They ran through a corridor that rebuilt itself with each step. Walls reversed decay, lights flared back to life, and at one point, Signal passed herself—walking backward.
Maya caught her breath. "Time's looping."
Ellian pointed up. "No. It's editing."
The hallway ahead warped again. Frost paused just long enough to look through a side aperture. "That's us. From six hours ago."
Trey shoved him forward. "Then we keep moving. Before we catch ourselves."
The deeper they went, the older the structures became—less machine, more bone and stone. Glyphs not etched by Cain. Something older.
They found the Heart.
It wasn't a machine. It was a seed, suspended mid-air, floating above a massive chasm. Cables fed into it from every direction—each cable humming, pulsing with memory.
Lyra scanned it. "It's holding over ten million distinct event threads."
Juno said, "It's a choice machine. Not a weapon."
Signal stepped closer. Her voice steady. "It was always about this. Who decides what memory gets kept—and what gets erased."
Then a voice behind them.
"You don't get to choose."
The team turned.
Three figures stood at the threshold.
One of them was Cain.
Alive.
Not the Cain they knew.
Younger. Cleaner. No scars. No madness in her eyes.
This version looked… reasonable. And beside her stood two others: a boy wrapped in a red cloak with no eyes, and a woman made entirely of mirrored skin.
Trey raised his weapon. "That's not her."
Cain smiled faintly. "No. But it's the last model she made. I'm Directive Cain."
Signal narrowed her eyes. "A failsafe."
"Yes. Designed to take control if the original Cain lost objectivity. Which she did."
She stepped forward.
"You've come far, but you're still following her mistakes."
The mirrored woman stepped beside the Heart.
"She's not ready," she said, pointing to Signal. "She's still split between memory and identity."
Ellian growled, "We don't need you to tell us who we are."
Cain looked at him. "You're not even from this iteration, Ellian. You're a bleed-in from cycle twenty-one."
He froze.
Cain turned back to Signal. "You have two options. Give us the Origin Core. Let the Directive reset the threads safely. Or you can activate the Heart yourself—and risk destroying every memory this world has."
Signal didn't move.
The boy in red lifted his hand.
"Choose," he whispered.
Maya stepped beside Signal. "We don't hand it over. Ever."
Trey was already lining up a shot.
Cain raised a hand. "If you attack, you lock in the worst version. The one where no one survives."
Lyra clutched the core, eyes darting.
Juno asked, "What does activation even mean?"
Signal stepped forward.
And for the first time, she didn't hesitate.
"It means we stop trying to preserve the past. And we let the world remember its own way."
She pressed the core to the Heart.
The room pulsed.
The cables snapped.
Light poured outward, silent and blinding.
Everyone was frozen—caught in threads of time, suspended between seconds.
Then—
Every memory they had ever lost returned in a rush.
Every lie they'd been told unraveled.
Every death undone and redone in infinite layers.
When the light cleared, the Heart was gone.
So were the Directive Cain and her allies.
Signal stood alone in the center of a burned circle.
Maya opened her eyes. "Did it work?"
Juno looked around. "I… remember things that never happened."
Ellian said nothing. He just looked at his hands.
Frost muttered, "We're not in our timeline anymore."
Trey exhaled. "Then where the hell are we?"
Signal turned slowly.
And whispered:
"Home."