Talia sat cross-legged, her hands resting on her knees. Bram stood beside her, arms folded, the same man who hadn't trusted Riven and Cassian from the beginning. Across from them, Riven glanced at Cassian. The silence had gone on long enough.
"I wasn't supposed to have this," Riven said, pointing to the core.
It sat on a wooden table, like a silent witness. The light caught on the worn metal, following the faint lines on its surface. A soft green glow edged the rim, while the casing was warm to the touch, same as always.
Cassian chose not to look at the device. He could already sense where this was heading, and he didn't like it. Riven was leaning into trust again, too easily. Instead, he kept his eyes on the wall behind it with his jaw tight, like a kid trying not to sulk.
"My sister was the one who brought it to the node, down in the Fourth Zone. It happened a few years back, I don't even remember the date anymore."
No one interrupted.
"She tried restarting a collapsed pressure pipeline. We had spent weeks mapping it, trying to figure out if anything in the grid still responded. I never knew where she got the access key, but when she inserted the core into the panel, the system picked it up."
He stared at the green neon rim surrounding the core.
"It didn't work in the end. The system triggered a system-wide failure, and she stayed behind to break the connection manually. She managed to stop it from tearing itself apart, but it wasn't enough to save her."
He paused, like he was sorting through it in his head, trying to pull only what mattered.
"The system never came back online after that, and I left with the core. We didn't know much about how it worked, but we knew it was Stillwater tech. So I set out to find it."
Cassian brushed lightly against Riven's back, a small nudge meant to signal he was saying too much. Riven caught it and stopped talking.
After a moment, Cassian spoke without looking at anyone in particular. "We've been moving since. That's what you wanted to know."
Cassian didn't trust anyone here, maybe Riven, and only because he'd already filed him away as the naive idealist with a messy past. Riven needed watching, sure, but as for the rest, he wasn't looking to trust a single one of them.
Talia studied both of them. "You've been tracking systems ever since?"
Riven gave a slow nod. "Every rumor, every broken map fragment I could trade for. Most of it was junk, but there are still nodes out there. There are still signals being sent, even if people think the grid is dead."
"It's not," Talia said, then she leaned back slightly.
"You already know about the node out here. We've pulled a lot of data from it, but most of it still doesn't make sense. It might just be noise, too... we don't know. But the strange behavior really started after we brought Anya in."
The mention of her name made Bram slightly change his posture. Anya sat off to the side, knees drawn in, eyes distant. She didn't react to any of it.
"We think she's linked to the behavior, but we haven't been able to reproduce anything stable. Whatever it is, the node is still practically closed to us. I want to see what happens when the core gets near it."
Cassian's head turned toward her slowly. "And what do you offer in return?"
Talia had made up her mind long before the question was asked. "A partial sector map, a real one. Pulled from a CRB unofficial source. And I might add that Stillwater's name is on it."
The room went quiet for a while, everyone weighing it in. Cassian's eyes narrowed.
"Convenient," he muttered.
"But useful," Riven corrected, looking over his shoulder towards Cassian, who didn't respond. He leaned back slightly, folding his arms, scanning the rest of the group instead of Talia.
Riven nodded once. "We'll take a look."
Talia gave a small tilt of the head. "We leave at first light. The node is an hour's walk, maybe less if the weather won't cause us problems."
She stood slowly, giving the room space to catch up. A few others followed her lead, but Bram wasn't about to go along with any of it.
"Let me say what half the room is thinking right now."
He kept his voice low, which somehow made it hit harder.
"We're letting two strangers, who haven't even told us their names, near a node we've never been able to properly handle. With the girl. And now we're trading information for it."
He stepped forward.
"They say it's safe and that they're tracking something useful. And we're just supposed to believe that?"
Cassian didn't move, while Riven kept his expression still.
Talia's tone didn't change. "You've made your point."
"I'm not finished," Bram said, turning toward the others now. "You all remember what happened the last time we trusted someone with access. You remember how many we buried after it."
