An ancient signal flares from orbit — clean, golden, and speaking a name no one should know. Volst wants to ignore it. Malk says it's a trap. But Elias already knows it's calling to him — not because he hears it, but because he feels it.
And in that moment, for the first time in a long time, Elias reaches out… not to the System, but to the people beside him.
-----
It began with a click.
Then a hum.
Then a name.
"Mercer."
The signal cut across every deck, every channel.
Encrypted vox relays screamed static through personal comms. Transmitters shorted and rebooted. Pilots across the hangar ripped off their headsets.
But the message wasn't in the sound.
It was in the pause that followed.
A golden silence — heavy, radiant, unnatural.
And in that silence…
The name whispered again.
"Mercer."
Elias sat bolt upright in the Black File's quarters, already awake.
He wasn't wearing his coat.
His journal lay open on his bunk.
The page was blank.
But the System was already glowing.
Not with red.
With gold.
> Signal Detected > Source: Orbital Beacon – Designation: Righteous Abandon > Transmission Mode: Psionic Layer Encoding > Authenticity Signature: EMP/0001 > Name Flag: MERCER > Attention Protocol: Activated
Volst kicked the door open ten minutes later.
"Get dressed."
Elias was already lacing his boots.
She paused.
"You heard it."
"Yes."
"What did you hear?"
He looked up.
"Not words. Not exactly."
She nodded once. Shut the door behind her.
Malk was already pacing in the hall.
"This is stupid. That ship's been a husk for two thousand years. It's got no crew, no atmosphere, no reason to still be running."
Bit dropped from the vent and handed him a scrap of parchment.
It read:
"It never stopped running. We just stopped listening."
Malk crumpled the paper and muttered something that made Lirae's optic twitch.
Volst gathered them in the loading bay.
No lights. No formal deployment order. No Imperial clearance.
This wasn't an op.
This was a choice.
"Fleet Command says the Righteous Abandon is derelict. The beacon you heard doesn't exist. This signal isn't logged. No ship has permission to board. Tech-priests are pretending it doesn't exist."
She met each of their eyes.
"I'm not ordering us in. I'm asking."
Bit raised his hand immediately. Grinning.
Malk looked like he wanted to spit and stab something at the same time. "I go where you go," he said to Volst, "but I'm logging a formal protest that this is suicidal."
Lirae tilted her head.
"No pattern corruption detected in Elias's energy readings since signal reception. Therefore… it's not a trap."
That was her way of saying "I'm in."
Volst looked to Elias last.
He didn't hesitate.
"We're already part of something. This signal just... confirms it."
She stared at him a long time.
Then nodded.
The drop shuttle hummed softly in the dark.
No escort.
No designation.
No IFF signature.
Black File didn't exist. Not anymore.
They lifted in silence, the team together, but quieter than usual.
Lirae cross-checked beacon frequency modulation.
Bit sketched the shuttle interior, muttering about "patterns that aren't bound by walls."
Malk cleaned his rifle without looking at it.
Volst sat in the co-pilot seat, staring out the window.
Elias sat alone near the back.
And for the first time in weeks, he broke his own rule.
He leaned across the bench to Bit and asked softly:
"When you first saw… the man with no shadow.
What did he look like, to you?"
Bit didn't answer right away.
Then he reached into his sleeve and pulled out a folded note. Handed it over.
It was a child's drawing.
Crude.
Scrawled in blue pencil on torn parchment.
It showed two stick figures.
One was standing still.
The other was pointing at the first.
The second one was labeled: "Me."
The first one just said:
"I'm him now."
Elias folded the paper slowly.
Bit looked at him and whispered:
"I think he only starts existing once you see him.
But once you do…
he gets to watch back."
Elias turned his face to the dark porthole glass.
Looked at the stars.
And wondered how many versions of him had already seen too much.
Then the shuttle crossed the shadowline of the Righteous Abandon.
The ship hung there, dead and waiting.
Like a tomb with its mouth open.
And on the console, the vox chirped softly one last time.
The same golden whisper.
This time with a second word.
"Mercer.
Welcome."
[END OF PART 1: THE CALL IN THE VOID]