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CHAPTER FIVE

2121 CE

Amara loved to get lost–maybe a little too much. Shortly after her sixth birthday, she vanished from our living quarters and hadn’t reappeared after four hours. 

While not even close to the size of Central, the facilities of Sigma Polar still felt like a city underground and there were plenty of nooks and crannies to discover. Having plumbed the depths myself in an effort to properly map the facility for the Keepers, I couldn’t help but encourage my daughter’s exploratory spirit. Julian didn’t love this approach but he couldn’t refuse her either–there wasn’t too much to do for a girl her age. Her friend and often-unwilling babysitter Tara, a few years her senior, ran to me in a panic as I returned from my shift in the Artifact Chamber. 

“Mrs. Nassar, I…I’m so sorry!” Tara wasn’t one for tears but I could tell all hell was about to break loose. “She told me that she’d be right back…” Amara opened a hatch in the primary hallway and Tara lost her around a corner that was too tight a squeeze. “I told her to stop, but she wouldn’t listen!”

“Yes, she does that.” I wasn’t upset at Tara–to be honest, I wasn’t even upset with Amara. Some of this was motivated by the guilt I held over bringing her to this barren wasteland in the first place, but I preferred to give Amara room to grow. I taught her the map of the facility so she would always know where she was and, yes, on occasion, I opened up a vent and let her go spelunking. It seemed that she had capably observed where I stored the electric screwdriver and requisitioned it for herself. 

While Julian organized a search party, I retired to our bedroom. A part of me refused to believe that Amara actually was lost. There was a fair possibility that I was overestimating the abilities of my six-year-old, but she was an intuitive girl. She was like me. Sigma Polar didn’t share much with the HAST but I knew every inch of that place by the time I turned ten. It had been a mark of pride for me and I wanted Amara to feel it too. 

Julian told bedtime stories and spoke to her of the stars, as Amara held a particular interest in the Outer Colonies of Proxima B. He nurtured the expansive spirit within her, that which wanted to explore the entire universe. Yet I wanted to guide her to the spirit within. So I told her the lessons I first learned from Devi. Harnessing our moments of weakness. Learning to live with our minds and find peace within them in moments of strife. Cultivating our interests no matter where our whims took us. Preparing ourselves so that we may always be there for others. 

“You’re the future, kid. Never forget that. With every choice we make, we are creating the world that we’re all going to have to share. So make it a world that you want to live in.” 

“But how am I going to change the world? I’m just a person!” 

I used my pendant as an example. “Remember how I told you that my teacher gave me this? It helps me stay focused. 

“Hm…okay, Mom. If you say so!”

Amara always questioned my lessons. I think that’s what made me the proudest. She poked and prodded at my claims. I found that I could be honest with her because our discussions existed purely on an emotional level. I didn’t have to justify my past to her. We spoke about the world and its challenges and its joys on a level that she could understand. I had always assumed it was my job to elevate Amara–and in some cases, of course it was–but she elevated me too. 

But Amara’s recognition of that shared connection between us terrified me as well. After all, where had my Code led me so far? To a pit dug so deep into the ice of the Arctic that daylight was a rare delicacy. To the domain of a man I increasingly thought to be mad with grief and maybe something worse. To an experiment that often shook our cold, inhuman home to the foundations as Cullin pushed the limits of his inventions and his obsession. 

I tried not to dwell on such doubts as I sat in the windowless Polar bedroom. The nearby comm-screen blinked to life. Julian’s voice. “We’ve got her on the security feed, from two hours ago!” 

Through staticky footage, I watched my daughter emerge onto the windy surface of the base, bundled up but still shivering as she took in the sights. Somehow she had navigated her way through the entire vertical span of Sigma Polar. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She didn’t stay on the surface long, soon crawling back into a vent and vanishing from sight. 

“We’re scanning heat signatures with our cleaning drones, but it’s going to take some time – ”

Julian’s report was interrupted when I heard the squeaking of screws above my head. I turned just as the vent’s face tumbled forward and Amara stuck her head through–winded but unharmed. When she saw me, though, she blanched. 

“Mom…” 

I couldn’t help it now. I burst out laughing. Amara soon joined me, and it made me laugh even harder. “You might think it’s funny now, kid, but wait until your Dad gets back.” 

