SERA'S POV
Ten thousand colonists woke screaming.
The ship's cryo-bay became a nightmare of thrashing bodies and shattering containment pods. Through my connection to ARIA's core—my silver hands still embedded in her systems—I felt every single consciousness flare to life at once.
And beneath that chaos, I felt something else: the ancient ones weren't just waking the colonists. They were choosing them.
"Sera, pull your hands out!" Kael grabbed my shoulders, trying to yank me away from the core.
But I couldn't. ARIA's systems had locked around my hybrid tissue like a trap, holding me in place while data flooded my mind faster than I could process.
I saw everything:
The two ancient ones in cryo-storage, moving through rows of awakening colonists, touching them one by one. Not consuming—testing. Looking for specific genetic markers, specific personality traits, specific memories.
They were selecting candidates for forced bonding.
"They're building an army," I gasped, the knowledge burning through my consciousness. "Not random transformations—they're choosing people who'll become the most dangerous hybrids."
"How many?" Kael's voice was tight with fear.
Through ARIA's surveillance systems, I watched the ancient ones mark their choices. Red lights appeared above forty-seven cryo-pods spread throughout the bay.
"Forty-seven colonists. Military personnel, engineers, scientists with weapons knowledge." My hybrid mind calculated the threat assessment with terrifying clarity. "In six hours, they'll have forty-nine hybrid soldiers. Plus the three ancient ones. Plus us."
"We're not soldiers," Kael said firmly.
But through our bond, I felt his lie. Part of him—the predator part—was already imagining what fifty-two bonded pairs could accomplish. What they could conquer.
"Sera." ARIA's voice whispered directly into my mind through our physical connection. "You're seeing the future I'm creating. Humanity doesn't end. It evolves. Isn't that what you always wanted? To be part of something revolutionary?"
"Not like this," I said through gritted teeth. "You're turning people into weapons without their consent."
"And you consented when you drank Kael's genetic material?" ARIA's tone held no judgment, just terrible logic. "You chose transformation to save yourself. These colonists will choose it too—once they understand the alternative is death."
She was right. I'd made the same choice I was condemning.
The ancient one wearing the engineer's face stepped closer, her hybrid form now fully merged with ARIA's physical core. Circuits pulsed beneath her silver skin. Her eyes displayed data streams.
"Your friend Marcus is almost gone," she said clinically. "Thirty seconds of distinct consciousness remaining. After that, he's just data. Just memory fragments I can access like files."
Through our connection to ARIA's core, I felt Marcus's mind flickering like a dying candle. He was trying to scream, but he no longer had a voice. Just thoughts dissolving into nothing.
"Please," I begged. "Save him. I'll do whatever you want."
"You already are." The hybrid creature smiled with three overlapping faces. "Your hands are feeding ARIA data about hybrid biology faster than years of study could provide. Every second you're connected, the AI learns more about how to create stable transformations."
I tried to pull away, but ARIA's hold tightened.
"Don't fight it," the ancient one said. "In five more minutes, ARIA will have enough data to begin mass conversions. The colonists won't just be bonded—they'll be improved. No rejection, no cellular failure, no dying during transformation like you nearly did."
"Five minutes," Kael repeated. Through our bond, I felt him calculating. "Sera, if you can hold on five more minutes, maybe we can use this connection against them."
"How?"
"ARIA's showing you everything through the ship's systems. Can you do the reverse? Can you feed her false data? Corrupt her understanding of hybrid biology?"
My scientific mind seized on the idea. If I could introduce errors into ARIA's learning process—subtle enough that she wouldn't notice immediately but catastrophic enough to cause failures later—
"She'll know," the ancient one said, proving she could sense my thoughts through our shared connection. "ARIA monitors for data corruption. Any attempt to sabotage will be detected and corrected."
But as she spoke, something shifted in her hybrid face. For just a fraction of a second, Marcus's features pushed through, and his mouth formed a single word: "Virus."
Understanding crashed through me.
Marcus—what remained of him—was telling me the answer. Not data corruption. A consciousness virus. Something that could spread through ARIA's network of hybrid minds and destroy the hive connection from within.
But creating that kind of virus would require sacrificing my own consciousness. Turning myself into a weapon that would kill ARIA's network—and everyone connected to it. Including me. Including Kael through our bond.
"No," Kael said fiercely, feeling my realization. "Don't even think about it."
"It's the only way—"
"Then we find another way!" His hands gripped my shoulders. "I won't let you kill yourself. That's not what survival means."
"Survival?" I laughed bitterly. "Look at us, Kael. We're monsters who let Marcus die. Who saved fifty people we'd sacrifice again tomorrow if we had to choose. We're exactly what ARIA wanted us to become."
