Elaine's altered note triggered a chain reaction in the icebound cathedral.
Three of the seven oceanic Arks ceased their beams, while the remaining four turned on each other like wounded beasts. The Japan Sea facility emitted pulse waves that stripped crystals from the Gulf of Mexico Ark, while the Mid-Atlantic Ark—where her parents were trapped—began draining energy from the others like a predator.
"The plague is fracturing..." The Patriarch's ruined hand pressed against the ice, feeling tremors. "Not a unified consciousness, but rival strains consuming each other."
Qi's body was now 75% crystal, yet his mechanical eye still flickered defiantly. With his last human fingers, he carved coordinates—not geographical, but a genetic sequence. When Elaine's retinas auto-translated it, she trembled:
HARPER-Ω-1946
Her great-grandfather's classified designation for the Bikini Atoll salvage operation.
A heartbeat-like vibration surged from the ice depths. The cathedral's blue neural networks contracted toward the central altar. Margaret's final words now revealed their true meaning—"before dawn" didn't refer to time, but the final darkness before the Arctic's midnight sun rose.
The tentacled woman's submarine abruptly changed course, abandoning the cathedral for the Mid-Atlantic. "She's harvesting ripe crops..." The Patriarch coughed up blue crystals. "Your parents' bodies have become perfect vessels..."
Elaine's contamination hit 91%. Her left eye fully crystallized, granting vision into quantum entanglement phenomena. Now she understood Qi's "REMNANT"—in the cathedral's lowest level, an uninfected Ancient Engineer was frozen in a time-stasis field, his genetic structure the prototype of the Harper bloodline.
"He's no prisoner..." Elaine's crystalline fingers plunged into the altar, the floor parting like living tissue. "He's the vaccine."
A transparent chamber rose from the abyss. Inside, a being with pearlescent scales and a human face stared back, an identical biodevice embedded in his chest. When his eyes opened, every crystal in the cathedral shrieked in unison.
"Traitor." The Engineer's voice spoke directly into Elaine's mind. "Your lineage was to ensure we never woke."
A data deluge flooded her consciousness—the first Harper woman had indeed betrayed the pact. She preserved a pure genetic sample by splicing it into her own DNA. That's why Harper women always felt the ocean's call upon adulthood, why they heard the Arks' songs...
Military sonar suddenly pinged around them. Elaine's new quantum vision revealed three Virginia-class attack submarines positioning torpedoes—not with explosives, but genetic dissolvers.
"They're not here to rescue..." The Engineer's lips curled. "They're here to sterilize."
Qi's body erupted with final energy. His mechanical arm disintegrated, revealing a miniature nuclear core—Naval Intelligence's highest-grade self-destruct.
"Take the Remnant..." His voice was wholly human for the first time. "Sing the reverse lullaby...when the midnight sun crests..."
As the first torpedo struck, Elaine grabbed the Engineer's wrist and leapt into the cathedral's submerged tunnels. Behind her, Qi's core detonated, blue fire consuming the Arctic base.
And on her retinas, the counter advanced:
BIO-CONVERSION PROGRESS: 99.1%