Chapter 11: The Threshold Below
Kael awoke gasping.
His hands clawed at the earth. Dirt filled his mouth. The echo of a scream—his or someone else's—rattled his skull. The sky above was morning gray. No sun. Just that pale hue of a world that hadn't quite decided to live yet.
Codex Status: Stabilizing. Neural load reduced. Stage 3 Integration: Incomplete.
He rolled onto his side and vomited up seawater that shouldn't have been in his lungs. His head ached like a spike had been driven through it.
He remembered everything.
The simulations. Rhane's voice. His own name echoing inside something too sterile to be a womb and too sacred to be a grave.
He had been made. Named. Engineered.
And something inside him had finally stopped resisting.
"Still alive," came XENOVORAX's voice. "Still ignorant."
Kael gritted his teeth.
"Then educate me."
"You don't want the truth."
"I want to choose my own lies."
The ruins of San Cristobal's lower ring stretched out before him like a carcass. Half-melted labs, derailed mag-rails, and security droids torn apart by something with claws larger than a man's torso.
Kael limped.
Not because of pain—he had healed faster than any human should—but because the weight of what he was slowed him.
In a collapsed annex, he found a terminal still sparking with emergency power. The Codex synced automatically. A new interface opened:
FILE: OBSIDIAN-AI – Caretaker Subroutine Rh-X3
Status: Low Integrity. Voice Link: Active.
A flicker of static. Then a voice.
"Kael. If you are hearing this… then I have failed."
Dr. Rhane's voice.
But older. Weaker.
"Or maybe I succeeded. I don't know anymore. The Codex binds future to past in ways I couldn't untangle. But if you've found this terminal… then JIRUUN stirs. And the Womb is waking."
Kael stared at the screen, blood crusted on his cheek.
Rhane's voice continued:
"You'll find the truth beneath Marine Lock 01. I sealed the entry when the others started listening. It's under the trench. You'll know it by the pull. Your body will feel it before your mind does."
Then a glitch. Then silence.
Then a final whisper:
"Forgive me, my son."
Kael punched the screen. It shattered, sparks flying.
"I'm not your son."
"But you were his obsession," said XENOVORAX. "And now you're ours."
Kael said nothing. Just breathed. The air tasted like oil and thunder.
He walked for hours.
Through fallen tunnels, dead corridors, skeletal bridges. The Codex guided him—not with directions, but sensations. His heartbeat would quicken when he was near something important. His hands would tremble before a sealed hatch. His eyes would sting when he passed rooms that had seen death.
Eventually, he reached a long-forgotten pier. Wind howled through twisted metal frames like lost voices. Rusted cranes loomed over the waves. Beneath the dock, deep water churned.
Kael stopped before a half-buried sign:
PROJECT WOMB: MARINE LOCK 01 – ACCESS DENIED.
The Codex pulsed inside his chest.
Resonance Confirmed.
Stage 3 Evolution Potential: Optimal.
Threshold Access: Authorized.
Kael dropped to one knee, the Codex interface glowing across his arm. Tendrils of biomechanical energy threaded from his skin into the metal plating at his feet. The dock groaned. Something below unlocked.
A circular hatch unsealed. Water surged, then stilled.
The way down was open.
"You're changing," said XENOVORAX. "Finally."
"I'm becoming what he built me to be," Kael said.
"No. You're becoming something else."
Before he descended, Kael turned and looked out across the sea.
Far on the horizon, dark clouds churned. Lightning spidered across the sky. Something ancient stirred beneath those waves.
And for the first time… Kael smiled.
Not out of joy.
But purpose.
"I'm not running anymore."
He stepped into the dark.
Toward JIRUUN.
Toward his reckoning.
And the sea swallowed him whole.