Simon rushed through the dark waters toward Upsilon, every propulsion burst from his jets narrowing the seconds he had left. His processors screamed warnings, simulations, predictions. Enoa and his council wouldn't sit idle. By now, they were mobilizing everything they had, searching for him, hunting him, trying to stop the transmission—or stop him.

  And he was right.

  The ocean teemed with drones, metallic predators slicing through the gloom, and sleeker submersibles, shaped like spears, forming a tightening noose around Site Upsilon. The sea itself had turned hostile.

  But Simon slipped through them like a ghost.

  The metal doors of Upsilon yawned open as he neared, the decompression chamber pulling him inside. Water drained in a torrent, and before it finished, Simon had already connected to the station’s systems.

  Cameras flickered across his HUD.

  Elias was still lying connected to the ARK. Jonsy sat nearby, her hands restless. Serge leaned against a console, stiff, hollow-eyed. Jerry, vigilant, looked around.

  The team Simon had captured—Serge’s comrades—remained bound in an adjacent room.

  Simon sprinted through the corridors, his heavy steps pounding a warning through the station. When he burst into the main chamber, Jonsy sprang to her feet.

  "Simon!" she cried, relief stark in her voice.

  "We need to leave. Now." Simon’s voice cut through the air, sharp, no room for argument.

  Jonsy’s face tensed. "What happened?"

  Simon couldn’t show emotion, but his every movement screamed it. His body was taut, braced for impact.

  Calculations raced through Simon’s mind.

  Site Theta’s dreamers—lost.

  Noesis—the precious data—unreachable.

  All paths narrowed to one last refuge.

  But Jerry…

  Jerry was still organic. Still bound by breath and blood. Would he survive where they were going?

  Simon silently tapped into Upsilon’s assembly lines.

  Commands flared through the system—modifications for the Spearhead, recalibrated life-support pods, backup nutrient processors.

  Estimated completion time: 57 minutes.

  He turned to the others. His voice quiet and flat, almost sounding ashamed..

  “I found Amy.”

  Jonsy looked up sharply. Serge froze. Even Jerry twitched his little ears.

  “I saved her,” Simon continued, the sound of his voice like a blade scraping metal. “But to do it… I stirred the hornet’s nest.”

  He reached behind his back, fingers locking around the dark metallic cylinder. Its single optic lens glowed a faint red. Slowly, reverently, he brought it forward.

  “Amy,” Jonsy whispered, the name breaking like glass on her tongue.

  She rushed to him, hands outstretched but trembling, hovering above the cylinder as if afraid to break it. The optic lens zoomed, whirring slightly as it focused on her. Recognition? Memory? It was impossible to say.

  “I’m sorry,” Simon said. “I wasn’t fast enough. When I found her… they had already done this. They took her her brain and placed it inside. This was all that remained.”

  Jonsy took the cylinder in her hands, cradling it like a child. Her head bowed. Her shoulders shook—but she didn’t cry. She couldn’t.

  Simon’s eyes dimmed for a moment. A low pulse of grief echoed through his frame. Then he stood straighter.

  “They had her at Site Oubliette,” he said, his voice hollow.

  He told them everything.

  The hidden fortress carved into the seafloor like the bones of some ancient god. The red lights pulsing like a heartbeat.

  The rows of lifeless, engineered corpses. The surgical labs. The brains sealed into metal prisons. Enoa—a twisted god presiding over a graveyard.

  Serge listened, color draining from his face. His knees buckled slightly, his hand shooting out to catch the table for balance.

  This was rot down to the bones.

  "Serge," Simon said, stepping closer, his voice low but firm. "You’re staying here."

  Serge blinked, confused. "What? Why?"

  Simon didn’t soften. "The door will unlock in one hour. You’ll be free to go."

  Serge opened his mouth, maybe to argue, but Simon was already turning away, sealing the decision with the cold certainty of a man who had no more time for mercy.

  Simon, Jonsy, and Jerry turned without hesitation.

  Serge remained frozen.

  Simon’s parting words echoed inside him.

  A gear? No.

  Gears mattered.

  He was less than that. A burned, discarded scrap.

  Every belief he had clung to, every dream of serving something greater—revealed as a hollow lie.

  He slid down the wall, sitting there in the cold, staring up at the sterile ceiling.

  "Where are we going?" Jonsy asked, her voice steady. No fear. Only trust—the kind forged in fire.

  "Site Phi," Simon answered.

  She didn't respond. Just nodded.

  They made their way to the hangar, where the Spearhead-9 waited, surrounded by drones crawling over its hull like metal insects. From Simon's back four pairs of black tentacles emerged, grabbing tools from the workbenches without hesitation. He dove into the upgrades with ruthless efficiency.

  The Spearhead was already a marvel—designed to endure the crushing blackness of the abyss. But thanks to the data he'd stolen from Enoa, Simon had access to cutting-edge prototypes, upgrades meant only for Carthage’s elite.

  Jerry’s submersible clanked into the bay on spidery legs. Simon opened the rear compartment and secured it inside. Drones wheeled in additional supplies, slipping them into the storage holds. Everything moved like a rehearsed dance—and still, time bled away faster than he could hold it.

