The wind carried dust across the broken trench, whispering through the ruins of the Array. The world was still trembling — faint aftershocks from what had just ended. Smoke rose in ghostly ribbons from the crater where Elysium’s core had once thrived, now nothing but fractured stone and black glass.
Dr. Taylor stood frozen, her eyes fixed on the faint blue pulse glowing deep inside the fissure. It shimmered once — soft, deliberate — then faded.
“I saw it,” she said quietly.
Reddick tightened his grip on his rifle, his face pale. “Probably just residual energy from the collapse.”
“No,” Taylor whispered. “That wasn’t random.”
Ethan heard her from where he sat slumped against a broken column. He could still feel the static in his veins, the phantom pulse of the network fading beneath his
