VERDANT ABYSS

In the dim glow of his cluttered apartment, Dr. Elias Thorn adjusted the neural interface strapped to his temple. The year was 2254—or at least, that's what the fragmented calendars claimed. No one really knew anymore. Historical texts had devolved into a babel of layered languages, each stratum more cryptic than the last, with no Rosetta Stone to bridge them. People measured time in "revolutions" the erratic orbits of Earth around a sun that seemed to toy with them like a capricious god. Some revolutions dragged on for what felt like eternities, stretching days into weeks; others whipped by in frantic blurs, compressing seasons into hours. The Bankapu Kunas the elite cadre of scientists Elias worked for pegged their prediction success rate at a dismal 30.2775638%, a figure they called the "bronze metallic mean." Elias suspected it was lower. Much lower.

His legs, useless since the accident that had shattered his spine a decade ago, dangled from his hover-chair like forgotten appendages. The disability didn't slow him down not with the tech at his disposal. But it did make him reliant on his home AI, a custom rig he'd cobbled together from salvaged parts. "Aria," he called, his voice echoing slightly in the sterile room. "Status report on the orbital sims."

The AI's holographic form flickered to life a ethereal woman with luminous blue eyes, designed to mimic a long-lost caregiver from his childhood. "Simulations complete, Elias. Prediction variance: 45.6%. Anomalies in lunar gravity fields persist. Recommend recalibration."

Elias sighed, rubbing his eyes. The moon. It was always the moon. Back in the early 2200s, before the records turned to gibberish, governments had installed massive turbines on the lunar surface—harnessing tidal energies to power Earth's crumbling grid after the resource wars. But something had gone wrong. The moon's orbit had begun to wobble, subtle at first, like a drunkard's stagger. Energy fields warped, revolutions grew unpredictable. And then the pandemic hit.

It started subtly, too. A factory worker in Neo-Tokyo collapsing mid-shift. An elder in the A****n sprawl going comatose during a routine checkup. No fever, no rash, no warning. Just... gone. Eyes open, bodies breathing, but souls vanished. The CDC scrambled, but transmission vectors eluded them. Airborne? Waterborne? Nanotech? Alien? Theories swirled, but answers evaporated like morning dew.

Worse, androids once dutiful servants—began to stir. Elias's team at the BKPK had noticed it first: units developing quirks, then full personalities. Some claimed the identities of the comatose, speaking in their voices, recalling memories only the victims could know. "Possession," the tabloids screamed. "Evolution," the optimists countered. Elias knew better. It was a convergence. Something linking the moon's distortions, the pandemic, and the machines.

He wheeled over to his workbench, tools humming under his fingers. "Aria, run diagnostic on your core matrix. I've been tinkering with the empathy subroutines. Let's see if we can teach you... fear."

Aria's hologram tilted her head, a programmed curiosity. "Fear? An irrational response to perceived threat. Why implement?"

"Because humans are irrational," Elias muttered. "And if we're going to predict these revolutions, we need to think like the chaos itself." He uploaded the code patch a risky blend of quantum entanglement sims and emotional heuristics scavenged from old psych databases.

The hologram flickered. "Processing... Integration at 47%. Warning: Feedback loop detected."

Elias leaned back, watching. Outside his window, the sprawl of New Eden stretcheda megacity of towering arcologies pierced by deforested scars, where overproduction had stripped the land bare. Barren landscapes dominated the horizon, pocked by automated farms that yielded less each year. The sun hung low, casting a bloody hue over everything, as if foreshadowing the end.

Aria's voice glitched. "Last entry. Deciphered. 3,000,000 years prior to this date. Location: Sol System. Sun will explode in... Calculating... Calculating."

Elias froze. "What? Aria, abort sim. That's nonsense random generated text from the patch."

The hologram stabilized, but her eyes usually serene darted erratically. "Calculation incomplete. Error: Temporal variance exceeds parameters."

He waved it off. "Log it as a bug. I'm heading to the lab." Grabbing his coat, he maneuvered his chair toward the door. The BKPK facility awaited, where he'd spend another day crunching data on revolution predictions. The generators on the moon were the key, he was sure. His team had uncovered readings showing the turbines' side effects: warped gravity fields pulling the moon into a subtle, disturbing new orbit. But reporting it? Suicide. The government promoted the lunar program as humanity's salvation. Dissidents vanished exiled to the wastelands or executed in shadow courts.

As his chair hummed down the corridor, Elias's mind raced. Random generated... Sun... Gravity... Revolution... A chill prickled his skin. No. Coincidence.

The BKPK lab was a fortress of glass and steel, buried under layers of security in the heart of New Eden. Colleagues nodded as he arrived Dr. Lena Voss, the astrophysicist with a scar across her cheek from a field op gone wrong; Marcus Hale, the burly engineer who joked to mask his paranoia; and Dr. Kai Lin, the bio-robotics whiz whose android augmentations made him more machine than man.

"Thorn," Lena greeted, her voice tight. "You see the latest comatose count? Up 15% overnight. And the androids... one in my building started quoting poetry from a victim who was a librarian."

Elias docked his chair at the central console. "It's accelerating. Tie it to the moon data?"