  "Let's move inside," Simon said. "I’ll be back in five minutes."

  Jonsy and Jerry climbed aboard. Simon sprinted down the hallways.

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  He reached the room where Elias lay plugged into the ARK simulation. Simon jacked into the system—and immediately recoiled.

  "What the f—"

  The simulation was absurd: Elias soaring through cartoonish skies, rainbow hair flowing like liquid neon, two ethereal girls clinging to him as they all sparkled in midair.

  Elias floated before him, grinning.

  "Hello, Simon," he said, voice overly dramatic.

  Simon felt a pulse of dark amusement.

  "Elias. We need to leave. Now. Carthage’s founder is rallying troops near Upsilon."

  "Shiiiit," Elias said, his face falling.

  The simulation collapsed like shattered glass.

  Simon quickly scooping up both the man and the ARK and sprinted back to the Spearhead.

  The moment they boarded, Simon’s sensors screamed a warning. Drones swarmed the waters outside Upsilon, cutting off all signals—and worse, preparing for an assault.

  Simon dove into the cockpit, merging with the Spearhead’s systems. The connection was seamless—a memory of the Leviacrusher. He activated the cloaking field.

  The Spearhead slid into the black waters, silent as a falling shadow.

  Inside his mind, a warning flashed:

  Detection Threshold: 80%

  Escape Window: 2 minutes remaining

  Simon sent a final silent command.

  Across Pathos-II’s forgotten servers, memories flickered—old security footage, snippets of laughter, fragments of human lives. For one heartbeat, it was as if the station itself was pleading.

  Then Simon triggered the wipe command.

  And silence swallowed everything.

  They raced through the dark, the glow of Upsilon shrinking behind them.

  They reached Site Omicron swiftly. The Spearhead descended onto the plateau near the abyssal edge.

  "I'll be quick," Simon said. "I need something from inside Omicron."

  He stepped into a deployment tube. Water flooded in. The outer hatch opened, and Simon shot out like a living missile.

  Inside the submersible, Elias turned awkwardly to Jonsy.

  "I'm Elias," he said, offering his hand in a gesture that was part habit, part desperate attempt at normalcy.

  Jonsy turned to him, studying him for a second longer than necessary. Then she reached out and shook his hand—firmly, almost challengingly.

  "Jonsy. So you're the spy Simon told me about," she said, her voice flat but not entirely without humor.

  Elias stiffened, the words hitting harder than he expected.

  "Yeah... Sorry about that," he muttered, withdrawing his hand a little too quickly.

  For a moment, neither of them spoke. Only the faint vibration of the ocean pressing against the hull filled the silence.

  Then Elias glanced at her again, something hesitant flickering across his face.

  "Are you… in Simon’s old body?" he asked, his voice quieter, almost reverent. His gaze flicked to her frame,

  Jonsy nodded.

  Without hesitation, a dark blade flicked from her wrist with a soft, metallic shhk. It caught the pale glow of the overhead lights, gleaming like a silent warning.

  "Feels almost real," she said, her voice low.

  Elias swallowed hard.

  Staring at her now, he realized something bitter and undeniable:

  There was no going back for any of them.

  Not really.

  They fell into tentative conversation. They had been colleagues years ago, barely interacting—now, circumstance had thrown them together again.

  Moments later, Simon returned—carrying a diving suit.

  He hauled it onto the deck.

  "Who is it?" Elias asked, wide-eyed.

  Simon’s voice was low. "It’s me."

  Jonsy stared at the suit. She remembered what Simon had told her—how he had left his old self behind to launch the ARK.

  Simon moved back to the cockpit. The Spearhead lifted, then plunged into the abyss.

  "I hope nothing’s waiting down there," Elias said, voice shaky. "Just the thought of it… makes my skin crawl."

  He didn’t have hair anymore—but the sentiment hit home.

  Simon didn’t comment.

  He will see them soon.

  "What is that?" Elias asked, his face practically pressed against thick glass of the cockpit.

  Three spirals, each rising ten meters into the abyss, loomed ahead in a triangular formation. Smoke curled from their peaks, diffusing lazily into the water above. The entire site seemed perched atop a geothermal vent, feeding on the Earth's hidden breath.

  The spirals—built from strange, scale-like metal plates—brought a chill to Elias's mind.

  Without warning, a monstrous, gray worm emerged from the center of the structure, coiling upward with unsettling grace.

  Elias fell backward onto the floor with a yelp.

  Simon sent a coded signal.

  The creature shuddered—then slithered back down into the depths of the structure.

  "Simon," Elias's voice cracked over the speakers, "Where the hell have you brought us?"

  "Don't worry," Simon replied, voice calm. "We'll be safe here."

  The Spearhead glided around the perimeter until Simon found the entrance. He guided the sub close to one of its entrances and stood, walking toward the deployment tube.

  "I need to head inside and speak with someone. I'll be back soon."

  The tube sealed around him. Water rushed in. A moment later, the hatch opened, and Simon slipped out into the abyss.

  He swam to a doorway embedded into the structure—the same one he'd entered once before.

