Riven led them into a recessed junction chamber below the habitation tier, two levels below the reservoir tank they were just in. The chamber gave way to an old maintenance node lined with inactive conduit hubs. He moved quickly, prying off a vent panel with practiced ease. Behind it, wrapped in thermal mesh and blackout fabric, was a narrow compartment packed tight with firepower.
"This is the north wall, panel four." he said. "More specifically, a dummy sensor. I built it as insurance. I never thought it would go down like this, but I guess today's the payout." He started distributing the gear without ceremony.
To Nova, he handed a black case the size of a med kit. She opened it, snapping each component together with mechanical fluidity - barrel, receiver, recoil module, optic. The pieces clicked into a compact modular rifle, humming softly as it came online.
"Not standard issue." she said. "Seems you built it from workshop scraps and bad habits."
Riven tossed a weighted bandolier over his shoulder, packed with several satchels and drum mags. "Today, they're good habits, from where I'm standing."
Calyx stepped forward and withdrew a long, curved naginata-style weapon from a compartment built into the wall - a kinetispear - fully equipped with a carbon-steel spine and magnetic tips. This was a long range, eloquent bladed spear capable of incredible damage in the right hands. Luckily, they were in Calyx's. "Acceptable." She said.
Caelus reached into the case, and after rifling through the contents for a bit, pulled out ammunition for his wrist cannon. He rolled back his sleeves to the elbow, revealing matte-black subdermal plating with integrated blade channels.
"I don't need more than this, really." he said. "I work off of velocity."
Riven handed him a compact breacher charge anyway, complete with a smile. "For when velocity needs a plus-one."
The four of them stood in silence, the weight of what they were about to do pressing down like gravity. After a bit of silent recognition, they moved.
The village lay dormant in the pre-dawn haze, heat lamps flickering off, the rhythmic hum of life support systems reduced to background breath. The air was still, but charged - the kind of stillness that came before a detonation. Riven led them through a narrow corridor beneath the habitation tier. The tunnel walls were slick with condensation, lit only by the low pulse of overhead security lights running on local cycles.
No alarms. No patrols. Not yet.
"Gate chamber's on the far side," Riven whispered, voice low but steady. "This service corridor feeds right into the main passageways, one of which we need to get to the manual override room. But once we're past the corridor's access hatch, there's no turning around."
Calyx's forward body, the prime, scanned the walls. "No movement patterns detected ahead. My data indicates they're sleeping. Or at least pretending to."
Nova said nothing. Her thoughts were locked in the rhythm of footfalls and weapon diagnostics. She didn't want to speak. Not yet. Caelus led point, rifle at the ready. The closer they got, the more the silence began to feel artificial - too smooth. Too... designed.
They reached the last corner before the gate chamber's rear entrance.
That's when Riven stopped.
He held up a hand, then crouched. Pressed two fingers to the wall.
"Something's wrong," he muttered. "The sensor loops I installed for monitoring have been rerouted."
Nova stepped beside him. "Meaning?"
"Meaning someone knows. Maybe not what - but something."
Calyx's voice cut through the dark. "We have to proceed. Our objective has not changed."
Nova nodded. "And if it's civilians?"
Caelus answered for her. "Then we don't shoot first. But we don't die trying to explain ourselves, either."
Riven stood. "I don't like it."
"You're allowed not to like it," Nova said. "None of us do. These people may not have a part to play, but they're apart of the design nonetheless."
They rounded the final bend, and right up to the end of the service corridor.
Beyond, two guards were already there - shoulders tense, hands near weapons. No alarms, no shouting. The group shared a second of recognition that this was not a patrol. Not a conversation. This was about to go loud.
Riven moved first.
Two rounds, clean and silent. The guards dropped. One dead. One unconscious.
Nova's heart rate didn't spike. Neither did Caelus's. Calyx's rear body stepped into the light. "We're live now."
Nova glanced back. In a window above the ground level, she glimpsed a child - maybe eight years old - pressing her face to the glass. No panic, no screaming, just watching. Her hands idle against the fogged surface. Within just a few seconds, the hallway slammed shut, and she was gone; the atmosphere surrounding Nova transitioning to an orchestra of flashing red lights. Containment doors groaned into motion. They weren't the hunters anymore, now they were inside the trap.
"Remember, this isn't about protecting the gate," she said. "They're protecting a story."
Riven chambered a fresh round. "Then we tear it apart."
Calyx chimed in. "Collateral innocence is a common strategic defense. Embedding noncombatants ensures moral hesitation in advancing forces." She looked at Nova. "We hesitate. Echo does not."