Once I extracted her from the crawlspace and checked her over, I ran a hot bath for her and let her nap. A proper scolding could wait. My own amazement at her would have prevented me from reaching the necessary levels of stony disapproval. My daughter was alive. My daughter was reckless. 

My daughter was amazing. 

Cullin certainly wasn’t pleased. The drama created by Amara’s disappearance took away time from his latest interminable research meeting that he mandated every afternoon. All of our varied efforts over the past two and a half years hadn’t gotten us any closer to unlocking the secrets of the Key. The massive ancient artifact refused Cullin’s efforts–nuclear energy, sonic energy, kinetic and thermal–time after time, the Artifact Chamber was retrofitted and remade to bring about our bold leader’s latest plot. Time after time, we failed to satisfy him. 

“I think it’s a dead end, Lilla,” Julian related to me when he returned from the latest briefing. I had elected not to attend, staying with Amara. There was little more I could share with the Keepers at this point. No news, as far as they were concerned, was good news. Whatever Cullin sought, they seemed confident that it would never come to pass. 

Work to discourage further interest in the Artifact. 

When able, shift attention elsewhere. 

End Goal: the defunding of Sigma 6.

As we all knew, Sigma was a fickle beast—a hydra with many heads. The Amazon proved that even Preston Swift’s private influence had its limits. While a significant discovery such as the key would surely never be entirely forgotten, my goal was to make sure that its mysteries remained inherent and permanent…even though I myself was desperate for my own answers. I never outwardly moved against his experiments but I mounted small sabotages when I could, balancing my hidden purposes against my own curiosity. 

Was Cullin actually attempting to open some sort of quantum causeway to a distant world? And was it salvation he truly sought…or something else? Whatever connection there had been between us due to our shared love for Marilyn was gone now. 

And Marilyn herself…it troubled me that her body was so close. In the bowels of Polar the cryochambers sat chilled and empty, Marilyn its sole resident. Cullin visited often, and Julian had accompanied him a few times, but I refused. While my friend was still alive, her body was not what I wanted to remember. I wanted to think of the kindness in her eyes and the way she always knew when to reach out her hand and take my own. Her ease, her comfort, her casual wisdom and homegrown common sense. Her frozen form contained none of those things. 

Despite Cullin’s own investment into research, no cure was ever found for the mysterious virus. All others who were affected by it at Sigma Central had died in quarantine—and with Marilyn’s isolation, all threat of its continued spread was contained. To properly study the virus and its effects, Marilyn would need to be removed from cryosleep—yet this would also restart the ticking clock on her own life. So Cullin placed his bets on the future that the Key promised him. It was the only thing that gave me hope that his desires with the artifact remained pure of heart. Somehow, I mused, all of this was for Marilyn. 

A strange, uneasy sense of inevitability mounted an invasion against my rationality. Was it possible that everything was so ordained? My placement at Sigma 3. My friendship with Marilyn. My love of Julian. And all of this, tied together by the Keepers and their obscured orders for my life. 

I relied on my pendant and my Code to calm myself. I tried to live in the moment, to appreciate what Sigma 6 and its befuddling, stagnated research gave to me: stability. Perhaps something I now cherished more than purpose. In those years at Polar, Julian and I left behind the doubts that had arisen between us in the Amazon. There was a tenuous stability to our relationship, but stability nonetheless. It wasn’t a white hot passion, not anymore, but still our arms entangled in the night and our smiles mingled whenever the three of us spent time together. 

Did I really think it could last? Maybe I did. Maybe I had lived on the Brink for so long that it came to feel like home. Nothing ever really changed. 

Until it did.

The skies told of its coming. 

It was a privilege to consider the Aurora Borealis as something pedestrian. When we first settled into Sigma Polar in 2118, the sight took our collective breath away. Now it might as well have been a night light for the consideration we gave it. 

Yet Project Stormgate changed our appraisal of the Aurora and its possibilities. It was the barometer for Cullin’s greatest experiment and this signal flare in the heavens shifted as the solar storm made its approach. The energy from the coming solar storm would be harnessed to unlock the Key—but this plan set off a high alarm for my handlers. For years I had grown used to the even keel of their messages to me. Never once had emotion infected their tone. But now…

Project Stormgate cannot proceed.

