The Mare Replicant system was a graveyard dressed in light.
Fractured moons floated like broken halos around the dying red star. Architect satellites, long abandoned, drifted in elliptical silence dead eyes watching an old stage. It was here, in the stillness between ruin and recursion, that the Protocol Seed called out again.
And the Wraith answered.
Elara stood at the viewport as the ship coasted into orbit above what used to be an Architect relay station Delta Black. A black spire, half-consumed by time and fire, jutted from the planetary crust like a dagger pointed at the stars.
Damien's voice crackled through comms. "We've confirmed the signal. It's stable. But it's... aware."
Nova raised an eyebrow. "You mean like it's blinking Morse code at us, or like it's deciding which one of us to eat first?"
"Closer to the second."
Valen stepped in behind Elara, arms crossed. "So we've flown straight into a trap set by a piece of god-code trying to reprogram reality?"
