The Sahara Desert did not welcome them; it tried to erase them. As Samson and Chipo moved deeper into the Erg Chebbi of Morocco, the world became a monochromatic landscape of blinding orange sand and an indigo sky. The heat was a physical weight, pressing down with a ferocity that made the air shimmer like liquid glass.
Samson's golden arm was now a liability. The metal absorbed the sun's rays, becoming so hot it threatened to sear the skin underneath. He had to wrap his limb in thick, dampened flax, but even then, he could feel the sapphire ink boiling in his veins. The map on his forearm was shifting again, the mountain symbol fading as the "Solar Harvest" took center stage.
"The map is pointing toward the Eye of the Sahara," Samson rasped, his voice cracking from the dryness. "But the detective in me says we're walking into a lens, Chipo. We shouldn't trust the pull. We need a guide who knows how the sand breathes."
They found their guide in a small, nameless oasis a man draped in indigo robes that matched the desert sky. His name was Ibrahim, a Tuareg whose face was a map of wrinkles and wisdom. He looked at Samson's wrapped, glowing arm and nodded slowly.
"You carry the sun's anger, traveler," Ibrahim said, his voice like the rustle of dry palms.
"You seek the Mirror-King. He has turned the sand into glass and the light into a whip."
Ibrahim led them toward a hidden canyon. As they crested the final dune, they saw the fourth site: The Helios Array.
It was a field of ten thousand mirrors, each one perfectly polished and angled to reflect the sun toward a central obsidian tower. But the mirrors weren't made of silvered glass. They were made of Silicate-Bone a substance harvested from the ancient fossil beds of the desert.
As they descended into the array, the temperature rose to a lethal degree. Samson had to use the sapphire energy in his arm to create a localized cooling field, a shimmering blue aura that barely kept them from igniting.
In the shadow of the obsidian tower stood the Helios Architect, a man named Dr. Valtos. He was thin, almost translucent, his skin so pale it looked like parchment. He wore a suit made of flexible mirrors that reflected the desert back at itself, making him nearly invisible.
"Thorne wanted the past, and Njeri wanted the momentum," Valtos said, his voice coming from a dozen directions at once as the mirrors projected his speech. "But light... light is the ultimate record. Every beam of sun hitting this desert contains the data of the universe. I am not just harvesting heat; I am harvesting the Cosmic Stream."
Valtos raised a remote, and the mirrors began to shift. The blinding light didn't hit the tower; it focused into a single, needle-thin beam that struck the sand at Samson's feet. The sand instantly turned to liquid glass.
"You are the Master Die, Samson," Valtos said. "The others failed because they tried to cage the energy. I will simply project you. I will turn your Aetheric signature into a signal and broadcast it into the sun. We will rewrite the solar cycle with your DNA."
"Chipo, get to the cooling pipes!" Samson yelled, his golden arm erupting from its wrappings.
The sapphire light met the solar beam. The clash produced a sound like a thousand bells shattering. Samson was pushed back, his boots dragging through the molten glass. He realized he couldn't outshine the sun. He had to use the desert's own history.
Samson didn't fight the light. He sank his golden hand deep into the molten glass, reaching past the heat to the Ancient Seabed that lay beneath the Sahara. He called to the fossils the trillions of tiny, prehistoric organisms that made up the silicate sand.
"You're using their bones for your mirrors, Valtos!" Samson roared. "But they still remember the ocean!"
Samson channeled the "Aetheric Residue" of the ancient sea through his arm. A wave of cool, blue moisture the memory of a sea that had dried up millions of years ago surged up through the sand.
The mirrors, made of silicate-bone, reacted to the "memory" of water. They didn't break; they opaqued. The polished surfaces turned milky and dull, losing their reflectivity. The solar beam vanished.
The obsidian tower, deprived of its focused heat, began to crack. The "Cosmic Stream" Valtos had been harvesting backfired, the energy trapped in the tower's core with nowhere to go.
"My data!" Valtos shrieked, rushing toward the crumbling obsidian. "The light! It's going dark!"
"The desert belongs to the wind and the stars, not your sensors," Samson said, the blue light of his arm slowly fading to a calm amber.
The Helios Array shattered. The mirrors fell like giant petals, burying the obsidian tower in a heap of white glass. Valtos was gone, consumed by the very light he tried to bottle.
As the sun set, casting long, purple shadows over the glass ruins, Samson's tattoo updated itself. A sun symbol, crossed with a wave.
"Four down," Chipo said, wiping the grit from her eyes. "But Samson... look at the map."
The remaining eight dots weren't appearing one by one anymore. They were all flashing in unison, forming a circle around a single point in the Atlantic Ocean.
"They're not waiting for us to find them," Samson said, his golden hand feeling heavier than ever. "The Foremen are converging. They're going to the Source."
"And where is that?"
Samson looked at the blinking light in the middle of the ocean. "The place where the first vault was built. The place the world forgot before it even had a name. We're going to Atlantis, Chipo. But it won't be a city of gold. It'll be a city of ghosts."