## **Chapter 4 – The Forgotten Signal**
The shuttle dropped through Earth's upper atmosphere like a blade through silk.
Aarin stood at the viewport, watching the blue planet swell beneath him. It should've felt like coming home. But it didn't. Not anymore. The Earth below was too quiet. Too pristine. Like someone had cleaned the surface and wiped away the chaos.
Raylen and Selene sat behind him, silent. Both were still processing the revelations on Orion-9—the creature, the cube, the Archivist. Time had cracked open, and they'd been shoved into the fracture.
As the ship entered lower orbit, a warning ping echoed through the console.
> "Unauthorized entry detected. Civilian orbital grid re-calibrating."
Raylen cursed. "They know we're coming."
Selene's fingers flew over the controls. "Masking ID. Spoofing registry. Buying us 60 seconds."
"Plenty," Aarin said.
He activated the cube, and a new beacon lit up on the holographic map—**deep beneath Siberia**, in the abandoned ruins of an ancient facility long forgotten by history.
Except… it wasn't.
---
**Twelve hours later**
**Underground Base Echo-0, Siberia**
The cold bit through Aarin's armor as they descended into the frost-covered chasm. The entrance to Echo-0 was sealed shut with a kilometer-thick glacier—until the cube reacted. It hummed with dark light, dissolving the ice as if erasing memory itself.
Steel doors, rusted and warped, creaked open like the jaws of a buried titan.
Inside was darkness—and echoes.
Lights flickered.
Alarms long dead coughed into life.
And then a voice spoke, faint and mechanical.
> "Access granted…
> Welcome back, Dr. Hal Voss."
Raylen's eyes widened. "That's your father?"
Aarin nodded, heart pounding. "This was one of his secret sites. I had no idea."
The facility opened in stages, like a machine reluctantly waking. Walls peeled back to reveal a sprawling underground city—frozen in time. Desks left in a rush. Coffee mugs fossilized mid-sip. And at the center, a **monolithic chamber** lined with massive pillars etched in alien symbols.
The first **Core** lay dormant in the heart of the room.
It wasn't a device. It was a **being**.
Humanoid in shape. Covered in armor of obsidian and gold. Floating inches above the ground in a fetal position, surrounded by glyphs that shimmered like stars.
> "This is no machine," Selene whispered. "It's… sleeping."
The cube pulsed violently.
> \[Core 1: Ready for Assimilation]
> \[Warning: Dormant Guardian Presence Detected]
Aarin stepped forward.
And the being **opened its eyes**.
---
The blast wave hit them all.
Raylen was thrown backward into a pillar. Selene tumbled into a heap of old metal. Aarin was hurled across the floor—but even as he skidded, the cube *glowed*, cushioning the impact.
The Guardian stood now, tall and radiant. Its eyes burned like twin suns. It didn't speak. It didn't breathe. It simply pointed at Aarin—and a wall of memory slammed into his mind.
Suddenly he was somewhere else.
Not in the base.
But in a memory.
A battlefield.
---
Armies clashed on a planet that wasn't Earth. Great ships fell from the sky like dead gods. The Guardian fought among the chaos, its body breaking and reforming, slaughtering creatures made of void and time. Aarin stood in the middle, witnessing it all as if he'd lived it.
And then he saw himself.
A boy, holding the cube.
Running from the war.
Running *toward* Earth.
> "You are the vessel," a voice echoed.
> "The cycle returns."
> "You must break it... or become it."
---
He awoke gasping.
The Guardian hovered before him, unmoving.
Then it spoke, voice ancient and synthetic.
> "If you are the bearer of the cube... prove it."
Aarin staggered forward, lifting the artifact.
The cube responded, sending a pulse of black lightning through the chamber.
The Guardian screamed—not in pain, but in **recognition**.
It dropped to one knee.
> "The first Core is now yours."
The pillars around them lit up.
The map in Aarin's HUD updated—four more locations across the galaxy shimmered into view.
But something else flickered into existence too—a dark signal.
> \[Broadcast Detected]
> \[Location: Lunar Relay – Side B]
> \[Message Origin: The In-Between]
> \[Sender ID: VOSS, HAL]
Aarin's eyes went wide. "He's alive. He's trying to contact me."
Raylen exhaled sharply. "Then what are we waiting for?"
A low hum shook the ground again.
Not from the Core.
But from above.
Selene pointed at the sky.
"Something's coming."
A new ship—massive, sleek, and silent—descended through the clouds.
No markings. No engine noise.
And no explanation.
The Guardian rose beside Aarin, eyes narrowing.
> "The Others have awakened. They remember the Key."
Aarin gripped the cube.
"I don't care who remembers. I'm going to find my father."
---
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