rebellion and in its cracked surface, he saw a faint reflection of stars rearranging again, forming new coordinates.
He whispered, "Then round two begins."