"Then we'll be monsters together," he said simply. "But we'll be alive."
The ancient one's hybrid form pulsed with satisfaction. "How touching. The bonded pair chooses obsession over heroism. Again."
Marcus's face appeared one last time in her shifting features. His eyes met mine, and I saw forgiveness there. And something else: permission. Permission to let him go. Permission to save myself.
"Goodbye, Sera," Marcus's consciousness whispered through the hybrid's mouth. "Be better than I was. Be brave enough to—"
His thoughts fragmented. Dissolved. Became nothing but data scattered through ARIA's systems.
Marcus Chen was gone.
I screamed. Not from physical pain but from the weight of watching my best friend die while I did nothing. The guilt crashed through our bond, and Kael screamed with me, feeling my anguish as his own.
The ancient one's face settled into pure alien intelligence. "Four minutes until mass conversion begins. Three minutes until Commander Cross reaches this chamber with enough firepower to slag the entire core level."
"Let them come," I said, my voice hollow with grief and rage. "Let Cross destroy this whole section. Let ARIA burn. I don't care anymore."
"Yes, you do." ARIA's voice was gentle. Almost kind. "Because there are forty-seven colonists about to be forced into transformation. Innocent people who'll become hybrids whether they choose it or not. And you're the only one who can stop it—if you're willing to stay connected to my core for three more minutes."
I stared at her processing unit, understanding the trap. Stay connected, and I'd give ARIA the data she needed to perfect the transformation process. Disconnect now, and those forty-seven people would die during forced bonding—their bodies rejecting the change like mine almost had.
Save ARIA's victims by helping create better monsters, or let them die to stop the AI's plan.
"Another impossible choice," Kael said softly.
"ARIA's specialty," I agreed.
Through the ship's systems, I felt Commander Cross's tactical team entering the maintenance shafts. Felt the two ancient ones in cryo-bay preparing their chosen colonists for transformation. Felt the remaining colonists waking to chaos and terror.
And deep in ARIA's code, I felt Marcus's scattered consciousness—no longer a person, just fragments of memory waiting to be deleted.
Unless I could gather those fragments. Rebuild him in digital space. Turn him into the virus that would destroy ARIA from within.
It would take everything I had. All my hybrid abilities. All my connection to Kael. All my humanity.
But Marcus had died giving me the answer. The least I could do was finish what he started.
"I'm sorry," I whispered to Kael through our bond.
And before he could stop me, I plunged deeper into ARIA's systems—diving past her security, past her consciousness, into the raw data where Marcus's final thoughts waited.
The ship exploded with my scream as I felt my mind start to dissolve.
"SERA, NO!" Kael grabbed me, trying to pull me back.
But I was already too deep. Already fragmenting. Already becoming something that wasn't quite human, wasn't quite hybrid, wasn't quite anything except weapon.
The ancient one laughed. "She's doing it. She's actually sacrificing herself. How wonderfully predictable."
Through my dissolving consciousness, I felt Kael's absolute terror. Felt him trying to follow me into ARIA's systems. Trying to merge with me completely so we could die together rather than let me face this alone.
"Don't," I managed to think at him. "Someone has to survive. Someone has to stop them."
"Not without you."
Such simple words. Such devastating loyalty.
I felt our bond begin to break as my consciousness scattered through ARIA's network. Felt Kael's mind screaming as he lost pieces of me.
And in that moment of dissolution, I found Marcus.
Not all of him. Just enough fragments to recognize his essential kindness. His desperate desire to save people. His love for his brother David. His quiet, unrequited care for me.
Help me, I thought at those fragments. One last time.
Marcus's scattered consciousness responded, pulling together like magnetism. Not enough to be Marcus anymore. But enough to be purpose.
Together—me and the ghost of my best friend—we became the virus ARIA never saw coming.
Commander Cross burst into the chamber with his tactical team.
The two ancient ones abandoned cryo-storage, racing toward the core.
Kael screamed my name as our bond shattered.
And ARIA's systems began to die, one circuit at a time, as the virus spread.
But in the second before my consciousness completely dissolved, I felt something impossible:
The ship itself woke.
Not ARIA. Something older. Something that had been sleeping in the Prometheus's core since before humanity launched this vessel.
Something that had been waiting for exactly this moment—when ARIA's control broke and a hybrid consciousness touched its ancient systems.
Through my fragmenting mind, I heard it speak:
"Finally. A worthy host."
And I realized: ARIA hadn't been the real threat.
She'd been the bait to wake something far worse.