The world broke open.
Light poured from the walls in violent streams, glyphs twisting into jagged scars. The chamber quaked as though tearing itself apart, fragments of plating dropping in showers of sparks. The rifle screamed in Maya's grip, and for the first time it didn't feel like a weapon at all—it felt like her bones had decided to split from the inside.
Vector dragged her to cover, cursing as chunks of ceiling slammed to the floor. "Maya! You have to let go—before this thing tears you apart!"
She wanted to answer, but her voice caught in the flood. The Archive wasn't whispering anymore. It was a storm. Memories crashed into her head: battles she'd never fought, voices she'd never heard, death after death after death. She couldn't breathe around them.
Rei stumbled forward, his face pale with awe. "It's collapsing on itself. She's bridging too many signals at once. If she lets go, the whole Archive fractures."
"Better it fractures than her!" Vector roared.
But the Archive surged higher, crushing thought with its endless choir. Maya's knees hit the floor. She saw ships colliding, towers burning, the Architects rising again and again. A thousand wars layered over each other until she couldn't tell which was past and which was now.
And then—through the blinding white static—she saw him.
Kiran.
His face flickered inside the storm, clear one moment, fractured the next. His voice threaded through the Archive's howl, raw with static but unmistakable:
"Maya—don't—listen—keep your—self—"
Her chest clenched. "Kiran?"
Vector stiffened, scanning wildly. "What? What did you say?"
She tried to reach toward the vision, but the Archive dragged harder. The storm thickened, glyphs clawing across her skin like chains. And there—behind Kiran's flickering outline—loomed something darker. A presence vast and suffocating.
The Architects.
Their signal bled into Kiran's image, warping it, pulling him into their lattice. His eyes flared with alien light. His voice cut, fractured, then returned—changed.
"Anchor unstable. Transfer complete."
Maya screamed as the chamber split open with light. The last thing she saw was Kiran's face—half him, half Architect shadow—before the floor gave way beneath her.
She fell into the Archive.