Rain fell in three places at once.
Not the same rain. Not even the same sky.
But time knew they were connected.
Antarctica – Vostok-7 Deep Chamber
Victoria stood barefoot on black ice, her breath frosting in air that shouldn't have been cold anymore. The chamber pulsed—a slow, wet throb from the thing beneath her feet. The First Echo hadn't moved in hours. Just watched with star-filled eyes.
She didn't care.
Her hands hovered over a console made of bone and quartz. Wires snaked into her wrists—voluntary grafts. She'd fused herself to the core of the null-network.
"Final sequence ready," she murmured.
A soft chime answered. Not from the machine. From inside her.
The Purge Virus wasn't a weapon. It was a lullaby.
One note, broadcast globally through every satellite, every phone tower, every neural implant. One frequency that whispered: You were never touched by the strange. You never saw ghosts. You never changed.
And the world would believe it.