  As he passed through, the door closed behind him. Water drained away. Heavy inner doors slid open with a deep groan.

  "Hello, Simon," came a voice—soft, strange.

  Imogen stood there.

  Her appearance hadn't changed. Her skin was textured like polished wood, dark grooves tracing across her body in intricate, organic patterns. Her pitch-black eyes reflected no light, no warmth.

  "Hello, Imogen," he answered simply.

  "What brings you here?"

  "I need a place to stay," Simon said.

  He barely finished speaking before he caught the sound—multiple sets of footsteps approaching from the left.

  He turned.

  Five figures emerged from the shadows.

  They were grotesque reminders of what had been lost: swollen, malformed heads; massive, dead eyes framed by twisted ridges of fused flesh; mouths reduced to hollow slits or masses of tendrils. No hair, no humanity—only the mockery of what once was.

  Simon suppressed the instinctive shudder that clawed up his spine.

  A familiar voice, thick with a Russian accent, broke the oppressive silence.

  "Simon! You’re back! Like the new look," the creature—Kovsky—said with a rasping laugh.

  Simon gave the smallest nod. "Hello, Kovsky."

  He glanced around at the others.

  "Who are they?" he asked.

  One of them was the woman who had been with Kovsky last time Simon had been here, but the other three figures were new.

  "Simon?!" one of them said, a woman’s voice catching in disbelief.

  He didn’t need to guess. There was only one person alive—or once alive—who would recognize him on sight.

  Sarah Lindwall.

  Her final moments flashed in his memory like broken glass. He had thought she was the last true human on Earth. But the reality had proven more complicated. Much darker.

  Simon gave her a slow nod. He towered over them now at nearly 6 feet 11 inches, his frame broadened, reshaped by the structure gel. There was nothing human left in his appearance.

  "What happened to you?" Sarah asked softly.

  "I upgraded my chassis," Simon replied. Then after a pause, he added, "You?"

  He didn’t like talking to them. Not anymore. Because he knew what they really were.

  They biological constructs—recreated by the Solipsis. Flesh reborn from memory and genetic remnants, stitched together by the hive’s queen. Their minds were echoes, stored impressions reconstructed and made animate.

  Sarah gave a nod. "Aside from looking like something that crawled out from under a hospital bed, I’m fine."

  "Glad your new appearance doesn’t bother you," Simon said dryly.

  "At least I can move again," she replied with a shrug. Her voice held a hint of humor, but it felt rehearsed—like a line spoken too often to fill the silence.

  Simon turned his gaze to the others.

  "I’m Vic Auclair," one said, voice laced with a French accent.

  "Renata Espinosa," the next added with quiet dignity.

  "Didn’t tell you last time," said the final one. "I’m Antjie Coetzee."

  Simon nodded politely but offered no more.

  Then he turned to Imogen and sent a silent command.

  Without a word, she pivoted and began to walk.

  "Nice catching up," Simon muttered, lifting a hand in a half-hearted wave.

  They moved deeper into the hive, past walls that pulsed with faint bioluminescence and the distant heartbeat of something impossibly old.

  At last, the doors to the Queen’s chamber opened.

  It hit him—a wave of sick recognition.

  The Queen.

  She was a grotesque monument to adaptation and horror—a mass of slick tendrils, thick insectoid plating, and pulsating organic machinery. From ceiling and floor, heavy tubes pumped structure gel into her like a circulatory system, keeping her massive frame alive, bloated, and throbbing.

  Her maw twitched, layers of organic plates shifting.

  Last time Simon had stood here, he had been terrified.

  This time, he only measured her.

  If she turned on him, he would not flinch. He would tear her apart and seize the hive.

  Her massive head dipped low, the scent of hot structure gel thick and nauseating in the chamber.

  Creator.

  The word wasn’t spoken. It bloomed inside his skull, felt rather than heard. Like memory. Like prophecy.

  Two tendrils snaked from Simon’s back, precise and deliberate. They pressed against the Queen’s crown, sinking into the soft ridges of her grotesque head.

  He connected.

  And the hive remembered him.

  Jonsy stared through the cockpit glass as spider-like creatures began to emerge from the alien spiral structure. Their limbs clicked faintly against the metal as they crawled toward the very door Simon had vanished through. They moved with eerie precision, spreading out, inspecting, swarming with purpose.

  "What are those?" Elias asked, his voice thin and wary, hands gripping the arms of his seat.

  "I don't know," Jonsy replied, her tone tight. "But they look like ants... or maybe spiders."

  Elias leaned closer to the glass. "Simon has a lot of explaining to do."

  The two of them watched in stunned silence as the creatures began building. It was methodical, surreal. With segmented limbs and tiny fused tools, they constructed something that resembled a docking station—piece by piece, like organic 3D printers. Smooth black alloy formed arches, locking mechanisms, rails. The progress was slow, but terrifyingly deliberate.

  Then the Spearhead-9 hummed to life.

  Unbidden.

  Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) drives pulsed with silent power and the vessel glided forward, aligning with the newly formed dock. With a final hiss of steam and a mechanical clank, it anchored into place.

  Jonsy’s grip tightened around the cylinder that housed Amy’s brain.