The quiet after the storm felt almost unnatural.
Aarav and Isha stood at the edge of the old city, looking back at the skyline of Delhi, now painted with the soft pastels of a sunset. For the first time in days, they felt like they could breathe. The Dominion Node had been destroyed. That particular branch of their timeline had been reset. But the weight of what lay ahead still pressed down on their shoulders.
Aarav checked his chrono-band. It blinked slowly, the display showing only a single message:
Next Node Location: Encrypted.Awaiting calibration...
He sighed. "We're not done."
Isha, standing beside him, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Did you think we would be?"
He gave a tired smile. "I was hoping."
They spent the night in an old haveli Isha had discovered—abandoned, but still standing strong amidst the shifting tides of history. The house was filled with relics from a different time: oil lamps, handwoven rugs, family portraits faded by sunlight and dust. The air was thick with memory.
"What happens now?" Isha asked as she rolled out a mat.
Aarav stared at the ceiling, the faint crack in the plaster strangely comforting. "We wait until the band calibrates. And then we follow it."
It was past midnight when the chrono-band pulsed softly. Aarav sat up instantly, heart racing. The screen had changed.
Node Detected: Year 2121.Location: Autonomous Data Archive, Singapore.
Beneath it, another line flashed briefly:
This one remembers everything.
He stared at it for a long time, then gently nudged Isha awake.
The time jump was rougher this time.
Unlike the jumps before, where the surroundings shifted with some grace, this one felt like being yanked through a whirlwind of static. Aarav and Isha tumbled out of the portal onto a metallic floor, coughing and gasping. The air smelled sterile, faintly metallic. Their ears rang. For several seconds, neither could speak. They simply sat there, regaining their breath, as the environment around them slowly came into focus.
The Archive was massive.
Above them stretched towers of servers, glowing with shifting blue and violet lights. The walls were transparent, revealing what looked like clouds beyond—as if the building floated in the sky. Drones zipped between the towers, scanning, maintaining, recording. Mechanical hums filled the air like an omnipresent heartbeat. The facility felt alive, sentient almost.
"Where are we exactly?" Isha asked, brushing dust from her sleeve and staring in awe at the walls that seemed to disappear into the sky.
Aarav checked his band again. "Singapore. Year 2121. This is the Autonomous Data Archive. According to the resistance records, it's where the Dominion keeps a complete backup of every altered timeline."
Isha's eyes widened. "You mean... every edit they've ever made? Every life changed, erased, rewritten?"
He nodded. "If we can access it, we might find out everything. Even their endgame."
They moved carefully through the corridors, observing the pristine precision of this futuristic stronghold. The floor beneath them felt warm, responsive, like it could sense their steps. Panels in the wall occasionally flickered with Dominion symbols. Everything was silent, except for the occasional low rumble of cooling systems and the faint drone hum.
Navigating the Archive wasn't easy. The corridors were seamless, guarded by automated turrets and surveillance drones. Laser tripwires flickered momentarily before vanishing again. But Aarav had learned a thing or two. Using a cloaking module salvaged from Kepler's device, he masked their presence long enough to slip past the initial defenses.
In the heart of the Archive, they found it: a chamber labeled simply Core Memory.
The room was circular, walls lined with floating data streams. In the center stood a pillar of glass, inside which pulsed a massive crystalline structure—the memory core.
As Aarav approached, the room responded.
"Accessing user profile..."
The voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere. A moment later, the crystal lit up.
Identity match: Aarav Malhotra. Temporal anomaly.
Access granted.
"Wait," Isha whispered. "Why would it grant you access?"
Aarav hesitated. "Because... I'm part of the anomaly. Maybe even the reason the Dominion failed in some version of the timeline. They must have left a backdoor in case I survived."
He stepped forward. The core shifted. Holographic files appeared, dozens at first, then hundreds. Aarav opened one.
Timeline Designation: 98-DeltaStatus: Terminated
Subject: Aarav Malhotra - eliminated at age 9.
His stomach twisted.
Isha opened another.
Timeline Designation: 124-GammaStatus: Fractured
Subject: Isha Mehta - resistance collaborator. Status: Erased.
She stepped back, pale.
"They've killed us. Again and again."
Aarav's eyes narrowed. "But we're still here. That means something."
Then he saw it—a hidden folder marked ECHO.
He opened it.
A video began to play. A man stood in a dark room, his face shrouded. But the voice...
It was Aarav's.
"If you're watching this, then I failed to stop them in my timeline. But you might still have a chance. The Nodes aren't just for controlling history. They're beacons. They send data back to the Source. Destroy enough of them, and you can trace it. Find the Source. End this."
The screen flickered. A sequence of coordinates appeared.
[CLASSIFIED ORIGIN: DOMINION SOURCE]
Aarav downloaded them to his band.
"We have the path," he whispered.
But the room suddenly went red.
WARNING: Unauthorized download detected.Sentinels en route.
"We need to move," Isha said.
They ran.
Through the glowing corridors of the Archive, they fled. Drones gave chase, lasers flashing. They ducked behind data pillars, leapt over collapsed walkways. Aarav activated the emergency return beacon.
"It's taking too long to charge!" Isha yelled, dodging a plasma blast.
"Ten more seconds!" Aarav shouted.
The platform began to glow. They could see the portal forming—a swirling vortex of white and blue.
Drones closed in, one of them clipping Aarav's shoulder with a blast of energy. He grunted, falling forward.
"Come on!" Isha screamed, grabbing him and pulling him up.
The moment the portal was fully open, they dove through. Behind them, the hallway erupted in white light.
They landed hard on concrete.
Back in their present base, panting, bruised, and dust-covered, they lay on the floor. Their hearts pounded in unison.
Aarav's shoulder burned, the wound raw. But none of that mattered.
Because on his wrist, the coordinates glowed.
"We have the map now. We know where the Source is."
Isha smiled through her exhaustion. "Then let's go finish what you started."
Aarav nodded slowly, rising to his feet.
The journey had just become something else entirely.