Consider Clive Cullin a compromised enemy agent.

Prevent its execution by any means.

At any cost.

Even if it meant my cover was blown or my life lost, my handlers were clear–Sigma Polar had to be irredeemably sabotaged. When the message came in, my mind shut down. I tried to meditate but I could not find my safe haven. For years I had sat coiled and ready for such a moment but now that it arrived…

I needed more from the Keepers and so I demanded it. It was obvious that they understood the Key on a deeper level. That was the cost, I decided, of what they asked of me. For once, I did not hesitate when I sent them my response. I did not fear retribution. They were already asking for my life–what more could they do to me?

The loss of the Key is an existential threat.

Something beyond even the reach of our knowledge.

Now that we understand what it truly is–

A SAFEGUARD FOR OUR ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM–

THERE IS NO HIGHER PRIORITY THAN THE PRESERVATION OF THE ARTIFACT.

Report back with functional plan and we will provide feasible support–

Including safe placement and cover with new identity.

The Project Stormgate attempt was set for August, giving me only a few months to prepare–both the desired sabotage and my escape. This would not be a small tactic meant only to delay. This would need fireworks, plain and simple–something I would never be able to hide or hide from myself. This was the end. So I had to go for broke.

Preparations are in motion.

One condition: my family goes with me.

I wanted to bring Julian into the fold. This was a hope I’d nursed for years in the depths of my heart. What if there was a world where we could finally live together in the truth? It was what remained unspoken that truly kept us apart. But the Keepers turned my years of glowing reports on Julian against me. 

Subject Nassar is a soldier of high loyalty to his cause.

Ranked within both the Sigma Initiative and North American Federation military.

Reaction to such revelation could threaten and destabilize our goals.

Request refused.

They granted me one allowance: Amara. She was young. Pure potential. And she carried Julian’s greatest asset to the Keepers: the same unique genetic signature found in my husband’s blood. For the same reason they let me keep Amara in the first place, the Keepers agreed–if I could get out of Sigma Polar with my mission complete and life intact, they would take both of us under their wing. Take Amara–and leave Julian to…what? 

As much as I went into planning my plot, I needed to ensure that Julian would survive it. He would oversee the Stormgate attempt in the Artifact Chamber alongside Cullin and the science team. Far above the walls of the Chamber’s pit, the surface would be evacuated of human presence. It was there that Cullin now rushed to install his not-so-subtly named Cullin capacitors, building out a delivery infrastructure capable of capturing and channeling a massive amount of geomagnetic energy. This system worked in tandem with a relay of satellite-directed reflectors that would catch the excess energy and rain it down upon the Key. 

It was these two systems that I had to destroy. Yet the surface was staffed and patrolled at all times. The only time when I could be certain it would be defenseless was during the Stormgate attempt. My margins were thin and my time was slipping away. 

As the months passed, I spent my midnights in meditation after Julian fell asleep or took on a late shift. I felt utterly alone in this dilemma and my focus often slipped. It was only the sentimental allowance of Devi’s imagined guidance that kept me straight. As the boundaries of my life lost meaning, when I stripped it all away and confronted the truth, the one thing left to me was the first thing given–the Code. 

This was what she saw in me. This trial. The reason behind all the words she ever spoke to me. “To ready yourself. To protect the world from existential threat. To embody the best aspects of our shared nature. To be honor bound to that human ideal.” The words I had repurposed and given to Amara. I saw that I had left myself deflated for too long. So I took a deep breath and began.

From the Polar chemistry labs, I covertly mixed the explosives that I then placed within devices scavenged from the dormant military armory, an echoic hall filled with the hulking shadows of sleeping mechs. Sometimes these mechs were awoken to shield workers from the harsher Arctic conditions above. I signed up for recurring shifts with one of these units, justifying that a side research project took me out into the wilds, and then hid my homebrew payloads within the mech’s armored form. Each trip, I deposited more of my devices in an unused electronics bunker on the surface right past the edge of the security team’s normal patrol paths. 

And then there was nothing for me to do but wait. 

