The seventeen pieces turned on them at 8:15 PM.Xin was inside the ship. Medical bay. Shen was setting his broken hand. The bones were realigning under the Heart-Link's repair function. Slow. Painful."Hold still," Shen said."Something's wrong.""Your hand?""No. The pieces."---The first explosion came from the dock.Xin ran to the window. One of the converted pieces had fired on another. Gold light vs gold light. Both Foundation-controlled."What the hell?" Mei grabbed her rifle.The pieces were fighting each other. Four on one side. Twelve on the other. The seventeenth was climbing the Great Needle again."Foundation!" Xin shouted. "Report!"The Foundation's answer came through weak. Distorted.Lost control. Something overwrote my command protocols on seventeen units."Who?"The Foundation didn't answer.---The blue figure stepped out of the crack.Still there. The crack had never fully closed. Xin saw it now. A thin line of blue light running along the dock surface."You," Xin

The alarm came at 3:12 AM.Xin woke to red lights flashing in his quarters. Shen's voice over the ship's comms. Hard and fast."All hands. Unknown signal detected at the layer boundary. Moving toward Sector 55."Xin was already running.---He hit the bridge in forty seconds. Mei was there. Wei. Pip came in behind him barefoot."Show me," Xin said.Shen pulled up the scan. A single point of light moving through the spatial layer. Not Foundation gold. Not architect blue. White. Hot white."Speed?" Xin asked."Fast. Crossing one sector per minute.""Intercept time?""Four minutes to Sector 55. Three to the 55th Earth's Needle."Xin looked at the map. The 55th Earth. The old settlement. The man who dropped his harpoon in the snow."Evacuation?""Already sent," Mei said. "They have two minutes to shelter.""Not enough time."---The signal changed course.Suddenly. Sharp turn. No longer heading for the Needle.Heading for the ship."Track change," Shen said. "It's coming for us.""How lon

The ship caught them at 5:23 AM.Xin and Pip jumped from the dead object's surface. Twenty meter gap. The ship's launch bay opened. They hit the deck sliding. Mei pulled them in."Second object changed course again," Shen said. "Now heading for the 31st Earth.""ETA?""Twenty-two minutes."Xin stood up. "How many objects have we stopped?""One.""Not fast enough."---Wei's screen lit up. "The Foundation has an idea. It says we can use the converted pieces as boarding units. One piece per object. Each piece carries a Key.""The pieces are on the ship," Mei said."Four pieces. Sixteen objects. Math doesn't work."Xin looked at the four converted war machines standing in the launch bay. Gold lights steady."Foundation. Can the pieces replicate the Key's frequency? Broadcast it without physical contact?"Yes. But range is limited to ten meters."Then we get them within ten meters of each object's heart."Shen shook his head. "The objects are moving at different speeds. Different vectors.

The ship barely flew.Shen kept it stable. Engines at sixty percent. Hull cracked in three places. The launch bay door stuck half-open."We can't fight thirteen more objects like this," Mei said.Xin looked at his hand. The Key was melted into his palm. Gold lines ran up his arm."We don't fight them the same way.""What other way?"He didn't answer. He walked to the ship's core. The Heart-Link interface. A silver panel on the main wall."Foundation. Show me the objects. All of them."Displaying.Seventeen red dots on the map. Four were dark. Dead. Thirteen still moving.---Xin put his good hand on the interface.The Heart-Link surged. He felt every object. Their positions. Their speeds. Their hearts beating.And something else.A signal.Coming from inside the objects. Not from their cores. From somewhere deeper."What is that?" Pip asked."I don't know."The signal is not architect code, the Foundation said. It is something else. Something older."Older than the architect?"Yes.--

Xin moved first.He grabbed the child. Threw her behind a console. Then he charged the architect.The old man raised his cane. A blue shield snapped into place. Xin hit it hard. The shield held. Xin bounced back."Foolish," the architect said.---Mei fired her rifle. Three shots. The shield absorbed them."Foundation," Xin shouted. "Can you break that shield?"No. The architect built this object to block me completely. I have no access here."Then we break it manually."Pip ran to the child. "The shield generator. Where is it?"The child pointed at the ceiling. A small blue device. Hidden in the lights."I see it," Shen said. He raised his own rifle. Fired.The shot hit the device. The device cracked. The shield flickered.The architect raised his cane. The shield reformed. Stronger.---"You can't win," the architect said. "This object is my body now. I've been merging with it for ten thousand years. Every system answers to me.""Then why do you need the Heart-Link?""Because I'm tr