Leonard felt a cold dread settle in his stomach, worse than the physical pain. He, the Externality, the Guardian of Balance, had almost been destroyed by the very force meant to restore it. He had been an unwitting part of the problem.
"Genesis's last data burst," Elaine continued, her fingers flying across a salvaged holographic tablet, "it revealed a map. Not of the current simpul pikiran, but of these ancient gates. It showed that Consensus has a final, primary anchor. Not in the sss anymore, since Pandora fragmented it. But somewhere else. Somewhere… deeper."
She projected a shimmering, faint map onto the cracked emergency display of the pod. It showed the Earth, glowing with faint energetic lines. And in one remote, forgotten corner of the planet, a single, pulsating red dot. It was