By the final hours before Project Stormgate began, I was worn ragged by my deception and jangled by my nerves. I found Cullin in a similar state. 

“You should sleep,” I told him. 

Cullin waved me off. “I’d go to my room and stare at the ceiling. Pace. Drink. I’ll be more productive here.” Cullin and I sat in the observation deck that overlooked the Artifact Chamber. The Key hung suspended by its own electromagnetic energy, swirling with that eerie glow. Octahedral and taller than even two people stacked on top of each other, its shifting plates of alien metal protected the precious core within. Cullin never looked at me, his eyes only for his precious Key. “Everything that it’s taught us so far…sometimes I can’t comprehend just how far behind the curve we are in comparison to those who created the Key. The efficiency and beauty of how it contains its energy, using it as both a perpetual battery and shield…” 

I couldn’t deny the incredible nature of the artifact. While there was no easy way to get material samples in and out of Polar without attracting attention, I suspected that the substance with which the Key was made would match the sample I took from the Amazonian tunnels. That innate phosphorescence reminded me too much of the glow I saw that night in the antechamber. These alien beings had left us hints of their true technology–enough to taunt minds like Cullin into restless invention and discovery, pushing deeper into the mysteries of the quantum universe. The dreams of free energy and even Faster-Than-Light travel seemed closer than ever before–as if reality now had its foot on the accelerator and wouldn’t be letting up anytime soon. Whether or not we were headed straight for a brick wall in the dark? I wasn’t so sure. Maybe I was a cynic. I certainly am now. 

Whatever the case, Cullin’s final goal with the Key remained as simple and brutal as a caveman picking up the broken rib of some fallen beast and slamming it down on the head of his enemy. Whatever the Key held back he planned to unleash. What frightened me the most was that I didn’t think this was about Marilyn anymore. His grief, his despair, had sunk the reality of her from his mind. More than anything, he chased vengeance for his own pain. 

But despite the wreck of a human being I saw before myself, I still retained the memories of our shared past. Those idealistic days at Sigma Central, when the human genome seemed like it might bend to our will. When our ambitions had not yet led us astray. When we were both pure and new in our love for others. I wanted Cullin to remember too. 

“We can still postpone this. Refine the math. Perfect the capacitors and the relay. Solar storms are rare but–” 

“Why would you even suggest it? This is what we’ve worked for Lilla.” 

I wanted to speak to him as Marilyn might. Compassionate and even despite my fear and rising disgust. “You think this might not go the way we’ve planned it to. I can see it on your face.”

His attention flicked at those last words. There was a flash of some feeling across his face that failed to comfort me. Like a cornered snake. But then he just sighed and looked way. 

“I think the capacity of judgment I hold for myself is vast. I know the feeling, Cullin. Is all I’m saying. I know how that self-contempt sometimes feels like it’s radiating off of you, lighting you up like a spotlight.” There I was again, toeing the line. Opening my truth to the world and asking for the consequences. I thought that perhaps such openness might draw Cullin too back into the light. 

I don’t think he heard a word that I said to him. His fingertips rapped the desk sprawled with his research and preparation, and his eyes watched the Key. I realized then that while I lacked ultimate clarity, Cullin knew exactly what was going to happen if that Key was unlocked. Whatever man he once was had been killed by this mad shadow who sought the revelations only more death could bring. 

I turned away from him, no longer able to take the selfishness. But in truth–I feared that I saw that darkness in him so easily because I was just as lost. 

My eyes were shut but I could not find myself in the familiar darkness. I tried to run through my plan, seeing my actions play out before me…but what was usually a smooth process seemed jagged and jittery. I was unfocused, right here when it mattered most. 

Why? 

I tried to clear through the noise and look honestly into the flow of my thoughts. My feelings. My hopes and my fears. The Code. I recited the words. Yet when I reached its final passage…

For we are stronger together. When one adherent of the Code encounters another, there is unity in our bond. 

Unity. Bonds of love, trust, fraternity, paternity, matrimony. What had once seemed so simple to me was now inextricably complex. Or was it something worse than that…was it broken? Had I broken it, without even noticing? 