They charged forward - into the first line of defense. The first shot was muffled. The second wasn't. A guard at the far end of the corridor opened fire as soon as he saw movement. His rounds sparked off the curved bulkhead beside Nova, missing her by inches.
"Cover!" Caelus barked, already moving. He dropped into a slide and fired several quick bursts from his rifle. One hit, the rest missed. Suppression fire, not intended to kill, but to reposition his team.
Riven ducked into a side recess and pulled a satchel charge from his belt. "Give me two seconds."
Nova tapped into the corridor's light grid and surged a short-range EMP burst through the emergency lighting - temporary blindness for everyone on their side but Calyx, whose optics adapted instantly.
Riven moved seamlessly - sliding a charge down the wall, angled for a bounce. It struck the far archway and detonated in a controlled concussive wave - not lethal, but enough to collapse part of the overhead and scatter the enemy's line. The light from the explosion lit the darkness like a miniature sun.
"Move!" he shouted.
They pushed forward - Calyx first, one of her bodies shielding the others. The corridor continued to shriek with gunfire. Moments later, a turret activated above the blast zone, whirring to life, barrel pivoting toward Calyx's lead unit - the prime.
High caliber rounds erupted in a scream through the barely-lit passageway. But before the rounds could connect, Caelus moved in - both arms forward, shield emitters flaring to life with a harmonic snap. The projection solidified into a kinetic barrier just as the gunfire connected. Bullets hammered the shield like rain on glass, the resonance howling through the corridor.
Calyx advanced behind him, posture calm but focused. She extended a pair of interface tendrils into the wall socket beside her in an attempt to tunnel into the turret's undoubtedly primitive firmware. "Overriding fire logic," she murmured. Caelus adjusted his stance, absorbing another burst of explosive rounds from the guards.
Then - movement.
Another guard stepped in from a side hallway, quiet as a shadow, raising his rifle. His barrel leveled at Caelus's exposed flank - directly at the base of his skull.
Nova's breath caught. She was so far away. Her intuition screamed at the threat before she did. "Caelus!"
He couldn't move.
Calyx was still connected. The turret was still firing.
Nova didn't think.
Her left arm snapped up, fingers twitching through command instinct. Rather than launch a pulse, she reached into Caelus's system - a burst-link override, brute-forcing her way into his right arm's servos. Caelus's body jerked. Nova mimicked his body's actions as though Caelus were her personal mech. His right arm tore backward, blade extending, and impaled the guard through the chest with a sharp, wet crunch.
Blood sprayed out from the impact as the blade found its home. The man dropped to the floor almost instantly. Moments later, the turret fell silent - Calyx's override completing a second later. Nova exhaled and let go. Caelus's right arm spun once in place before returning to his control. He flexed his fingers, then looked at her.
She met his eyes. "Sorry."
"Don't be," he said, voice low. "That was clean."
Calyx disconnected from the wall and rose. "Efficient. Unorthodox. Satisfying."
The corridor smelled of expended ammunition, blood, and the faint sting of melted steel. No one spoke as they moved forward. Then came footsteps - rushed, deliberate, and echoing above them. Nova raised her rifle, scanning the ventilation seams overhead. "We've got one above."
Caelus shifted to cover the right flank.
Calyx didn't speak.
She stepped toward the wall instead - calm, clinical - and placed her palm flat against the surface. Her fingers spread. The contact plates in her hand rippled with energy. The metal vibrated. Subtle at first, then deeper. A low resonance, felt more than heard. Tiny specks, almost like dust at first, seeped into the air from her palm and vanished into the wall, infiltrating it.
"Nanites?" Caelus murmured. "I thought you only used those for - "
The metal ahead bulged.
A smooth, polished square of the corridor wall folded outward in a sudden shear of mass, like a living hinge slamming forward.
CRACK.
A man dropped from an upper hatch in the ceiling, although halfway down in his descent, he was struck full in the face by the reconfigured slab of metal.
Bone shattered. He dropped like cargo, unconscious before he hit the floor. The wall retracted. Hardened again. Seamless. Calyx withdrew her hand and turned, voice even.
"Matter is only disobedient when left untrained."
Nova blinked. "You've been able to do that this whole time?"
"Matter reconfiguration? Of course," Calyx replied. "It's simply rare that the geometry is suitable for dramatic demonstration."
Caelus adjusted his stance, glancing down at the fallen attacker. "That's both useful and slightly terrifying."
Riven whistled low. "Yeah remind me not to sleep near walls."
Nova gave a short nod. "Let's continue moving."
