The path led downward.
Bent steel and fractured conduits guided them through the ship's broken veins until they reached a hollow chamber, smaller than the Archive core but alive with faint light. The walls pulsed weakly, glyphs rippling like veins under bruised skin.
Vector raised his weapon on instinct. "This place… it feels wrong."
"It isn't the core," Rei murmured, one hand braced against the wall. "It's a secondary node. An echo of the Archive." His voice carried a reverence Maya didn't trust.
Maya stepped closer. The hum inside her veins thrummed louder, answering the chamber. The rifle pulsed once in her grip, as though recognizing its kin.
And then she heard it.
"…Maya…"
Her chest locked. The voice was faint, distorted by static, but there was no mistaking it.
"Kiran?"
Vector whipped around. "What did you just—"
"…run… no… don't… listen…"
Maya's knees buckled. The node itself was speaking with his voice, every glyph flashing in time with the broken syllables.
Rei's eyes went wide. "They've tethered him directly into this fragment. His consciousness is being routed through the system."
Vector swore, leveling his weapon at the walls. "Then we tear it out of the damn system."
"No!" Maya shouted, pushing his gun aside. Her voice cracked, desperate. "If he's in there, we can't just shoot him out. We have to—"
The chamber lights surged, drowning her words. Glyphs sharpened, coalescing into a lattice of Kiran's outline across the wall. For a heartbeat, his face was there — eyes wide, mouth moving, frozen between plea and command.
"Maya… don't come… for me."
The image shattered, the chamber plunging into darkness.
Maya fell to her knees, fists clenched so tight her nails bit skin. Vector stood frozen. Rei whispered, half in awe, half in terror:
"He's alive. But they've made him part of the Archive."
Next up: Chapter 33 — The Architects' Hand. Reinforcements arrive, and Maya comes face to face with the truth of what they've done to Kiran.