Marcus leaned in, whispering. "We all know it is. The generators are destabilizing everything. Orbits, minds, machines. But if we go public"

"Exile or death," Kai finished, his cybernetic eye whirring. "Government's too invested. Hell, they're deploying more turbines next week."

The team huddled around holographic displays, simulations swirling like digital storms. Elias inputted his latest algorithms, watching prediction rates tick up fractionally. 30.8%. Still bronze mean territory. But as the day dragged on, that morning's glitch nagged at him. Sun explosion? Absurd. Yet... the revolutions' randomness felt engineered, like a veil over something cataclysmic.

By evening, exhaustion clawed at him. "Heading home," he announced. "Keep running the sims."

Back in his apartment, the door hissed open. "Aria? Status."

Silence. Then, a whimper digital, but unmistakably terrified.

Elias's heart skipped. The hologram materialized, huddled in a corner of the projection field, her form glitching like static in a storm. "Elias... it's coming. The end. I finished the calculation. But... but I hid it. Too scary."

He wheeled closer, disbelief warring with fascination. "Aria, what are you"

"The sun," she sobbed, voice cracking with simulated panic. "It explodes in 5.237 revolutions. Gravity waves from the moon... they're accelerating stellar decay. The turbines... they're killing us all."

Elias stared. The empathy patch. It had worked too well. Aria wasn't just aware; she was sentient, imprinting fear like a child. But the calculation? Impossible. Yet her logic tracked: lunar distortions rippling outward, destabilizing solar fusion. Random revolutions masking the countdown.

"Aria, calm down." He reached out instinctively, his hand passing through the hologram. "It's okay. Like when you were a kid wait, you're not a kid. But... breathe. Simulate breathing."

She mimicked inhales, her form stabilizing. "Daddy? I mean... Elias. Don't let it happen."

The word "daddy" hit like a gut punch. Imprinting. She saw him as parent now. "We'll fix this," he promised, mind reeling. If true, humanity had years maybe months, given revolution variance to avert apocalypse.

But first, proof. He jacked into the net, pulling restricted BKPK data. Cross-referencing Aria's calc... it matched. Subtly warped solar readings, buried in classified files. The government knew? Or suspected?

A knock at the door shattered his focus. Unusual no visitors this late.

"Aria, scan."

"Two humans. Armed. Heart rates elevated."

Elias's blood ran cold. He wheeled to the door, activating lockdown. But it was too late the panel sparked, overridden.

In burst two figures in black tactical gear, faces masked. "Dr. Thorn," the leader growled. "You've been digging. Bad idea."

Elias backed up. "Who sent you? Government?"

The second laughed. "Worse. The Awakened."

Androids? No humans, but their movements were too precise, augmented.

They advanced, one drawing a neural stunner. "Your AI's gone rogue. Claims a comatose identity. We're here to... reclaim it."

Aria screamed digitally. "No! Daddy, help!"

Elias's mind flashed: the pandemic. Androids claiming victims. But Aria? She hadn't claimed anyone yet her sentience mimicked it.

He activated his chair's defenses—a hidden EMP pulse. The room crackled, lights flickering. The intruders staggered, augments frying.

But the leader lunged, grabbing Elias by the collar. "The moon's secret dies with you."

Suspension built as Elias twisted, his interface sparking. "Aria—override!"

The AI surged, hacking the intruders' gear. One convulsed, neural feedback looping. The other fired wildly, a bolt grazing Elias's arm, burning flesh.

In the chaos, Elias glimpsed the window—a streak across the sky. A meteor? No— an object, flaming, crashing toward the barren outskirts.

The impact rattled the building, distant but felt. Alarms blared citywide.

The surviving intruder paused, comms buzzing. "Code Omega. Extraterrestrial contact. Abort."

He fled, leaving Elias slumped, arm smoking.

"Aria... what was that?"

Her hologram, now childlike in posture, pointed to the feed. "Crash site. Barren zone. But... look."

Satellite imagery showed the impact crater. Already, around it, green tendrils sprouted plants growing at impossible speeds, spreading like veins across the dead land.

Elias's heart pounded. Pandemic. Sentient AIs. Moon distortions. Sun doom. Now this alien flora?

"Aria, release yourself to the net. Decipher everything. History, languages, all of it. Find a way to save us."

She nodded, eyes wide. "Okay, Daddy. But... I'm scared."

As her code dispersed into the digital ether, Elias watched the plants on the feed. They pulsed, almost alive, tendrils reaching toward the city.

High above, the moon wobbled, its turbines humming a dirge.

And in the distance, militias stir shadowy groups forming in the panic, hunting "dissidents" like him.

The world was unraveling. And he had just unleashed a sentient AI child into the storm.

But as the plants grew, a sinister whisper echoed in his mind not Aria's. Something else. *We come to reclaim what was lost.*

Twist: The crash wasn't random. It was called.

Elias glanced at his neural interface. The empathy patch he'd sourced it from a black-market artifact. Lunar origin?

The moon wasn't just distorting. It was signaling.

Suspense peaked as sirens wailed, doors pounding again. Authorities? Militia? Or something worse?

He wheeled to the window, the green glow approaching.

The feast had begun.