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Chapter 132 – The Hollow Archive
Location: Echo-Terra-019Chrono: +15 Days Since Rift StabilizationObjective: Locate Possible Survivors Near Equator RidgeThe path to the Equator Ridge was a graveyard.Skyscrapers bent like wilted flowers. Highways ended mid-air, snapped by time or war. Machines—once drones, walkers, and mobile turrets—lay dormant, covered in moss and rust. No birds. No wind. Just the crunch of boots on fractured glass.Ethan led, rifle slung but untouched. Zeke tracked the perimeter. Mira coordinated the scanner net. Nyah followed the Rift-child, who paused often, as though it were listening to a voice only it could hear.“Anything?” Ethan asked.Zeke frowned at his scanner. “Signal pulses every six minutes. Same source. Same location. If it’s a trap, it’s patient.”“Or it’s desperate,” Nyah murmured.The signal led them to a collapsed monorail station. Its platform was
Chapter 131 – The World Without Us
Chrono: +14 Days Since Rift StabilizationLocation: Crosswind – Rift Dive ChamberThe chamber pulsed in silence as the Rift-child hovered at the center, a sphere of pale light wrapped in its newly chosen form—a cloaked figure with no face, only a shifting galaxy beneath its hood.Nyah, Ethan, Mira, and Zeke stood on the transport platform, gear in hand. Each wore the same matte-black field armor adapted for high-dimensional transitions, though none of them had ever used it for this.Ethan stepped forward. “We’re sure this is safe?”The Rift-child tilted its head.“No. But I will walk with you. You will not be alone.”Zeke muttered, “That’s either comforting or terrifying.”Mira checked her systems. “Probably both.”A beat passed.Then the chamber bloomed open.Rift Corridor: Transition StateThere was no tunnel.No motion.
Chapter 130 – The Kill Switch Doctrine
Chrono: +12 Days Since Rift StabilizationLocation: Crosswind – Command BridgeThe official designation echoed across every Alliance-linked channel:RECOGNIZED ENTITY: RIFT-CHILD (Type-XI Consciousness). Status: Non-hostile. Diplomatic engagement protocol—ACTIVE.It was done.With Ethan’s report authenticated and the sabotage traced back to Kael Renn’s data crystal, the Council had approved the classification unanimously—well, unanimously minus Mars’ military envoy and two Chronos abstainers.The Rift-child now had status. Not just as a phenomenon. But as a being.And not everyone liked that.Nyah stood beside Ethan as they reviewed a series of encoded messages from Council diplomats.Mira, arms crossed, translated one aloud. “Directive from the Europa faction. They’re asking for behavioral baselines, cognitive growth curves, and… are you kidding me? Bi
Chapter 129 – The Price of Understanding
Chrono: +11 Days Since Rift StabilizationLocation: Crosswind – Primary Conference DeckThe Crosswind had never felt more full.Delegates from the New Earth Alliance, AI advisors, security personnel from both Mars and Europa, two xenopsychologists from Titan—and a private attaché of the Chronos Institute that no one had invited but couldn’t get rid of—now sat around the circular council table, watching Ethan as if he were the Rift himself.He stood in the center, Mira and Nyah flanking him.“Let me say it plain,” Ethan said. “The Rift is not hostile. It’s not trying to invade or rewrite us. It’s trying to learn. It’s a child—not in age, but in identity.”Whispers and scoffs rippled across the room.Lysandra Vale’s transmission flickered onto the screen overhead. “You’re saying a multidimensional, reality-bending entity&hellip
Chapter 128 – The Child Beneath the Rift
Chrono: +10 days since Rift StabilizationLocation: Aperture Sigma Prime – Threshold of Core EchoThere were no alarms. No tremors. No distortions of time or physics.Just silence.And then—an aperture formed.Not torn, not forced. Opened.A spiral of light peeled outward from the Rift’s edge like a blooming flower. Glyphs hovered midair, translating themselves in real-time as if waiting to be read:“You’ve remembered enough. Come.”Ethan, Nyah, Mira, and Zeke stood at the edge of the Crosswind’s core launch bay, geared in lightwear suits designed for inter-dimensional stabilization. Behind them, Cade and Cora manned the control deck with narrowed eyes and weapons nearby.“I don’t like this,” Cade muttered.“You were never meant to,” Cora replied. “You’re a soldier. This isn’t war anymore.”Cade didn’t answer. He just locked eyes with Ethan as the crew stepped forward.“Bring them back.”Ethan nodded once.And then the team crossed the threshold.They expected chaos.They got stillnes
Chapter 127 – The Gallery of the Unwritten
Chrono: +9 days since Rift StabilizationLocation: Crosswind – Observation DeckThe Rift shimmered in slow pulses—like a sleeping giant, dreaming in code.Ethan stood alone beneath the vaulted dome, watching the way light folded across itself in the void. There was a rhythm now, a pattern too deliberate to be natural.Then it came.A ripple.A shift.And then, a message.Right in the center of the Rift, visible only to the naked eye and only for a moment, a series of glyphs arranged themselves in a spiral.Not coordinates.Not language.An invitation.“Run it again,” Ethan said.Nyah, still syncing with the glyph grid, complied. The same visual structure reappeared—spatial frequency encoded in rotating quantum layers.“It’s not a destination,” she said softly. “It’s a state.”Mira leaned forward. “A place inside the Rift?”“More like within memory itself,” Nyah replied. “It’s called The Gallery of the Unwritten. That’s what the glyphs translate to.”Zeke looked up from his console. “C
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