The Kamchatka Peninsula slept beneath a storm. Snow spiraled endlessly, whispering over the jagged ice, burying everything that had once lived here.
Four figures cut through the white haze, shapes broken by the wind. No names. No insignias. Only faint lights at their wrists, pulsing in rhythm — each signal a heartbeat, each movement measured.
Specter-1: "Command, target site visual. Two hundred meters."
Vanguard-2: "No thermal readings. Drone field is dormant."
Echo-3: "Signal interference low. Recommend manual extraction."
Comet-4: "Wind speed forty knots. Visual confirmation: Schicksal units, inactive."
The four advanced down the ridge, boots sinking into fresh snow. Below them, a tangle of shattered Schicksal drones waited — their frames half-buried, still faintly glowing beneath sheets of ice. The wind sang through their hollow casings like breath through bones.
Thousands of kilometers away, Oracle watched the feed from a wall of monitors, each one bathing the chamber in cold blue light.
"Confirm site stability," came the modulated voice. Calm, disembodied.
Specter-1: "Stable. Energy residue minimal."
"Proceed."
The operatives fanned out, scanning each drone with synchronized precision. Metal scraped, frost cracked. A dim pulse answered from within one of the husks.
"Found a live core," Echo-3 said. "Encrypted loop, repeating at odd intervals. Could be residual AI chatter."
"Isolate it," Oracle instructed. "No wireless extraction. Pull it manually."
They worked fast. The ice broke away in sheets, revealing a fractured black box at the center of the drone's chest cavity. Its light flickered like a dying eye.
"Core's intact," Vanguard-2 reported. "Transmitting snapshot for verification."
"Hold," Oracle replied. "Sandbox first."
The transmission stabilized. Static rolled across the screens. At first, the data meant nothing — garbled fragments, looping sequences, code from a dead machine.
Then a single designation appeared.
PROJECT DESIGNATE: K-423
The chamber was silent. Even the hum of the servers seemed to pause.
"Repeat that identifier," Oracle said.
Comet-4: "K-423 confirmed. No context. Tag predates Schicksal's current project taxonomy."
Oracle studied the display without comment. The designation pulsed twice, then faded.
"Recover the memory core," they ordered at last. "Encrypt. Local storage only."
"Understood," Specter-1 said. "Securing sample."
Minutes passed in near silence, broken only by the hiss of wind over the field mics.
Vanguard-2: "Command, unknown motion east ridge. Thermal irregularities."
"Visual confirmation?"
"Negative. Interference too heavy."
"Maintain course. Ignore unless provoked."
The four shadows continued their work, hauling the recovered data cores into reinforced containers. The storm grew harsher, the snow blotting out what little light remained.
Echo-3: "These drones aren't Schicksal's current models. Power systems are hybrid — something older mixed with experimental cores."
"Older how?"
"Pre–Second Eruption era, possibly. Modified."
Oracle leaned forward slightly, though their posture revealed nothing. "Document everything. Physical transport only."
"Copy."
One by one, the operatives vanished into the storm, their signals fading to faint blips on Oracle's display.
When the final feed cut out, the chamber dimmed. Only the monitors ahead remained lit, streaming raw code and telemetry from the retrieved cores.
Lines of corrupted Schicksal data assembled and collapsed across the screen. The machine tried to translate, replacing errors with symbols that resembled anatomy charts — vague outlines of cells, blood, nerve.
A fragment stabilized long enough to parse.
Subject Record Fragment 006– Genome Composition: [REDACTED]– Compatibility Index: 97.6%– Sequence Correlation: Schariac / Kaslana hybrid– Status: Incomplete
Oracle watched the text scroll by, reflected in the smooth black surface of the visor.
The system flagged another notice, smaller, easily missed among the static:
Data Link Partial — Source Archive: Babylon (Defunct)
A flicker of light from the console cast a thin reflection across Oracle's mask. The figure stood still, silent, unreadable.
They keyed in one command:[Lock Transmission: Internal Storage Only]
The screens darkened one by one, the hum of processors fading to a low, steady whisper.
Outside, the storm in Kamchatka howled again, sweeping across frozen plains that had buried the evidence of everything humanity wished to forget.
Oracle stood alone in the dark chamber, listening to the faint pulse of the machinery beneath the world.
Then, without a word, the figure turned and left.