Seraphel's body was a mess of torn muscle, exposed circuits, and fractured plating. Yet despite the trauma, her eyes flickered open, glowing faintly with a pulsing blue light.
Julius leaned over her cot, unsure what to say. He hadn't seen her since the fall of the Antares Citadel, and back then, she hadn't exactly been an ally—more like a programmed guardian with a moral compass skewed by duty and damaged code.
"Vara," Seraphel rasped. "You… survived."
"I could say the same," Vara replied coolly, though something in her voice cracked.
Seraphel's head shifted slightly toward Julius. "And the symbiote… it chose you."
"I didn't exactly have a choice," he said.
Seraphel closed her eyes briefly, then spoke in a strained whisper. "Then you're the last fail-safe. They'll come for you now—the ones who seeded the Hive. The Vesper Pact was only the beginning."
Ryka stepped in. "You know who they are?"
Seraphel tried to sit up, but Julius gently held her down. She looked at Ryka, her voice more stable now. "We thought we could control it. The Hive wasn't an infection—it was a key. A locked gate. And someone opened it."
"Who?" Vara asked.
Seraphel stared at the ceiling. "The Architect. It's not a program. It's a species. Or a remnant of one. And it's rebuilding itself using us."
A tense silence fell over the group.
Then Julius asked the question none of them wanted to say aloud: "How long do we have?"
Seraphel looked him in the eye. "Not long. The Architect's birthing ground is active. And I escaped with something it wants."
"What did you take?" Selene asked.
Seraphel reached into a small compartment on her thigh armor. She withdrew a crystalline sphere, humming with inner light.
"This," she said. "Is a seed of recursion. With it, the Architect can rewrite the physical laws of a localized zone. Reality becomes code. And it's starting here, on this world."
Julius stared at the orb.
"So we destroy it?" Brinley asked.
Seraphel shook her head. "No. We use it. It's the only way we fight it on its terms."
Vara took a step forward. "Then we'll need to finish reactivating you."
Seraphel's eyes dimmed again. "I'm not what I was. You'll need to finish rebuilding me."
Ryka looked at Julius. "We have a fabrication core beneath the uplink station. We can do this."
Julius nodded. "Then let's get to work."