The stairs were uneven, carved into rough rock and patched with rusted panels. Two guards moved ahead without a word, still armed, while a third followed close behind. At the bottom, one of the guards shoved the door open and motioned them in without a word.
The room had probably been a maintenance area at some point since it still stored piles of old equipment, but it had been turned into a holding space. Two small cells faced each other, divided by bars of welded rebar. Overhead, dim lights cast a pale light over the concrete and dust.
Cassian stepped in first, already ready with something sarcastic on his mind. "Cozy. I was hoping for an ocean view this time."
But the guards ignored him. One pointed left while the other unlocked the door on the right, splitting them up without any explanation.
Riven stepped into his own cell and stopped. The air was stale. Metallic. He touched the bars once, just to check, then he moved to the corner and sat down slowly, adjusting his weight away from the bruises across his back.
Cassian sat across from him with his knees up, arms folded casually around them.
"They really don't like us one bit," Cassian muttered.
Riven didn't respond. He was watching the floor between them, lost in the slow collapse of thoughts that had started at the node and hadn't stopped since.
"I saw Anya connect to the node's system," he said at last, with a low voice, caught in the details of what he was trying to say. "It recognized her… even though she didn't use any commands or data. It was biological. Like what Talia said before. Just being there was enough for the protocols to…"
He paused, still seeing it.
"…understand her."
Cassian moved his head towards Riven, listening. "What does that mean?"
Riven nodded slightly. "It was like the system recognized her, and that recognition was enough to stop the entire thing from blowing in our faces. But then… it turned on her. Rejected her."
He leaned back against the wall with his eyes half-lidded, staring past the bars.
"Rheya always made it sound like we were close to understanding it. But now I'm not sure if she truly didn't know more... or if she did, and kept it from me."
"Is Rheya your sister?" Cassian asked, already assuming so.
"Yeah..."
Then Cassian looked away and scoffed lightly. "Well, for what it's worth, my family never told me anything useful either. Unless you count how to fake a report or which officials you can lie to without losing a tooth."
Riven gave no answer, but he smiled a little, amused at how Cassian could always manage to find space for a joke. Even in places like that.
"It spoke to me," he continued after a pause, almost inaudibly.
Cassian's brow lifted. "Who did?"
"The system down there at the node," Riven replied. "I think… it was the Lady. And I'm sure she knew who I was too, because she used my name." He hesitated, weighing in how crazy his words must have sounded, then added more quietly, "She showed me things. It was like she needed to transfer something from her memory to me."
"Cassian tilted his head. "So… the system's got a thing for you. Is that it?..."
He kept watching Riven for a while, trying to make sense of all these things he'd never expected to face. But then his focus was drawn to Riven's expression. There was something in it, disbelief, mixed with guilt or maybe regret. Like a boy blaming himself for a world that was already broken long before he had the chance to understand it. He smiled a little crookedly. "Then I guess we'll have to figure it out, won't we?"
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The footsteps came light and hesitant. Then the door opened with a whine.
A young man stepped in, no older than twenty. He wore an old vest over a black patched shirt, a sidearm that looked more ceremonial than practical, and a plastic jug of water gripped in both hands. He paused in the doorway like he wasn't entirely sure he should be there.
"Hey," he said, glancing between the cells. "They told me to bring this."
Cassian raised an eyebrow. "Great. Hospitality improves."
The kid knelt and slid the jug toward Riven's cell first, then Cassian's, nudging it through the gap beneath the bars.
"No food?" Cassian asked.
"They said later," the guard replied. His voice was awkward and uncertain.
"Hey, kid…" Riven said, stepping closer to the bars. "The girl who came in with us... what happened to her?"
The kid hesitated, then added, "She's not waking up."
Cassian looked up.
The guard moved, adjusting his posture so he could see them both. "They said she's unresponsive. Just lying there, not moving. And… she's blind. Her eyes don't focus anymore."
"Is she breathing?" Cassian asked, more serious now.
"Yeah. Breathing. But that's it."
He rubbed the back of his neck, lowering his voice a little. "They think it happened down at that old structure. She's got marks at the back of the neck and near the temples. Whatever hit her must've fried something inside."
Cassian exhaled slowly.
"What's Talia planning to do?" Riven asked.
The guard hesitated. "Keeping her stable, for now. Someone's with her around the clock. But no one really knows what to try. We don't have people here who understand tech like that."
"She's not going to come back from that," Cassian muttered.
The guard lingered a moment in the silence, unsure if there was more to say, then gave them both a small nod and stepped out. The door closed behind him with a loud sound.
For a few seconds after that, nothing moved. Even the generators seemed to be quieter as the weight of the news settled in.
As minutes passed, Cassian watched Riven sink deeper into thought, so he spoke up. "Hey. She'll be alright. Talia's one of the good ones. She won't let her slip through."
"Yeah," Riven said quietly, as if repeating it might help him believe it too.
After a while, Riven reached into his satchel, pulling the core from where it sat wrapped against his side. It looked inactive again and smooth, except for a few thin seams that curved across its surface. Some ended in small joints, others looped back into spirals that caught the light when he turned it.
Cassian glanced over. "You sure that's a good idea?"
Riven's eyes scanned the casing carefully, like he was trying to make sense of something he should've understood by now. One phrase echoed persistently in his thoughts: Rest. Observe. I am with you. Just as the core had displayed it half a day earlier, beneath the collapsed node. He turned the object slowly in his hands, searching for faint recessed edges, barely visible until touched. Whatever material it was made from didn't reflect light evenly. It absorbed it in some places and scattered it in others.
Cassian adjusted his position on the floor, watching. "Just saying... last time we got near tech like that, it lit up half a mountainside and knocked our friend into a coma."
Riven's hands didn't stop moving. "It's not active."
"Right. Sleeping bomb. Comforting."
He ignored him and tapped gently near one of the seams. It felt dense inside, maybe even built in layers. Each area responded a little differently, so he tapped again, slower this time.
Cassian leaned his head against the bars again, muttering, "Don't say I didn't warn you."
At some point, Riven's thumb brushed over something that didn't match the rest. He brought the core closer to his face, rotating it slowly until the light hit just right. One section, no wider than two fingers across, was misaligned by the slightest margin.
He pressed his thumb to the seam and tried to move it, but it held firm. He then traced the ridge with more focus. The resistance felt like something sealed by design, meant to vanish into the surface. His fingernails couldn't get under its edge. It needed leverage.
He glanced toward Cassian. "Knife."
Cassian stared at him like he hadn't heard right. "Seriously?"
"I need leverage. That edge won't move otherwise."
Cassian sighed, leaned forward, and pulled a compact blade from his boot. He flipped it once in his hand, then crouched to slide it across the floor. It skidded against the concrete and came to a stop just outside Riven's reach.
Riven stretched an arm through the bars and dragged it the rest of the way.
"You better not blow us up," Cassian muttered. "I'm not dying in a basement next to someone more stubborn than me."
Riven slid the tip of the blade into the seam and gave it a careful twist. Something clicked, and the panel lifted slightly. Inside, a small metallic capsule rested in a shallow recess. It didn't seem to belong to the core's main design. It just sat there, like a secret left behind.
Riven didn't touch it at first. He just looked at it.
The shape was odd, almost like an old locket, but without hinges. Its surface had no markings except for a faint, unrecognizable symbol, etched so shallow it was nearly invisible.
Cassian leaned forward. "Is that… part of it?"
Riven shook his head slowly. "I don't think so."
"Then what is it?"
He held the object, turning it once in his palm. It was heavier than it looked. And cold.
"I don't know," he said.