Isla stood between them—half child, half something terrifyingly unknown. Her skin shimmered with pulses of light, veins glowing like circuits, her expression calm… too calm.
"Isla," Aurora whispered, voice trembling. "Baby, come to me."
But Isla didn't move. Her eyes flicked between her mother and Lucien like a signal seeking alignment.
"I feel… everything," she said. "Your fear, your lies, the noise in your heads."
"Elijah, move her away from him—now!" Aurora ordered.
Lucien raised a hand. "Touch her, and she'll defend herself instinctively. You've seen what she can do."
Elijah hesitated. "She's a kid, Lucien."
"She's not just a kid," Lucien said quietly. "She's the result of the Seed harmonized with Aurora's neuro-DNA. She was born knowing us. That's why I hid her before I disappeared. She needed time."
Aurora stepped forward. "What you did wasn't to protect her—it was to protect your legacy. But I won't let you take her back."
"She's already chosen," Lucien said, almost gently.
Suddenly, Isla's head snapped upward. "They're coming," she said in a glassy voice. "The Vault sent drones. They found the resonance spike when the inhibitors dropped. Seventeen minutes until contact."
"How do you know that?" Wren asked.
Isla looked up with eyes now fully lit, almost metallic. "I am the resonance."
Then she collapsed.
Aurora rushed forward, catching her before she hit the ground. Isla's body burned with energy, muscles tensing as she convulsed slightly in her arms.
Lucien crouched beside them, emotion cutting through his usual calm. "She's going into convergence. If we don't stabilize her, her brain will fry itself trying to process all incoming frequencies."
"Then help her," Aurora barked.
Lucien met her eyes. "There's only one way. She has to sync with a transmitter—one large enough to offload the overflow signal. There's a tower outside this base. But we'll have to defend it until she finishes."
Elijah cursed. "So we're back to war."
Wren smirked. "Did we ever leave it?"
Xander accessed the base's internal map. "The transmitter is a kilometer northeast. We can use the maintenance tunnels to get halfway. Then it's open terrain."
Aurora cradled Isla, brushing hair from her face. "You hear that, sweet girl? You just have to hold on."
Lucien's hand hovered over hers. "She'll need both of us."
"I'm not doing this with you," Aurora said coldly.
"You don't have a choice."
They moved.
Through the tunnels, through the stale scent of metal and power cables. The tension was thick—old pain, new danger, and the thread of something unspoken between Aurora and Lucien that neither dared confront now.
They emerged into moonlight.
Above, the tower stood like a skeletal god piercing the stars, red lights blinking at its summit. The air thrummed with quiet pulses—like the world was waiting.
And then—
A screech.
Machines descended from the sky like locusts—Vault drones, spindly and cruel, with rotating blades and low-pitched hums. Their eyes glowed red.
"Ten of them!" Elijah shouted. "Weapons hot!"
The team split.
Elijah and Wren opened fire with EMP rifles, hitting two drones mid-air. Sparks exploded as metal fell screaming.
Lucien set Isla gently on the tower platform, connecting her to the console with wires and bio-nodes. Her body twitched as the signal took hold, light leaking from her fingertips.
"She's stabilizing," he said. "Just keep them off us!"
Aurora fired three shots, then turned to Lucien. "What happens if she finishes the sync?"
"She'll rewrite the Vault's global network signature. Change the command seed. They'll lose control."
"And if she doesn't?"
"She dies."
Wren screamed over the comm: "Four drones coming from the west!"
Xander scrambled to set up auto-turrets, fingers bleeding. "Buy me two minutes!"
Time bent around them.
Drones exploded. People bled. But Aurora barely felt it.
She only saw Isla—her daughter, her miracle—glowing brighter than ever now. Floating inches above the tower's center, hair dancing like it was underwater, her lips moving in silent language.
Then—
Silence.
All drones froze mid-air.
Then, one by one, they dropped.
Lucien looked up, stunned. "She did it."
Isla descended slowly, barefoot, serene. She opened her eyes—and spoke in a voice that wasn't entirely hers.
"I've disabled the Vault's signal reach."
Everyone stared, breathless.
Aurora rushed to her, but Isla held up a hand.
"I need time," she said. "I need to understand what I've become."
Lucien's voice cracked. "I can help her."
Aurora glared at him. "Not alone."
And for the first time… he nodded.
Together, they turned toward the dark horizon—where new answers waited.
But so did new enemies.