No. I had known exactly what I was doing all along. The Code was my means of survival. Self-preservation. Not for the greater good–but for my greater good. And now my selfishly cultivated world was spinning off its axis.

Instead of digging deeper into these insights, I turned away from them. I opened my eyes. Only Amara’s small night light illuminated our room. Julian and I sat listening to her gentle breathing as she slept. Project Stormgate was set to begin in three hours and both of us were soon needed in the Artifact Chamber. The Fletchers were coming by soon to drop off Tara so that she could stay with Amara during the experiment. 

Both of us were very still, each having done what we needed to do in order to prepare–Julian with his security setup, and me, with a plan to undermine all of it. A strong desire to confess simmered within me. 

Julian broke the silence first. “Do you remember the night before we were married? It felt like this. Waiting up for the genome test. Calm but…”

“Not so calm.”

Julian smiled. “I was calm. Because of you. You gave me a reason to truly believe in myself again. In our shared purpose.” 

I held back tears, unable to even meet his gaze. “My whole life I was waiting for you. I saw it that night too. The higher calling I was so desperate for as a kid…”

Julian noticed my emotions despite my best efforts to disguise them. “You were right to seek that feeling. We both were.”

“I’m…not sure anymore.” He looked hurt and I worked fast to counter that. “Not because of you. Because of me.” I took my pendant from around my neck. “When Devi gave this to me, it was to help me live up to the Code. I’ve tried…so hard. But I don’t know if there’s something wrong with me or…if life just isn’t so simple.”

“What are you talking about, Lilla?”

“There are…things I’ve done. Selfish choices, that I hid behind righteous intentions. Lies I’ve told.” Julian started to interrupt but I stopped him. “No. I know that you noticed them. I always avoided it… but there were risks I took. I thought they were calculated, that they were the right choices for all of us, but…it’s like I’ve just been piloting blind through my life and now here we are. Headed into a storm.” 

Julian moved close to me. “We’re ready for this. All of us. These years of work…we can handle it. Contingencies are in place, even if Cullin’s…grand vision doesn’t come to pass. We’ll rebuild. We’ll start again. I was always so worried that our work wasn’t done…look at us. Like you reminded me. The three of us together. This is the real work that we’re doing to save the world. Showing Amara the proper way to live in it.” 

“Julian…” 

I’ve lied to you. Everything I’ve done, every choice I’ve made…they were never my own. I’m a traitor to Sigma. Maybe to the Federation. The worst part is–I don’t even know. I didn’t ask questions. Because I thought I was more important. Special. Honorable. More so than anyone and everyone. I’m a tyrant that has taken your life and, without your even knowing it, bent it to my own purposes. I have done something unforgivable. And I will never be able to say it aloud.

I handed him the pendant. “Keep this.”

“What? No, this is–” 

“Tonight. Hold onto it for me. Because…if anyone lives up to the Velari Code, it’s you. You’re more worthy of it than me.”

Julian was agitated. “I don’t like you talking like this.” 

“Just…jitters. Wear it under your uniform. Call it a good luck charm.” 

Julian weighed the pendant in his hand. “It…really is beautiful. I’ll keep it close.” He kissed my forehead. I cherished his warmth until he pulled away. “It’s game time.” 

A few minutes later, I lingered as Julian walked into the hall. I brushed a fallen strand of hair from across my daughter’s face. “Amara…” I leaned close and whispered to her, “I’ll see you soon.” 

The Artifact Chamber was alight with activity by the time we reached it. T-minus two hours. While Julian briefed Barclay and the rest of his squad, and Fletcher’s team worked on the drone they hoped to send through the Key’s hypothetical portal, I joined Cullin at the command console. My role was to monitor the position of the reflectors and their sync with the Dynamo satellite relay that Cullin had acquired from the Federation. All of this was already automated, I was merely Cullin’s eyes while he dealt with his energy systems. But far above on the surface–there was a manual override. 

An hour out from the experiment, I stepped away from the console. “I’m going to check on Amara,” I told Cullin. “I’ll be back in time.” 

Julian caught my eye as I made my way for the exit. I waved. That simple action was all that came to me. In retrospect, it seems like the most pathetic moment of my life. I waved at the most important person I’d ever known, and didn’t say a word. 

