CHAPTER 7 — Segment 7.2 “Inside the Quiet Sector”
652 Words
The gap in the D6 blast door wasn’t wide, but it was enough.
Riven angled his light through the narrow opening. The interior corridor shouldn’t have looked like this—its layout on the station map was a straight passage with evenly spaced panels. But the space beyond warped into something uneven, as if the architecture had shifted under pressure.
Metal plates had been pried loose along the wall. Some hung crooked, others lay on the floor like discarded shells. A long, shallow scratch curved along the bulkhead in a near-perfect arc—too smooth for an accident, too deliberate for decay.
Calyx exhaled through his teeth. “This isn’t structural collapse.”
“No,” Riven murmured. “Something moved through here.”
He stepped closer to the gap. The air felt thick, carrying a faint static buzz that prickled across his skin. He scanned the nearest panel; a band of residual heat glowed along the surface, as though a warm body had leaned there moments before.
Calyx touched the edge of the panel and pulled his hand back instantly. “It’s still warm.”
Riven crouched, examining the floor. A deep friction groove ran ten centimeters across the plating, trailing inward toward the sealed hall. Not dragged randomly—dragged with direction.
“This took force,” he whispered. “More than a person could exert.”
“Or something heavier than a person,” Calyx said quietly.
Riven didn’t respond. His handheld unit blinked, displaying:
MATERIAL DISPLACEMENT DETECTED — SOURCE UNKNOWN.
Calyx squinted. “That’s the same warning we saw near C2.”
“It’s consistent,” Riven said. “Which means the anomaly isn't passing through randomly. It’s following a path.”
“A path to what?”
Before Riven could answer, the handheld chimed. A second scan flashed a coordinate overlay.
Calyx frowned. “That code… it matches the hash fragments from last night.”
Riven’s pulse quickened. “Exactly. That’s why we need to go in.”
Calyx stepped in front of him. “Riven, look at this place. Idris can barely remember what he saw. You said yourself the anomaly interacts with physical systems. You don’t know how close is too close.”
“If we turn around now,” Riven said softly, “the trail goes cold.”
“This isn’t a trail.” Calyx gestured at the warped panels. “This is a warning. And Command is already watching our access logs.”
A beat of silence.
Then Riven said, “Danger doesn’t erase information. Ignoring it does.”
Calyx’s expression tightened. Not disagreement—fear.
Riven angled the light upward, illuminating a half-broken terminal nestled in the wall recess. The casing was warped, as if compressed by immense pressure. As he approached, the screen flickered on for a single heartbeat.
LOOM INTERFACE: PHASE 3
Then it died.
Calyx’s voice went low. “Phase 3? That project was buried decades ago.”
Riven stared at the blank terminal. “Then why is it waking up now?”
Before Calyx could reply, the lights inside D6 flickered—not the short-long-short pattern from before, but the reverse: long–short–long, almost like a reply.
Something shifted deeper in the corridor—a faint metallic tremor, not loud but directed, as if a panel had flexed inward beneath unseen weight.
Riven’s handheld vibrated.
ACTIVE PRESENCE DETECTED.
The station status panel on the wall beside them instantly contradicted it:
NO MOTION DETECTED.
Calyx swallowed. “It’s in there with us.”
Riven lifted the light farther into the darkness.
The beam hit something reflective—curved, metallic, smooth.
Too smooth to belong to the station.
A cold breath of air brushed past his ear, though nothing moved.
Riven whispered, “Calyx… that surface—”
“Yeah,” Calyx said, stepping closer. “Whatever that is… it wasn’t built here.”
- Writer
