The jump back to their home universe wasn't clean.
Kael, Elara, and Reeva tumbled out of the rift like sparks from a dying flame, landing hard on the roof of the Nexus Tower in Manhattan. The skyline was wrong—slightly skewed, the sun's position off by a few degrees.
"We're... not exactly home," Reeva said, checking her device. "We're in Universe 877-Beta."
Kael groaned. "The drift signature misaligned?"
"No," Elara said, her eyes narrowing. "The Eye corrupted the coordinates during its collapse. We were redirected."
Kael stood, holding the Keystone close. "Then where's our world?"
Reeva pointed to the sky. High above, like a tear in fabric, hovered a massive rift, bleeding flickers of alternate Earths in and out of view. Cities collided, merged, vanished. One moment a floating Tokyo, the next a burning Moscow. Their Earth was out there, tangled in the swirl.
"We'll need to recalibrate our exit vector," Reeva muttered.
"Not yet," Elara said. "This version of Earth may hold something useful."
She led them into the tower. Nexus Tower, in most universes, was a hub for interdimensional research. Here, it was eerily empty. Dusty terminals blinked weakly. Broken drones lay silent. And deep beneath the foundation, they found something chilling.
A body.
Or rather—a version of Kael.
He was strapped into a chamber, eyes blank, hooked up to a failed experiment—a neural map scanner designed to process alternate consciousness streams.
Kael stared at his own corpse. "That's me...?"
Reeva's voice was soft. "Not you. A possibility of you."
Elara stepped forward, pulling a drive from the console. "Looks like he was trying to anchor memories between timelines. Maybe he was seeking the Keystone, too. Or trying to resist the Architect."
She tapped into the system. The screen flickered. A message began to play.
"To whoever finds this... the multiverse is fracturing faster than predicted. The Architect isn't just invading—he's consuming. Every version of me across the timelines is being erased. Our only hope lies in the Driftbearer. If you are him... please... don't make my mistakes."
Kael looked away. "How many of me are dead?"
Elara answered without hesitation. "Too many. But you're not."
Outside, alarms started to wail.
Reeva ran to the window. "We've got company. Multiple hostiles—machines."
Kael activated the Keystone instinctively. Its light pulsed, scanning the area.
"They're hunting Drift energy," Elara said. "The Eye may be gone, but he's sent scouts."
Reeva pulled her weapon. "We need to leave."
"No," Kael said. "We need to finish what he started."
He looked at the body—his alternate self. On the desk nearby lay a notebook, filled with notes, calculations, fragments of quantum code.
Among them: a phrase, circled in red.
"The Nexus Core is the key."
Kael grabbed it. "This Nexus might still have a working portal frame. We can use it to stabilize our next jump."
"Then we jump," Elara said. "Before the machines turn this place into another ruin."
As they raced for the lower levels, Kael felt the Keystone hum stronger than ever.
Every dead version of himself was one step closer to the truth.
And one step closer to the Architect.