The escape pod breached the Arctic ice to reveal a hellish marvel.
Beneath the ice cap stood not a military base, but a Gothic cathedral of living mineral. Its spires hung with millions of cryo-pods, each containing human-crystal hybrids. Most horrifying—their arrangement formed an enormous replica of the Harper family crest.
"Welcome home, Keybearer." A synthetic female voice echoed as the ice walls turned transparent, revealing pulsating blue neural networks. "Behold the First Ark. What your kind called...Neptune's Cradle."
Elaine's spinal spikes autonomously extended, carving glowing grooves into the ice. The liquid that seeped from them formed arrows pointing toward the cathedral's heart. Her contamination surged to 82%—crystals under her skin rearranging, granting her infrared vision and the ability to hear magma chambers three miles below.
The Patriarch's scales froze and shattered. "No human built this..." He trembled toward the altar at the center, where a coral structure identical to Margaret's hovered. "It called us here."
The ice cracked open. Twelve frozen corpses in Soviet uniforms surfaced, their chest cavities replaced with pulsating jellyfish organs. When Elaine approached, the corpses' crystal eyes snapped open, howling in 1946 Russian: "Don't repeat our mistake!"
Holograms activated, showing Cold War footage: Soviet scientists discovering this same cathedral. They'd taken a coral sample to Moscow—and within three days, the entire city crystallized. The final image showed the Kremlin's spires warping—exactly as New York's Ark now did.
"The military knew." The Patriarch refracted light through his prism, revealing modern lab equipment embedded in the ice. "That's why they..."
An explosion interrupted him. The ice dome ruptured as Qi descended on cables. His left arm was now fully living crystal, but his right side bore self-inflicted wounds—as if pain kept him sane.
"17 minutes...left..." Qi's voice oscillated between his own and a thousand others. He tossed a data core containing the military's "Purification" truth: not a cure, but the final stage to engineer obedient bioweapons. Footage showed Elaine's parents on operating tables, having their spines injected with the same nano-crystals that doomed Moscow.
Elaine's chest device flared blinding blue. The jellyfish formed a new message: [GENETIC LOCK DISENGAGED—KEYBEARER SACRIFICE REQUIRED]. Simultaneously, the ice surface revealed sheet music for Margaret's lullaby—written in ancient runes.
Qi's human eye hemorrhaged. "Sing..." He fought his crystalizing vocal cords. "But know—each note rewrites your DNA."
When Elaine sang the first syllable, the cathedral awoke. Ice pipe organs played harmonies as cryo-pods exploded. Most shocking was Margaret's apparition above the altar—her body fully fused with coral, yet smiling with lucidity:
"We were never guardians, child." Her voice carried millennia of exhaustion. "We are jailers."
Deep in the ice, something older than the cathedral shattered its chains.