A city unfolded beneath us.
Not a city.
A base.
The moment my feet touched the platform, my chest tightened—hard and sudden—like I'd stepped into something that had been waiting for me long before I knew how to notice it. Not anticipation. Not fear.
Recognition.
The space opened outward in layers, tier upon tier, stretching far beyond what my eyes could comfortably track.
Platforms floated at staggered heights, each suspended in invisible gravity fields that hummed faintly, a low vibration I felt more in my bones than my ears.
Glass corridors arced through open air, connecting sectors like veins in a transparent body. Light bent softly along their curves, refracted by energy barriers that shimmered just enough to remind me they were there.
Massive holographic displays hovered above entire zones, semi-transparent and alive—rotating schematics, live feeds of places I didn't recognize, scrolling symbols that rearranged themselves before I could finish reading a line.
It was beautiful.
And it made my skin crawl.
A vast chamber opened before us, so large my sense of scale broke for a moment. My eyes kept trying—and failing—to find its edges.
Weapons testing ranges crackled with restrained energy along one side, firing controlled bursts into adaptive barriers that rippled and reset instantly.
Simulation chambers pulsed with shifting terrain—deserts folding into cityscapes, forests dissolving into fractured urban ruins in smooth, impossible transitions.
Operatives moved everywhere.
Some wore fitted suits lined with faint circuitry. Others were armored, plates locking and unlocking with subtle clicks as they walked. A few carried weapons I couldn't even name—rifles with rotating cores, compact devices that hummed softly at their hips, blades that didn't quite look solid until the light hit them just right.
Every movement was precise.
No wasted steps. No raised voices.
This wasn't chaos.
It was control.
Technology beyond anything I'd ever seen.
And yet—
None of it made me feel safer.
My breath caught without my permission.
"What… is this?" I breathed.
Yuna watched my reaction instead of the base, her silver-blue eyes tracking every flicker of confusion, every involuntary tightening of my jaw.
"This," she said evenly, "is Galactors."
The name landed in my chest like a verdict already decided.
Galactors.
I'd heard it before. In fragments. In rumors whispered too quietly, buried under conspiracy forums and redacted articles that vanished overnight. An organization governments denied, intelligence agencies deflected, and anyone serious pretended didn't exist.
My head spun slightly.
"…Like the rumors?"
She nodded once. No theatrics. No pride.
"The organization governments pretend doesn't exist."
We moved forward.
Not rushed. Not escorted.
Guided.
The floor beneath our feet responded subtly to our steps, faint lines of light tracing and then fading behind us. Curved glass walls rose on either side, tiered like an amphitheater around a single focal point ahead.
The closer we got, the more oppressive the scale became.
Dozens—no, hundreds—of floating panel screens hovered in perfect alignment, each alive with shifting data streams. Spatial coordinates updated in real time.
Heartbeat monitors pulsed beside biometric graphs that spiked and stabilized with eerie precision. Symbols I didn't recognize slid across translucent surfaces, their meaning just out of reach, like words in a language I almost—but not quite—understood.
Operators stood at raised consoles, hands moving with practiced efficiency. Fingers danced across invisible interfaces, issuing commands that rippled silently through the chamber. No shouting. No hesitation.
Every action had consequence here.
At the far end of the chamber, massive glass windows stretched from floor to ceiling.
Beyond them—
My steps slowed.
It wasn't a hallway.
And it definitely wasn't a door.
A portal framework dominated the space beyond the glass.
Multiple ring-shaped constructs hovered in suspended formation, each larger than a house, some larger than buildings.
Unfinished gates. Half-built apertures. Their metallic frames were etched with layered patterns that glowed faintly, stabilized by humming field anchors positioned at precise angles.
Inside the rings, space itself warped gently.
Not violently.
Like water disturbed by a slow current.
Not active.
Waiting.
And at the very center of it all—
My breath stalled completely.
A heart-shaped core floated within a sealed glass enclosure, taller than any building I'd ever stood near. It wasn't symmetrical in a mechanical sense. It felt grown, not assembled. Suspended by intersecting energy rails, it pulsed slowly, rhythmically.
Not mechanical.
Alive.
Each beat sent faint ripples through the air, pressure waves I felt brush against my skin, my chest, the dull ache behind my eyes.
The glass around it shimmered with layered containment fields, colors overlapping in ways that made my vision ache if I stared too long.
Every screen.
Every system.
Every operator in the chamber—
Answered to that core.
Yuna stopped beside me.
"This is the Spatial Heart," she said quietly.
My throat felt dry.
"…That thing isn't a machine," I said.
She shook her head.
"An anchor."
The core pulsed again—slow and heavy—and the unfinished portals around it reacted instantly. Stabilizers adjusted. Energy levels shifted. The entire framework responded like a living organism correcting its balance.
And then—
I felt it.
The same pressure.
The same distortion.
The same wrongness that had preceded every time the world folded around me.
Like this place had been doing it long before I ever could.
"This place…" I whispered.
The realization slid into place with terrifying clarity.
This base didn't just use spatial distortion.
It lived inside it.
I didn't move for several seconds. I was afraid that if I blinked, the whole thing would vanish—like a hallucination brought on by blood loss and shock.
I was still staring upward—at the layered platforms, the impossible verticality, the way the base seemed to breathe—when—
Thump.
"Oof—!"
Something collided with my chest.
Not an attack.
Not an alarm.
Just a body.
We both staggered back at the same time.
"Ah—!" a girl yelped as a tablet slipped from her hands, spinning once before clattering across the floor.
"Sorry—!" I said immediately, bending down on instinct despite the protest from every muscle in my body.
She did the same.
Our hands nearly collided again.
I grabbed the tablet first and straightened, holding it out to her.
"Here," I said. "I wasn't looking where I was going."
She blinked up at me.
Pink hair, tied loosely and slightly messy, like she'd rushed out without fixing it. Bright orange eyes widened in surprise, then softened into embarrassment.
"No—no, that's my fault," she said quickly, taking the tablet. "I was reading data and didn't see you either. Thank you."
She smiled.
Brief. Polite. Genuine.
"I'm Emma," she added, already stepping back. "Uh—sorry again."
Before I could respond, she turned and hurried off down a side corridor, eyes already back on her screen. She disappeared into the flow of operators and glass walkways like she'd never been there at all.
The ease of it felt wrong.
Like normal life brushing past a place that shouldn't allow it.
I stood there a second longer than I should have.
"…That just happened," I muttered.
Beside me, Yuna leaned slightly closer, arms folding loosely.
"Well," she said casually, eyes following Emma's retreating figure, "congratulations."
I frowned. "On what?"
"You've been here five minutes," Yuna replied with a faint smirk, "and you've already activated the civilian collision flag."
"…The what?"
She shrugged. "First bump is free. Second one means paperwork."
I groaned, rubbing the back of my neck.
Yuna chuckled softly.
"Try not to break any more hearts on your way," she added. "Or tablets."
Despite myself, a weak exhale escaped me.
Then the weight settled back in.
The core.
The portals.
The people moving like this was all normal.
I forced my gaze upward again, toward the heart of Galactors, toward the truth pressing down on me from every angle.
This place really wasn't meant to exist.
And the worst part—
I had a feeling it existed for me.
✦ END OF CHAPTER 17 — WELCOME TO GALACTORS ✦