The breach wasn't supposed to open again—not after what happened last time. Not after the loss of seven lives, not after the dimensional ripple that had left half the Resistance compound permanently humming with trapped frequencies. But Lyra felt it before she saw it.
A vibration in the soles of her feet.A ringing in the back of her mind.
She stood motionless in the corridor of the underground base. Dust floated like glitter in the shaft of overhead light, suspended as if the air itself was holding its breath. Something in her chest pulled tight. Then—
"Do you feel that?" she whispered to Jace, who had just stepped into view from the left tunnel.
He paused. The glowstick in his hand flickered. "Yeah," he said quietly, looking around. "Feels like the walls are... alive."
The hallway pulsed faintly with a pale, blue luminescence. Lyra placed her hand against the metal wall. It was warm. No—pulsing. Like a heartbeat. Like it was breathing.
The glyphs under her skin—the ones that had stayed dormant since her last breach exposure—flickered.
One by one, they began to glow.
"Jace…" she breathed. "It's calling again."
He turned toward her. "Lyra, we sealed the breach chamber. No one's gone near it in weeks."
"Then something's broken the seal."
Without waiting for him to respond, Lyra broke into a run.
The journey to the breach chamber was silent except for the sound of their boots hitting the ground, echoing through long-forgotten tunnels.
As they neared the chamber, the air grew thicker. Warmer. Denser.
A hum filled the space like a mechanical heartbeat, steady but ominous.
They stopped at the final door. Lyra placed her hand on the scanner. It blinked red—unauthorized.
"Step back," Jace said.
He pulled a pulse key from his belt, slotted it in, and twisted.
A hiss. A mechanical groan. The door slid open.
And the room beyond glowed like the surface of a foreign star.
The chamber, once inert and sealed by the Resistance, now radiates raw signal energy. Glyphs had lit up across the walls, like a language desperate to be read.
In the center of the room, the breach shimmered—no longer a closed rift, but a throbbing tear in reality.
A vertical slit of light hovered inches above the floor, spinning slowly, spilling fragmented sound.
It spoke in pulses.
Sync.Connect.Return.
"Do you hear it?" Lyra asked.
Jace was already pulling her back. "We had to leave. Right now. This isn't natural—it's reacting to you."
Lyra shook her head. "It's not reacting. It's responding. It knows me."
She took a step forward, raising her palm toward the breach.
"No!" Jace shouted. "Lyra, don't—!"
But the breach flared. Blinding white.
And Lyra was gone.
The world inside the breach was formless.
A void.A sky with no stars.A memory without a body.
Lyra floated—not in water, not in air—but in something denser. Time? Thought? Data?
She blinked.
A soft voice filled the space. "You always come back too early."
A silhouette formed in the mist.
It was her.
Or rather—a version of her. Older. Sharper. Wearing armor of resonance glass. Her hair glowed faintly blue, strands humming like chords in a melody.
"Who are you?" Lyra asked.
"I'm you," the figure said, stepping closer. Version 7.2. You're… 3.1, I believe."
Lyra staggered. "What does that mean?"
The older Lyra looked sad. "It means you haven't unlocked all of yourself yet. But you're getting closer."
Images spiraled in the mist.
A tower made of crystal.Children in signal masks.A girl with silver eyes singing a lullaby that broke the sky.
"I need answers," Lyra said. "Who erased me? Why do I keep seeing lives that aren't mine?"
The older Lyra placed her palm on Lyra's forehead.
"You were the key," she whispered. "And you still are." But you broke yourself apart to keep them from using you. Every version is a backup. You're here to retrieve one."
"Retrieve what?"
"Your voice."
Meanwhile, in the real world, Jace paced outside the chamber.
Lyra's body lay on the floor, lifeless except for the occasional flicker of light beneath her skin.
Veyla arrived moments later.
"She's inside the breach," Jace explained quickly. "I couldn't stop her."
Veyla looked at Lyra's still form, then at the pulsing breach. "We don't have much time."
"What happens if we lose her?"
"We don't just lose Lyra," Veyla whispered. "We lose the last voice strong enough to collapse the Skygrid."
Back inside the breach, Lyra floated in darkness with the older version of herself.
Version 7.2 raised her hand and summoned a pulse of light between them. A signal crystal—glowing, beating like a heart.
"This is the Core Memory," she said. "What you erased when you were first captured by the Authority."
Lyra reached out to touch it, but the crystal jerked back.
"It must recognize you. You have to remember who you were before they reprogrammed you."
"I don't—"
"You do," Version 7.2 said firmly. Close your eyes. Listen to the hum. It's you."
Lyra obeyed.
The darkness shifted.
A vision flooded her mind.
A lab. Cold. Metallic.
She stood before the Skygrid console. Her hands moved quickly, feeding code into an endless stream. Scientists behind her, watching, whispering.
"You're doing good, Lyra," said a man with mercury eyes.
"I don't want to hurt people," she whispered.
"You're not. You're protecting them."
But she knew it was a lie.
Each line of code wasn't protected.
It was control.
She had built Skygrid.
She designed the sonic barriers.She had mapped the cities.She had created the silence.
And then—
She had tried to destroy it.
The memory snapped back.
She gasped.
"I was one of them," she whispered to Version 7.2. "I was a Creator."
"You were the most brilliant," her older self replied. But you turned. You saw what they were doing. So you tried to stop it."
"And they erased me."
"They tried. But they couldn't kill your code."
The Core Memory floated toward Lyra again.
This time, it let her touch it.
A soft hum exploded into a crescendo of light, and Lyra screamed as thousands of data points surged into her mind.
When it was over, she collapsed, trembling.
Her eyes opened.
Glowing.
Alive.
Back in the chamber, Lyra's body convulsed.
Then she sat up—abruptly—breathing hard.
Jace rushed forward. "You're back!"
Lyra turned to him slowly.
"Jace," she whispered. "I remember everything."
"What?"
She stood, unsteady. "I know who I am. I know what I did. And I know how to break the Skygrid."
Veyla stepped forward. "Then we didn't have much time. The Authority is watching every frequency. If they find out what you've unlocked—"
"They already know," Lyra said.
"They do?"
She looked up at the ceiling.
"They've always known."
Far away, in a hidden surveillance facility beneath the old Capital Belt, a man with mercury eyes watched the chamber through a cracked screen.
"She's activated," he muttered.
Behind him, a figure stepped from the shadows.
"Do we retrieve her?"
He smiled darkly.
"No. Let her think she's free. Let her lead them. And when they reach the tower…"
He turned.
"…we'll activate the final sequence."