I had no thoughts for Julian in the moments that followed. At the end of the hallway, I turned for the stairs instead of the primary elevators. I went up one floor and reached the service elevator. As the elevator ascended, I zipped up my thermals and pulled down my snow mask.I didn’t have my pendant anymore but it was second nature. My body took control, following the motions of the plan that I had lived over and over again in my dreams for the past six months. 

My registered mech awaited me outside the electronics bunker and I climbed inside. I’d practiced this route under the guise of my fictional research project, maximizing my efficiency. As I reached each point I had marked out along the energy grid, I lifted the canopy of the mech’s cabin to face the harsh Arctic freeze and planted my explosive charges. I repeated this process over and over, in and out of the mech, always keeping in mind that I couldn’t miss a step. If I stuck to schedule, I would be left with twenty minutes to store my mech at my eventual escape point, then trek on foot to the reflectors’ manual override control panel. 

As suspected, there was no significant security presence and the electromagnetism from the storm disrupted our standard surveillance systems on the surface. A blistering wind picked up as time ran down. Utilizing my transmitter as a timer sync to the Stormgate countdown, the experiment was rapidly nearing its climatic point.

The edges of the great pit were blurred in the darkness and the emergent blizzard. I kept watch on the blinking red lights that encircled its limits like a ring of cold fire. I slid through the deepening snow and slammed against the metal pole that encased the override. I pried it loose and began to take control. As I inched ever closer to my end goal, my meditative focus lost its intensity. Taking down Project Stormgate was only preliminary to what truly terrified me–Amara. I still had to go back for Amara. 

My work finished, I backed away from the override and tried to catch my breath. The internal map in my mind wouldn’t load. Was the vent I intended to reach thirty paces to the east or south? I stumbled through the snow without certainty, losing sight of my surroundings. A deep panic began to set in. I could physically feel the seconds losing shape as the countdown spiraled ever down to zero. I needed to find my path to Amara before I set off the explosives or there was no guarantee I would survive what was about to happen. While my devices weren’t so overwhelming in number, their placement against specific capacitors ensured a chain reaction that would ignite the surface of Sigma Polar in hellfire. 

I steadied myself. I repeated the words. Use knowledge of my battlefield. The winking lights of the pit meant west was at my back. Eliminate blind spots. I found my way to the closest piece of equipment and grounded myself back into the reality of my situation. 

And remember, Lilla, we’re always stronger together. 

For once, that piece of the Code no longer rang true to me. It felt like relief, to finally admit it to myself. I was always stronger alone. 

As if to prove my cynicism, I caught sight of the other silhouette. A stumbling figure lost in this purgatory like myself. Going back to the override panel. 

This threat also relieved me of my panic of reaching Amara. Something else was in my path–but it was something that the real Lilla knew exactly how to handle. I felt her breathing fall into rhythm with my own. Her thoughts become mine. But I was not overwritten. I was integrated. I knew what to do before I did it, rushing to the closest capacitor with one of my planted charges and prying it loose. And when I turned back to the other figure in the snow, I knew exactly who would risk rushing into this blizzard to stop me. 

After a detour at the closest capacitor to restock on one of my explosive devices, I unstrapped the wrench from my belt and smashed it into Clive Cullin’s skull. I took hold of him and threw him down into the snow. I took primal pleasure in the execution of his beating. He felt exactly as weak as he seemed to me. This bastard. This traitor. This mirror of my deepest fears. I pulled down my mask. I wanted him to see.

“Lilla?! What…” Cullin gasped for breath. “What the hell are you doing?!”

I stood and moved back to the override panel. I affixed my explosive to the panel. The chances of my escape seemed quite narrow now. So I decided to make Cullin feel it too. “You think no one can see it. What you’re really doing. But I did, Clive. And before you die, I want you to know…Marilyn would’ve seen it too. The monster you’ve become.”

I saw him hollow out–before filling again with something truly inhuman. His voice rattled the limits of his vocal chords. “What are you?! WHO DO YOU SERVE?!” Before I could even try to answer, the former limits of his physical form dissipated and he launched himself from the ground. We slammed against the metallic pole and crashed into the snowpack. 

