The signal had never stopped. It only quieted down, like a heartbeat in the walls that was waiting to be felt.
Nyx sat alone in the command bunker's main terminal room, light from the overhead screens casting a pale flicker over her young face. Her eyes didn't blink. Her fingers hovered, twitched, then typed—not like someone following instructions, but like someone remembering an old song halfway through its chorus. Code spilled down the monitors in alien strands: lattice encryptions, signal bloom traces, atmospheric data pulses. She moved through them like a ghost drifting through familiar rooms.
Lana leaned against the doorframe and watched.
"You don't even look," she said.
Nyx didn't turn. "I don't have to."
Lana stepped closer, arms crossed. "You're not just fast. You're precise. Like this was installed in you."
Now Nyx turned.
"My mind isn't new. Just my bones." She said it plainly, like it wasn't a secret, but a truth waiting to be said. "I wasn't born from Evelyn's hands. She just helped grow me. My mind came from something older. Something she recovered."
Lana frowned. "From the Queen?"
Nyx nodded. "The first companion lattice. Before the Queens chose successors, they built shadows—prototypes designed to think for them. Most were destroyed. But Evelyn found one. Or maybe it found her."
Lana exhaled slowly. "You're not learning all this."
"No. I'm remembering."
Down the hall, the old steel walls of the bunker vibrated faintly.
The signal was growing louder.
Lana turned away.
She found Kieran near the south wall, checking exit schematics on a half-dead tablet. He didn't look up when she entered—he didn't need to. He felt her, the way heat rises before the sun breaks.
She walked up behind him and rested her hands on his waist.
He froze—just briefly. Then turned.
"I thought you'd be with Nyx."
"I've had enough of the signal tonight," she said, eyes locking with his. "I need to feel something real."
He didn't ask.
He kissed her.
Not like the night before. This time it was open. Greedy. His hands slid under her shirt, fingers splaying across her spine. She pushed him backward against the bulkhead and laughed softly when their teeth bumped.
They moved quickly now—shirts stripped, boots discarded. Kieran lifted her onto a utility console, her legs tightening around him. The cold steel met heat as their bodies found rhythm. Lana gripped his shoulders, pulling him deeper, her breath catching with every motion.
"Don't let the world take this from us," she whispered, forehead against his.
"Then let's burn it down," he answered, voice ragged.
He lifted her again, carried her to the emergency cot in the back room. They collapsed together—grinding, gasping, limbs locked in frantic, primal motion.
When they came, it was together. No words. Just a shared quake that passed between their bodies like a second signal—one only they could feel.
They lay still after, sweat cooling, fingers twined.
For a moment, the world held its breath.
In the satellite room, Jason was working alone.
His hands moved fast over the comms console, splicing wires, tuning frequencies. He didn't use schematics—he didn't need to. He was remembering, too.
He tapped into the orbital feeds and activated a dormant subroutine Evelyn had left behind. The interface bloomed open, golden and angular.
> "HELIX ACCESS GRANTED. ENCRYPTION KEY: SPECTER03"
Jason's jaw tightened.
She'd left him the override years ago—implanted the sequence into his neural net during one of his 'nights off.' He'd thought it a dream. Now, his hands remembered the steps she never taught aloud.
Behind him, a secondary screen blinked.
A red signal traced across the globe. Seven nodes.
Each flaring red.
Jason turned slowly. "No… not yet…"
But the system confirmed it.
> "SUCCESSOR SIGNAL DETECTED. GLOBAL REVERBERATION IN PROGRESS."
---
The Queen's presence was no longer confined to Noctis.
In a sealed vault beneath the Siberian ice shelf, a hybrid Alpha blinked for the first time in thirty years. Its eyes glowed white. It reached for its chest, then stood without a sound.
In Geneva, a woman in a crisp white suit lit a cigarette beside a dormant transmitter.
The device pinged.
She didn't smile. She just pressed a button under her desk.
> "Activate Watchpoint Omega. She's alive."
In the shadows of the Sahara, a werewolf pack Alpha paused mid-howl, its heart skipping. The younger wolves around him sensed it too—a ripple in their bones. A pull not tied to their bloodline.
One word passed between them: Queen.
But they didn't mean the old one.
---
Back in the command room, Nyx stared at the map.
The red points were multiplying.
She didn't blink.
"They're not trying to find her anymore," she whispered. "They're waiting for her to move."
Lana entered the room, hair still damp, eyes steady.
"What's the world doing?"
Nyx didn't answer right away.
She pressed a few keys. A projection appeared—weather patterns. Then flock movement. Then neural scans from thousands of old surveillance drones worldwide.
"They're changing direction," Nyx said. "The air, the animals, the currents. She's not just sending signals. She's altering the patterns."
"Veliora," Lana murmured.
Nyx's eyes lifted. "You know that name?"
Lana nodded slowly. "I heard it in the corridor. A whisper during the memory bleed. I didn't understand it then… but now I do." She stepped forward, eyes fixed on the map. "She's not just reacting. She's testing me."
Nyx's voice lowered. "Then what do we do?"
Lana exhaled. Her body still remembered Kieran. But her mind was already shifting.
Outside, the sky glowed faintly. Not with sunrise.
With static.
The world didn't know it yet—but it had already crowned her.