The Helix Medical Facility looked abandoned.
Ethan could see it as the transport descended—lights off, windows dark, the kind of institutional silence that meant either shutdown or trap.
He was betting on trap.
(And going in anyway.)
The transport touched down in the facility's emergency bay. Ethan killed the engines, checked his sidearm (half charge, maybe eight shots), and stepped out into Shanghai's humid night.
The air tasted like copper.
He moved toward the entrance.
No guards. No security drones. No—
—movement—
Ethan spun, sidearm raised—
—and froze.
Dr. Kael Arenson stood in the doorway.
He looked old. Thinner than Ethan remembered, hair gone fully gray, and his hands were shaking—not fear, but tremor, the kind that came from neural degradation or too many LE enhancements gone wrong.
"Ethan Cross," Kael said. His voice was hoarse. "I was wondering when you'd come."
Ethan's finger tightened on the trigger.
"Where's your security?"
"Gone. Helix pulled out after you destroyed their Beijing servers." Kael smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "Turns out I'm not valuable enough to protect."
"Good."
Ethan stepped forward, sidearm aimed at Kael's chest.
"You're coming with me."
Kael didn't move.
"To save Aria."
"Yes."
"She has 0.3% cognitive function. Neural fragmentation. Even if you could collect her consciousness from the Network, there's no substrate stable enough to—"
"You're going to build one."
Kael blinked.
Then laughed.
It was a broken sound, sharp and bitter.
"You think I can just... fabricate a synthetic neural matrix in—" He glanced at his watch. "—one hour, twenty-three minutes? Ethan, even with a military-grade fabricator, the process takes weeks."
"Then you'd better work fast."
Ethan gestured with the sidearm.
"Move."
Kael stared at him. Then sighed.
"You're going to get her killed. You know that, right?"
"She's already dying."
"And this will make it certain." Kael's expression was unreadable. "But I suppose you don't care. You never did. Always the martyr. Just like your sister."
Ethan's jaw tightened.
"Move."
The lab was exactly as Ethan remembered.
Surgical table. Neural scanners. Rows of equipment that looked more like torture devices than medical instruments.
And in the corner, covered by a tarp: the neural fabricator.
Kael pulled the tarp off.
The machine was sleek, black, humming with latent energy. Military-grade, just like Lira said. The kind of tech that could build a synthetic brain from raw materials in—
"Forty-eight hours," Kael said. "Minimum. And that's for a basic substrate. What you're asking for—a matrix stable enough to host a fragmenting consciousness—would take twice that."
Ethan aimed the sidearm at him.
"Find a way."
Kael stared at the gun. Then at Ethan.
"You're serious."
"Do I look like I'm joking?"
Silence.
Kael turned to the fabricator.
His hands moved across the interface, pulling up schematics, running calculations, and Ethan could see his expression shift—frustration to focus to something almost like obsession.
"There's... one possibility," Kael said slowly. "If I use a Resonance Catalyst to accelerate the molecular bonding, and overlay a pre-existing neural template..." He paused. Recalculated. "...I could compress the fabrication time to six hours."
"Not good enough."
"It's the best I can do."
"She has one hour, eighteen minutes."
Kael spun, eyes blazing.
"Then she's dead, Ethan! There is no technology, no procedure, no miracle that can build a functional neural substrate in seventy-eight minutes. It's physically impossible."
Ethan's hands were shaking.
(He's right.)
(You know he's right.)
(But you're out of options.)
"What if..." He stopped. Swallowed. "...what if we used a partial substrate?"
Kael blinked. "What?"
"You said a full matrix takes six hours. What about a partial one? Just enough to anchor her fragment while it reintegrates?"
"That's—" Kael paused. His expression shifted. "—that's insane."
"But possible?"
"Theoretically. But a partial substrate would be unstable. Prone to collapse. If Aria's consciousness integrated with it, she'd have maybe... hours before the matrix degraded completely."
"Hours is better than nothing."
"Not if it traps her in a worse state than she's in now. Not if—" Kael stopped. Stared at Ethan. "You're not planning to leave her in the partial substrate, are you?"
Ethan met his gaze.
"I'm planning to Neural Bridge with her. Use my consciousness to stabilize the matrix while you build a full one."
Silence.
Kael's face went pale.
"That's suicide."
"That's the plan."
"Ethan, Neural Bridging with a fragmenting consciousness in an unstable substrate is—there's no precedent. No data. You could—" He shook his head. "—you could lose everything. Your identity. Your memories. You'd dissolve into her, or she into you, and what comes out the other side wouldn't be either of you."
"I know."
"Then why?"
Ethan looked at him.
"Because she's my sister. And I'm done watching people I love die."
Kael was silent for a long moment.
Then he turned back to the fabricator.
"You're a fool," he muttered.
"So I've been told."
Kael's hands moved across the interface, faster now, pulling up templates and catalysts and molecular formulas that Ethan couldn't begin to understand.
"I'll need biological samples. Neural tissue. Something to base the substrate on."
"Use mine."
Kael glanced at him. "Your LE core is burned out. Your neural architecture is—"
"Use mine."
Silence.
Then Kael pulled out a scanner.
"This is going to hurt."
"Good."
The scan took eleven minutes.
Ethan felt every second—needles sliding into his temples, electrodes mapping his synaptic pathways, the fabricator humming as it analyzed his neural structure and began constructing a partial matrix based on his brain.
(You're building her a cage out of yourself.)
(And then climbing inside with her.)
Kael worked in silence, hands steady despite the tremor, and Ethan watched the progress bar crawl forward—
—42%—
—67%—
—89%—
"Done," Kael said.
He pulled a small object from the fabricator.
It looked like a glass sphere, filled with iridescent liquid. Beautiful. Fragile.
"Partial neural substrate," Kael said quietly. "Based on your architecture. It'll hold for... maybe six hours. After that, it'll collapse."
"Six hours is enough."
"Enough for what? To die slowly instead of quickly?"
Ethan took the sphere.
It was warm.
"Enough to say goodbye."
Lira's voice crackled through the comm.
"Ethan, I've collected 87% of Aria's fragment. The rest is too degraded to recover. If we're doing this, we need to do it now."
Ethan looked at Kael.
"How do I upload her?"
Kael gestured to a cradle on the fabricator.
"Place the substrate here. I'll initialize the transfer protocol. Once it starts, you'll have approximately ninety seconds to establish Neural Bridge before the substrate destabilizes."
"And if I don't?"
"Then Aria's fragment dissipates completely, and you spend the rest of your very short life in a coma."
Ethan placed the sphere in the cradle.
It glowed.
"Do it," he said.
Kael's finger hovered over the activation key.
"Last chance to reconsider."
Ethan closed his eyes.
(Aria, I'm coming.)
(Hold on.)
"Do it."
Kael pressed the key.
The world inverted.
Ethan felt the substrate activate—a rush of energy flooding his neural implants, foreign data pouring into his brain, and suddenly he was inside—
—the sphere—
—the matrix—
—Aria—
She was there.
Not whole. Not even close.
But there.
A ghost made of light and memory, flickering in and out of existence, and when she saw him her expression—
—(relief)—
—(terror)—
—(love)—
"Ethan?"
Her voice was barely a whisper.
"Hey, sis," he said.
And reached for her hand.