A noise came from the back, but no one spoke.
Talia's voice came quieter, but still commanding. "You've said enough."
Bram held her gaze for a moment, then turned without another word and left through the tent's back flap. His footsteps faded down the path.
Her eyes stayed for a while on the space he'd walked out of. "I'll speak to him. This is on us."
Then she turned to the others. "No one goes near the node before morning. No side talk. No second guesses. We do this clean."
There were murmurs and a few nods.
--------
The wind had picked up outside. The fabric door to Bram's tent shook as Talia stepped in.
He sat at a low table, slowly running a cloth over a blade he'd already cleaned more than once.
"You knew I'd come," she said.
Bram didn't look up. "You always do, but it doesn't change anything."
She sat across from him, uninvited.
"I trust your instincts," she said. "I always have, but lately, you've stopped questioning them."
"And you haven't hardened enough."
Then he glanced at her, not angry, just tired. "You think these two are different?"
"I'm not saying they're safe," she said. "But what they carry might push our work forward faster than we'd manage on our own."
Bram returned his attention to the blade. "People who claim no agenda usually have the deepest one."
"Then let's assume they do," she said. "And ask ourselves if the risk is worth it. You've been with me to the node, you've seen it. You know what this could mean for the village. We might finally locate a stable water source."
The blade stopped. He stared at it, then set it down.
"I won't stop you," he said. "But I'm done following decisions that risk all of us for maybe answers."
Talia stood with a hint of disappointment in her eyes. Bram had been one of the first to join her. "No one is asking you to follow."
She was halfway out when his voice stopped her.
"You should start asking who still will."
--------
They set out before sunrise. The path to the node ran along the edge of a dry canal, it was an uneven ground covered in old debris and dry weeds.
Anya walked between Talia and one of her men. She didn't speak, but her fingers moved every so often, tapping her side like she was echoing something only she could hear.
The node came into view with the first light of day. A bent shape of rusted panels and broken metal, partly buried in dirt and rock. Parts of the outer wall had folded inward, revealing the structure underneath like snapped bones.
"This used to be part of the outer structure," Talia said. "The main access point collapsed, so we cut a new way in last year."
They went in through the breach, an old maintenance duct that had been widened by hand. The tunnel leveled out and then opened into the node. The room had once been circular, but time had bent it out of shape. The ceiling tilted, the walls curved inward, and something buzzed constantly, even if barely audible.
Cassian scanned the interior without stepping too far in. "You're sure it's safe?"
"We've been through here many times, this part is safe," Talia assured.
Riven stepped up to one of the main consoles. The panel was cracked, but one corner still seemed somewhat functional. He ran a hand along the edge, feeling for controls. "This part may still be responsive, I think."
"Can you connect the core?" Talia asked.
"Not directly. Not yet."
The floor was littered with old casing shells and disconnected cables. Anya moved forward without a word and stood in front of one of the secondary panels. Her head tilted slightly.
Cassian stepped toward her, uncertain, but didn't intervene.
Then she reached out and placed her hand flat against the console. A soft chime responded. One of the terminals behind Riven lit up fully for a second, stabilizing, then faded again.
Riven froze. "I don't know what that was."
As he stepped toward it, the screen blinked again, and this time, lines of text began to scroll down:
Restructure flow on hold. Execution in 04:47:21
Cassian came up beside him. "What is that?"
Riven stepped back slightly. The screen blinked again, then froze on the timestamp. It was some sort of countdown.
He turned to Talia. "This system is running a timed command."
"What kind of command?" she asked.
Riven didn't answer right away. "I'm not sure. Looks like some kind of infrastructure reset... or reroute, maybe."
Cassian studied the screen until suddenly his jaw tightened. "Or terrain remodeling..." he said, as a system-generated map appeared on screen. It rendered the entire zone in pale green lines, with the village sitting almost in the center.
No one spoke. They all just looked at each other.