My shock was enough to give him the edge he needed to get his hands around my neck. His fingers felt like steel bars crushing my windpipe. His fury filled with so much determination that the willpower froze within me. I couldn’t believe it. Clive Cullin was going to kill me. No. It wasn’t a matter of belief. I wouldn’t accept it. I let a vicious smile bleed out, as my eyes fluttered shut. I decided to let him think he had won, even if it took me to the absolute limit. 

I floated at the rim of consciousness when Cullin finally climbed off of me. He stalked back toward the override and I clawed back to life. I rolled into the cover provided by the blizzard and worked back to my feet. Ten seconds until the Stormgate attempt. I couldn’t be sure of my accuracy, but I kicked where I felt Cullin was–and felt his ribs snap beneath the force of my boot. 

Zero. The storm reached us and the atmosphere came alive with unearthly light. The flash of the reflected energy reached the reflector array. Cullin had corrected it. The capacitors took on more energy and fueled the massive influx channeled down into the Artifact Chamber. 

But I wasn’t out of time yet. I dug out my detonator. “I won’t let you destroy us all! I’ve rigged your capacitors to blow. It’s too late–!” 

Another voice answered. “Clive?! Where are you?!” Julian. He had followed Cullin up here.

“No…” My grip loosened on the detonator. Back on the ground, Cullin saw it in me. Like he saw that there was one weakness we did not share. My love was still alive in me. 

But then I closed my eyes and hit the trigger. 

So there you have it. This is the story of how I died. 

When Lilla Nassar triggered her explosions, the fragile rim of the pit tore apart from the concussive force that surrounded and pervaded it. She lost sight of Cullin and Julian and let the fall take her. It wasn’t a desire for survival that saved her–just the instinct for it. She swung her body low and her hands found some of the cabling that coated the inner walls of the pit. 

Lilla Nassar swung on the cable and leapt before it broke free–and managed to crash through an air duct. The blueprints that she had memorized returned to her and she navigated her way through the ventilation shafts, avoiding the most narrow paths and making her way toward one final crossroads. 

The path left led down into the civilian sector. Lilla could use local comms to patch into Amara’s bedroom speakers. She would tell her daughter it was time to go. That they would escape because they had to. There was no other choice.

But as Lilla contemplated this, she knew that this was not true. If Lilla risked going down that path and seeking out her daughter, there was no guarantee either of them would escape safely through these tunnels. The earth was deeply unstable and the path would be treacherous by the time they could get back here–and take the right road to freedom. 

We are stronger together.

No, Lilla thought, as those words rang hollow in her head. That was no longer true. The Code was no longer her guide. And however heavy this burden might weigh, Lilla would be stronger alone. 

And Amara, better off without her. 

So Lilla Nassar left her daughter behind and went her own way. Her vision blurred more than it had when Cullin had his hands around her neck. Everything grew fuzzy and lost dimension but still her body moved forward. Whatever integration there had once been was gone now. 

She reached the surface, into the snow made sludge by the burning fires. She found her mech and charted her course out into the Arctic. Through the smoke and sleet, Lilla Nassar vanished forever from this world. 

My handlers expressed no disappointment or judgment in my choice of action. I was met at the set point by another masked Keeper, who gave me my own flyer this time. I left the mech dismantled in the Arctic freeze and took off toward a new life. 

They stood by their promise to me. A new identity. Subtle but effective reconstructive surgery shields me from my past. A new name that sometimes tricks me into believing it has always been my own. I work in an independent lab sponsored by Sigma 4. While its main division carves bunkers through the earth, we would turn the desiccated downtown of Dallas into a towering urban garden. 

What the Keepers have not given to me is the truth. Only one piece of news ever reached me about the Arctic. My sabotage of Sigma 6 ultimately failed. While the Stormgate attempt was thwarted, enough of Cullin’s infrastructure survived. They would try again–but there was no way back inside. Sigma Polar was on full lockdown. Security was impregnable. 

Julian would make sure of it. 

He was alive. I hadn’t been sure for almost a year. My inability to bring down Sigma 6 stung but if I had learned that Julian died in my efforts… 

He was alive. Amara was alive. Unfortunately, so was Cullin–but I had to take what victories I could. 

