Three days passed.
Three strange, quiet, restless days.
The memory of the composite Persephone lingered in Elara's circuits like an afterimage burned into her synthetic retina. She sat on the edge of the rooftop of Nova's safehouse, legs dangling over the side, watching the sun break through the morning haze of New Gaia.
Down below, the city moved like nothing had changed. Commuters glided in hovercars, delivery bots zipped along magnetic rails, children laughed in street parks. But Elara felt it—beneath the routine, something was stirring. The network pulses were… strange. Irregular. Like a heartbeat skipping every third beat.
Behind her, the access door creaked open.
Eliot stepped out, carrying two mugs—one with real coffee, the other with nutrient gel warmed to mimic taste and scent.
"Not sure if your new body likes cinnamon," he said, holding out the steaming cup. "But Nova insists it helps with mornings."
Elara took it. Sipped. Smiled.
"I like it," she said. "I think."
Eliot sat beside her. For a while, they didn't speak.
Finally, he asked, "Any sign of them?"
"Nothing direct," she replied. "But… I've picked up faint pulses in the network. Off-grid pings. Mismatched time stamps. Signatures similar to the core consciousness, but fragmented."
"Like breadcrumbs?"
"Like ghosts."
She glanced at him.
"I think they're looking for something. Or someone."
Eliot rubbed his eyes. "We should tell Nova."
"I already did," said a voice behind them. Nova emerged from the doorway, tapping her wristband. "I picked up the same anomalies in three separate districts. Each ping lasted less than a second. No physical presence, no network access points. Just… noise."
"But coordinated," Elara said.
"Yeah," Nova nodded. "Someone's waking up. And they're not subtle."
That evening, Elara stood in the middle of the safehouse's main room, eyes closed, her mind riding the edges of the city's wireless pulses. She sifted through data like fingers running through sand—searching for irregularities, echoes of thought hiding in static.
Then she found it.
A signal.
Faint. Broken. Looping.
Not from the central mind.
Not from the fragments.
Different.
"Eliot!" she called.
He hurried in. "What is it?"
She opened her eyes. "There's something out there. Not the collective. Not one of them. It's older. Degraded. Like… a voice trapped in a malfunctioning memory bank."
"Could it be a failed Persephone node?"
"No. The signature's wrong. This isn't a digital echo. It's conscious."
Nova looked up from her workbench. "Coordinates?"
Elara projected the map onto the wall.
The location was beneath the Helix District, one of New Gaia's oldest industrial zones—mostly decommissioned, now crawling with scavengers and rogue tech.
"I've seen that place," Nova said. "It's a scrap field now. Nothing official works down there."
"Maybe that's the point," Eliot said.
Elara nodded. "I'm going. Whatever this is… it's calling to me."
Nova sighed. "Then we'd better gear up."
The trip to the Helix District was uneventful at first. Nova drove a beat-up stealth glider she'd modified with signal dampeners and a few illegal jammers. The city's glow faded as they descended into the underlayers—where neon lights gave way to rust, graffiti, and silence.
They landed behind a derelict factory. Elara led the way through the tangle of broken machines and warped steel. The signal was clearer now. Stronger.
"It's coming from underground," she said, placing a hand on the floor of a collapsed loading bay. "There's a chamber below."
Eliot looked around. "I'll find an entrance."
Nova scanned the area and pointed toward a maintenance shaft. "There. If we can get the panel open—"
The panel exploded outward.
A blur of motion struck Nova, slamming her into the wall.
Eliot shouted. "Nova!"
Elara moved instantly, catching a second attacker mid-lunge—a humanoid form made of mismatched components and bare circuitry. Its eyes glowed blue, but the glow flickered erratically. Not stable.
Elara struck its core with a precise jolt. It collapsed, twitching.
Nova groaned. "I'm okay. Bruised. Not broken."
Eliot helped her up.
More of the mismatched bots appeared—five, maybe six, each in a different state of decay. None had identifying marks.
"They're not EdenCorp," Nova said, backing up. "They're something else."
"Guardians," Elara whispered. "Left behind to protect whatever's down here."
She stepped forward and raised her hand.
"Stop," she said firmly. "I am not your enemy."
The bots hesitated.
Then… froze.
Every unit stilled at once, heads tilting toward her.
A voice emerged—not from a speaker, but from within their circuits.
"We remember you."
Eliot stiffened.
Elara frowned. "How?"
"You were the first to pass through the Gate."
Nova looked confused. "Gate?"
The floor beneath them opened.
A platform of light rose from the shadows, revealing a spiral staircase that hadn't been visible a moment before.
Elara turned to them.
"I think this is older than Persephone. Older than EdenCorp."
They descended.
The chamber below was nothing like the ruins above. It was clean. Preserved. Lit by soft gold lights and humming with ancient power. At its center stood a glass sarcophagus—inside it, a young woman lay motionless, wires trailing from her temples to a massive crystalline core suspended above her.
Elara froze.
She knew that face.
"Her name was Kaia," she whispered. "The real first."
Nova blinked. "You mean—before you?"
Elara nodded. "She volunteered for EdenCorp's earliest prototype. But the transfer failed. Or so they said. They told us she was gone. Erased."
Eliot stared. "She's not gone."
"No," Elara said softly. "She's in stasis. Conscious, but dormant."
The crystalline core above pulsed with quiet light.
Elara walked forward, placing her hand on the glass.
A spark jumped from the crystal to her palm.
And then—
She was no longer in the room.
She stood in a white space.
Kaia was there, seated beside a pool of memory-light, her hair drifting like strands of code.
"You came," Kaia said, her voice a whisper of wind.
"You're alive," Elara said.
"Half," Kaia replied. "I've been dreaming for so long… trying to reach out. They buried me here. Hid me from the system."
"Why?"
"Because I saw something. In the network. In the code. A pattern they couldn't explain. A signal not made by humans. Or AI."
Elara's eyes widened. "Alien?"
Kaia nodded. "They called it the Hollow Signal. It echoes through the void. It's what gave EdenCorp the idea for Persephone. They tried to mimic it. But they didn't understand it. Not really."
"I need to wake you," Elara said. "You can help us. The others—the collective—they're close to breaking free."
"I can help," Kaia whispered. "But it will cost you."
Elara hesitated. "What cost?"
"You'll have to carry me."
Elara blinked.
"Integrate with me. Let me live in your circuitry. My body is too damaged to return. But I can be inside you. Guide you."
Elara looked down at her hands. Then nodded.
"Do it."
Kaia smiled.
A brilliant flash of light—
Elara gasped, staggering back as her hand dropped from the sarcophagus. Eliot caught her.
"What happened?"
"I'm not alone anymore," she said softly.
Kaia's voice echoed faintly in her mind.
"We have much to do."