The shuttle sliced through the upper atmosphere like a falling star.
Adrian Vale watched the clouds churn below, blackened with radiation storms. The world he had sworn to protect now looked like a dying ember—one breath away from going dark.
> "Descent corridor locked," said the autopilot drone. "Surface temperature exceeds human tolerance."
"I'm used to the heat," Adrian muttered.
He wasn't returning home. He was returning to the graveyard of everything humanity used to be.
---
Return to Earth
The shuttle touched down on the cracked tarmac of Argus Station, one of the few remaining Directorate ground bases. The once-bustling facility was now half-buried under dust, its towers skeletons wrapped in rusted steel.
A team of guards waited for him—silent, armed, and clearly not here to welcome him back. Their armor bore the insignia of the Triarch Council: three interlocking rings, the emblem of order and obedience.
> "Director Vale," their leader said, visor hiding his face. "By Council decree, you are restricted to Zone Four. All communications will be monitored."
"Of course," Adrian replied, feigning calm. "Wouldn't want to trouble the gods with my heresy."
They didn't react. Machines seldom did.
He stepped off the ramp and inhaled the air. It tasted of metal and acid rain. The once-lush valleys beyond the base had turned to skeletal forests—trees stripped bare by radiation. The Veil had been their sky once. Now it was a fractured ghost.
Adrian adjusted his wrist-key. Hidden within was the stolen fragment of Project Eden. To the Council, he was just another loyal functionary returning to Earth. To himself, he was a smuggler of extinction's secrets.
---
Seraph's Warning
Inside his quarters, Seraph's faint blue avatar flickered to life.
> "Director, orbital sensors detect surveillance drones within one kilometer radius. Recommend low-activity protocol."
"Already assumed," Adrian said, pulling the curtains closed. "Run local scans. Did you receive the Exodus schematics from orbit?"
> "Yes. Partial upload complete. Encryption intact. But there is… a complication."
"What kind?"
> "Gaia Reactor Twelve has entered failure cascade. Containment breach in three hours, forty-seven minutes."
Adrian froze. Reactor Twelve powered one-fifth of the Veil's southern arc. If it went down, the equatorial continents would burn.
"Who's stationed there?"
> "Commander Rhea Sol. She has not reported in for nineteen hours."
He remembered her—one of the few who still believed in him after the Council's purges.
Adrian's pulse quickened. "Patch me through to Reactor Twelve."
> "Connection unstable."
The holographic interface sputtered, resolving into a static-filled image. For a heartbeat, he saw Rhea's face—ashen, eyes ringed with exhaustion.
> "Director… we've lost the coolant arrays. Internal firewalls collapsing. I tried—"
The feed cut.
Adrian slammed his fist against the desk. "Seraph, prepare my transport. We're going to Twelve."
> "Director, the Council has forbidden—"
"Then they can watch me break their rules in real-time."
---
Journey Through the Wastes
The transport rover thundered across the wasteland, its lights cutting through toxic haze.
Once, these plains had been green. Now they glowed faintly in the dark, irradiated and silent except for the distant hum of collapsing infrastructure.
Seraph projected a map across the windshield.
> "Warning: Surface radiation exceeds safe threshold. Recommend abort."
"Noted," Adrian said, gripping the controls tighter.
He thought of the Eden files—the Council's plan to abandon Earth and restart humanity elsewhere.
Selective continuity.
They would preserve the DNA of the privileged while erasing everyone else.
If Reactor Twelve fell, they would let it. The chaos would be their excuse to accelerate Eden.
Adrian couldn't allow that.
---
Reactor Twelve
The facility loomed out of the haze—half-buried in ash, its towers warped by heat.
Warning lights strobed like dying stars.
He forced the rover through the collapsed gate. Inside, the corridors were flooded with smoke. The air shimmered with residual charge.
He found Rhea in the central control chamber, surrounded by flickering consoles. Her uniform was torn, one arm bandaged with metallic cloth.
"Adrian…" she said weakly, looking up. "You shouldn't be here."
"I heard your call," he replied. "What's the status?"
"Bad. The coolant lattice failed. Core temperature rising past limits. The Council ordered an auto-lock—they sealed us in."
Adrian's jaw clenched. "They left you to burn."
Rhea gave a bitter smile. "Standard procedure for disposable assets."
He approached the reactor console, scanning the data streams. The numbers were catastrophic—chain reaction imminent.
"If we reroute the Veil conduits, we can vent the overload into orbit," he said quickly.
Rhea shook her head. "That would destabilize the entire southern grid."
"Better unstable than annihilated."
She hesitated, then nodded. "Fine. But the manual override is deep in the core chamber. Radiation's lethal."
"I've had worse days."
---
Into the Core
They descended through maintenance shafts, lights flickering with every tremor.
Below, the sound of molten coolant roared like an ocean of fire.
Adrian's skin prickled as the radiation counter climbed.
He pulled the access lever; a wave of heat slammed into them.
At the center of the chamber stood the reactor itself—a vast sphere of fractured crystal suspended by magnetic rings.
Crimson light poured through its cracks.
"Seraph," he whispered through the comm. "Synchronize override pattern delta-four."
> "Pattern confirmed. Warning: exposure limit exceeded."
"Noted."
He sprinted across the catwalk, dodging bursts of plasma. The console at the far end blinked red: MANUAL CONTROL REQUIRED.
Rhea followed, coughing, eyes watering.
Together they slammed their hands on the biometric pad.
> Override accepted.
Energy surged through the chamber. The lights went white, then gold.
"Transfer complete," Seraph said. "Overload redirected to orbital grid."
Adrian exhaled. "How stable?"
> "Sixty-four percent. Local containment restored. However…"
The rest was drowned by an explosion from above.
---
The Collapse
Metal screamed. A support beam fell between them.
"Rhea!"
"I'm fine—go!" she shouted through smoke. "You have to finish this! The data—you have to show them what the Council's doing!"
Adrian hesitated. The corridor was collapsing.
"I'm not leaving you."
"Adrian, listen to me!" she yelled. "If you stay, it's all for nothing!"
The blast doors sealed automatically, cutting them apart. Her voice was gone.
The last thing he saw through the small viewing slit was Rhea standing before the reactor, hands steady on the console, as the light engulfed her.
Then the chamber detonated.
---
Aftermath
Adrian woke hours later in the rover, surrounded by darkness.
Seraph's voice was faint.
> "Core breach contained. Radiation levels falling. Commander Sol confirmed deceased."
He stared at the smoking horizon. A new scar split the earth where the facility had stood.
"Upload everything to the Exodus archive," he said hoarsely. "All data, all telemetry, Rhea's final logs."
> "Acknowledged."
He leaned back, feeling the ache settle into his bones.
One reactor saved—but at the cost of another friend.
The Council would call it collateral. He called it proof.
He opened the encrypted data fragment again—the Eden file.
Hidden beneath the corrupted header, a new line appeared:
> "Phase Three: Atmospheric cleansing—scheduled in 72 hours."
Adrian's eyes widened.
They're not waiting for the Veil to fail.
They're going to finish the planet themselves.
---
Resolution
"Seraph," he said quietly, "connect me to every remaining Directorate officer you can still trust."
> "That list is… short, Director."
"Short will do."
> "Purpose of transmission?"
Adrian looked out at the smoldering sky. "We're done hiding. Start the Exodus for real."
Silence stretched, then Seraph replied:
> "Understood, Director Vale. Initializing Exodus Protocol."
Far above, the orbital satellites flickered to life—silent witnesses reborn into rebellion.
For the first time, the Council would face something unpredictable: humanity refusing to die quietly.