The platform lowered in silence, the ship's hum uneven, as though even it struggled to recover from what had just transpired. Maya lay sprawled across the slick surface, chest rising in shallow, uneven gasps. Smoke curled from the rifle fused to her hands, its filaments dimming, its body cracked but not broken.
Vector's voice carried up first—rough, desperate. "Maya!"
She blinked, vision fractured into halos of blue and black. Her arms trembled when she tried to move. The weapon clung to her like a parasite, veins of faint light running up her forearms, crawling beneath her skin.
Rei reached her first. He grabbed the edge of the platform, hauled himself up with a grunt despite the blood staining his side. His eyes widened when he saw her arms. "Gods…"
Vector scrambled up behind him, face ash-streaked, one eye swollen shut, but alive. He dropped to his knees beside her, shaking her shoulder. "Stay with me, Kade. Don't you dare go quiet on me."
Her lips parted, but her voice was thin, frayed. "I'm… here."
Vector's relief was brief. His eyes flicked to the weapon, the glowing cracks etched into her skin. "What the hell did that thing do to you?"
Maya lifted her hand weakly. The rifle refused to let go, her fingers welded into its grip. She tried to pry them open with her other hand, but both shook too violently. The glow beneath her skin pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat.
Rei leaned close, his expression torn between awe and horror. "It's integrated with her. The override wasn't just a key—it was a seed. And she's the soil."
"Don't talk in riddles!" Vector snapped, panic sharpening his voice. "Tell me how to fix it."
Rei's mouth worked, but no words came. Finally, he whispered, "I don't think we can."
Maya's stomach clenched, but she forced her voice steady. "It's not… killing me. Not yet."
"Not yet?" Vector's jaw tightened. "That's not good enough."
The ship's voice entered the silence, faint but resolute:
"Integration confirmed. Anchor stable. Carrier linked."
Vector's head snapped upward. "You did this. You put this thing in her."
"Correction," the voice hummed. "She accepted it. Without will, integration fails. Without lineage, collapse occurs. She is both willing and blood-right."
Rei froze, eyes narrowing. "Blood-right?"
Maya's chest tightened. The memory of the projection—the woman who looked like her—flashed behind her eyes. Lysa Kade. Echo-prime.
Vector caught the flicker of guilt in her expression. "Maya… what aren't you telling us?"
She swallowed hard, but the words still scraped her throat. "The ship showed me someone. A founder of Echo. Lysa Kade. She—she claimed she was my blood."
Vector staggered back a step, disbelief flooding his face. "That's impossible. You said your parents were—"
"They were," she cut in, voice sharp but shaking. "But this… this doesn't feel like a lie."
The glow in her arms intensified for a moment, syncing with her ragged breath, as if the rifle itself approved of the truth.
Rei looked at her with something bordering reverence. "That's why the override answered you. That's why the craft called you Echo. You're not just another operative. You're the continuation of what they built."
Maya squeezed her eyes shut, bile rising in her throat. "I never asked for this."
The ship's voice was gentler now, almost a lull:
"Inheritance is seldom chosen. But it is always carried."
Vector reached for her arm, but the moment his fingers brushed the glowing veins, he jerked back, as though shocked. "Damn it… it's inside you. Whatever this is—it's burning you up."
"I can still fight," Maya whispered. She forced herself upright, swaying, but the rifle moved with her, an extension of her will. "I have to."
Rei's gaze darkened. "Fight long enough, and you won't be you anymore. That's the price of fire. You'll become… Archive."
Maya stared at the glowing cracks creeping higher up her arms, toward her shoulders, toward her heart. The rifle hummed softly, like a heartbeat inside a machine.
And for the first time, she wondered if the Architects hadn't lost at all—if they had simply changed their battlefield.