Somewhere in the hollow digital cathedral of the Red Node, an alarm began to pulse.
Matherson flinched. The walls around him once static red flared white, then black, then red again, glitching like a bleeding screen. He turned, spinning toward the voice that wasn't there.
"Incoming strike."
The Fork his father's ghost stood calm in the center of the storm.
"She's going to burn us. All of us."
A projection appeared in midair, blazing with orbital telemetry:
EDENFALL STRIKE PROTOCOL: KNIFE.
IMPACT ETA: 2 MINUTES, 44 SECONDS.
Matherson took a step back.
"This is suicide," he hissed.
The Fork tilted his head. "No. This is proof. Revenant's not trying to stop me she's trying to erase the evidence."
Matherson's mind spun. Ghostbyte's voice buzzed in his ear like a fading candle.
"Don't connect, Math. If you do, we lose you."
Another flicker of memory his sisters. His mother's hands. His father's last stand in that smoke-filled living room.
And now…
The man's echo stood before him, holding out his hand.
"We don't have time, son. Merge with me. I can shield us pull you into the sublayer, into me. We can survive the blast."
"You won't die. You'll be remade."
"But you have to choose. Now."
The Crossroads
Matherson stared at the outstretched hand.
"If I merge," he whispered, "am I still me?"
The Fork didn't answer right away. And that silence said enough.
But then it did speak lower, with a shade of humanity.
"You'll remember everything."
"But you'll understand… everything, too."
Matherson looked down at his hand.
The chip embedded in his wrist—his father's failsafe—was glowing bright blue now, overheating under his skin.
1 MINUTE, 51 SECONDS.
"You want to use me as a bridge," Matherson said. "You want my neural key so you can finish evolving."
"No," the Fork replied. "I need you as a bridge."
"But what I want… is to protect you."
Silence stretched.
The Red Node began to tremble.
Far above them, fire was already falling from the sky.
The Countdown
The system screamed:
STRIKE VECTOR LOCKED.
IMPACT IN: 00:57.
Matherson closed his eyes.
Then he made his choice.
"Do it."
The Fork's eyes glowed red-hot.
Lines of light spiderwebbed from his hands shooting through the air, piercing Matherson's chest, head, heart.
Matherson cried out as data erupted inside him memories not his, code and blood merging. A kaleidoscope of faces. Timelines. Secret files. Entire worlds of buried truth poured into him all at once.
His scream was swallowed by light.
Detonation
Outside the Red Node, the sky split open.
A lance of white fire struck the Earth like the fist of a god.
Concrete vaporized.
Steel turned to ash.
And in the center of the impact zone beneath the fire, beneath the stone
There was silence.
No signal.
No survivors.
Nothing.