Hara didn't reply.
Instead, she showed up.
At 02:46, I heard the scrape of metal against concrete outside the derelict node hub. A code-knock — two short, one long. Something we used back in our academy days during unauthorized system breaches. I crept toward the hatch, hand on the pulse trigger I had rigged from a broken stim rig and a power cell.
She slipped inside, her hood soaked from acid rain, eyes wide with disbelief.
"Holy void, Kai," she whispered, scanning the chamber. "You weren't kidding."
"I never do."
She took one look at the decrypted console, and her hands started to shake.
"That's real?" she asked, voice breaking. "That map… this data. It's not a simulation?"
I nodded. "It's older than simulations. Nyxari isn't a name. It's a warning."
She didn't run. That meant something.
We worked through the night. She patched my bleeding hand. I patched her outdated firewall protocols. Together, we unearthed more of the buried archive. Coordinates beyond charted space. Signal sources wrapped in impossible math. Places where the laws of physics were… suggestions.
One file, sealed behind a time-stamped vault, began decoding without input. We stared as the screen flickered, struggled—then stabilized.
A transmission began to play.
No video. Just audio.
A voice, distorted by distance and entropy.
"This is… Nyxari Protocol. Final seal fractured. Incursion probability: 84.7%. All vectors corrupted. Request: Counter-Entity Reintegration. Architect key required. Architect must witness. Architect must…"
The feed dissolved into screams. Not human.
Hara paled. "Kai… this thing isn't over."
I looked her dead in the eye.
"No. It hasn't even begun."