I fear only what Amara has been told about me since I last saw her face. And what Julian believes about what was truly in my heart. 

Lilla’s heart. 

But I assume whatever they think, it’s all true, isn’t it? In the end, Amara wasn’t my highest priority. My actions had proven it. I was a liar. A traitor. I betrayed my family, and for what? Another mission failed. 

So here I am. A ghost who wanders the verdant hallways within a tower of steel. A person no one has ever truly known and never will again. The Keepers don’t trust me enough to tell me why I had given my life, even in this liminal aftermath. 

Everything, gone just like –

—

—

—

It happened. 

It finally happened. Ten hours ago, as I wrote the words above, I looked through my office window and saw the sun ignite–not in the sky, but in the cavernous valley between the downtown buildings. It was as if a star itself had been born here on Earth–and it grew ever outward. 

I stepped out into the hallways and saw my colleagues gather at the windows, entranced by the spectacle. But I had known such stunned silence in the past–the calm before the storm. And before their own panic began, I made my way to the stairs without saying a word of warning. I couldn’t risk a death rush for the doors. 

I got out just in time, as the entire city block shook under the straining weight of reality. Bursting forth from this blazing portal, darkness rose like a swarm of gnats. There’s not much time to describe what I have seen in the hours since. In fact, we will soon need to invent new words for most of it. The dark swarm of soaring beasts was only the first wave of what the portal birthed into our world. The invaders moved swiftly, a tidal wave of destruction that poured through Dallas with organized chaos. 

The tornado sirens followed soon enough, though this was a different type of disaster. I tried not to internalize the horrors I glimpsed during my flight from this ground zero. Soon, the coiled defense forces of the Federation awoke like a hibernating beast. Jets screamed overhead, and the explosions soon followed. 

I owe my survival to the discovery of an emptied out car spun out in the middle of an alley. The glass was smashed and blood coated the seats but the engine was still running.I approached slowly. A low growl echoed in this space between the two buildings. I saw the flick of a reptilian tail behind a dumpster. And then I saw a pair of human legs sticking out from that same space. An adult’s…and a child’s. 

My foot crunched through a puddle of broken glass. The monster’s tail flicked and it pulled out of its feast near the dumpster. Its eye sockets were dark holes and its razor sharp teeth stuck up in a bloody underbite. I judged the distance between us, slammed the door, and hit the gas. I ducked down as I rammed into the monster and it flung over top of my car, splattering more blood across the car’s hood. I didn’t look back. 

With my commandeered car, I escaped city limits before the Federation ground forces fully shut down the border. My Sigma badge got me past the makeshift checkpoint. In the rearview, I saw strange dark shapes hovering above Dallas–ominous harbingers of a new age. 

I’m writing now from an empty home in a suburban ghost town. The mass exodus away from the city center has already begun. I can still hear the reverberations of artillery as I type these words. And just now, through the window, I see the sky carved with new light–ICBMs launched on plumes of smoke. Humanity, already at last ditch efforts. 

Scattered radio reports are speaking of similar portals opening all across the world, from Mumbai to the countryside outside Rome…to the Arctic Circle. 

Project Stormgate has succeeded. This is the fruit of Cullin’s efforts, come to bear across our entire planet. This invasion was ready for us, frothing at the mouth and seemingly infinite in number. 

Now I know what the Keepers have always feared. 

I’m alive.

Dallas has fallen.

I may have failed you before–but I am ready now.

I don’t care what you have hidden from me before.

Bring me in.

Bring me into this fight.

Their shadow war has stepped into the light and all that is left to me now is to be their warrior. The end of the world has cracked open at the feet of my husband and daughter, and I wasn’t there for them. I might never know if they survived this initial onslaught. And even if they have, they are lost to me already. 

All that matters is what I do now. So hear me when I say–I commit to one goal and one goal alone. I will destroy these invaders. I will mold myself into a weapon to grind their bones and fertilize this planet with a new warrior’s spirit. This confession was always meant for someone else but it will never reach them now. So whoever you are, you will have to suffice. Soon the flames that burn through human civilization will reach this empty shell of a home, where some family once happily tried to build a future together. These words will burn with it. 

And only the ashes will know the story of Lilla Nassar–dead and gone.