They pressed forward, deeper into the complex, nearly there to the manual override control room. They passed a scorched doorframe, the blast-marked walls whispering of earlier firefights - conflicts older than their own escape. A broken gurney rested against the wall, half-sunk into a melted groove in the floor.
Nova paused.
She noticed something wedged between two collapsed panels - a charred box with Ascendent markings long since scratched away. Inside, a data pad, old but intact, blinking once with a dim blue light. It looked like someone had hidden it hastily, in the middle of a fight.
She picked it up.
The screen stuttered once, then stabilized.
[AUDIO FILE PLAYING: Entry 28]
Nova's own voice filled the corridor.
"If you're... If you're reading this... it means his memory recursion didn't hold. That's progress, but this isn't the first time you've made it this far. You've come through the gate before. You've met Riven before. Made that same stupid joke about 'the worst decision of your life.'
And you've died - in a sense. Perhaps worse. You've forgotten.
Echo doesn't need to kill you. It just erases the parts of you that remember why you're dangerous.
You're not here to finish Ward's mission. That was the hook. He probably didn't even give the command of his own volition. The real purpose is deeper. Older. Personal.
Calyx has been erased at least four times. You saw it once. You even caused it once.
Caelus has spoken to Echo before, but he doesn't know it yet. At some point he will, and you can't protect him from that. Echo has more power over him than anyone else.
Riven... isn't always Riven. Sometimes Demetria defects. One time it was Alencio. Riven has joined you the most. Probably has the most to gain - and everything to lose.
I'm leaving this here for us. Because we know Echo won't expect it. He understands information, and to a large degree, prediction. But he still doesn't understand regret. And that's likely the key to breaking the loop.
That's why we're cataloging this here. And you will too.
The Spoke isn't a fortress. It's a mirror, held up to reflect humanity's innate natures. When you get there, ask Echo the question you were too afraid to ask last time.
You'll know it when you feel the silence stretch too long.
- Nova"
The file ended.
The silence was immeasurable. Caelus spoke first. His voice was low. Even. "Well, she's not wrong on one point. I did have contact with Echo."
Five heads turned toward him.
"It happened when Nova hacked my arm, before Calyx was reshaping the corridor. There was a breach. Echo found it."
Nova's voice was barely a whisper. "What did he say?"
"He made me an offer. Said if I abandoned the mission, he'd wipe my memory. Take away everything I'd carried under Lucius - every scar. Every kill."
Caelus looked at her directly now. "He promised me a new body. One that wasn't made to be a shield. One that could be... free. To grow. To live. To make a new life, maybe even in Sovereign City. "He said that pain is how our kind remembers. He's offering us peace."
Nova blinked. "You... didn't say anything. Why?"
"I haven't answered yet," Caelus said. "But he knew something else. He said the scars of my past would keep piling up. Just like the scar on your stomach."
Nova blinked. "Scar?"
She dropped her rifle, fingers lifting the hem of her shirt.
There it was.
A long, deep scar - healed but unmistakable. A relic from a battle she didn't remember.
She staggered back.
"I've never seen this before," she whispered.
Caelus didn't speak. No one did.
The illusion of continuity was gone.
Calyx was the first to move. Her voice came softly. "This aligns with corruption anomalies in my records. I will need to audit my partition. And possibly... attempt to lock out overwrite access. I do not know if that is something I can even do."
Riven exhaled sharply, pacing a few steps before slamming his hand against the wall. "So then it's real. The loops. The wipes. All of it. How many times have we been through here?"
Nova let her shirt fall. Her voice was steady now. Cold and sharp as a wire.
"This is the 28th entry." Nova declared. "So at least that many. But this time," she said, "we end it."
He laughed - but it came out wrong. Too thin. Too sharp. "Riven... isn't always Riven," he muttered, repeating the words like a curse. "Sometimes Demetria. Sometimes Alencio."
He took a step back from the group. The data pad light flickered against his face - his jaw clenched, his hands shaking. "You know what the worst part is?" he said. "I always hated you people for your technology. Your programmed enhancements. Augment this, override that. I thought I made it out clean. Human."
He slammed his fist against the wall. Not enough to break it, just enough to feel pain.
"Guess I'm not. Guess I'm just another glitch Echo didn't debug right. Another synthetic puppet who thinks he's making a choice." Nova started to speak, but he cut her off with a raised hand. "Don't. Just... don't. I thought defecting made me free. But if I've done this before... if I've played this exact part, said the same words, carried the same gear - then I'm no different than one of them. Just better camouflaged."
His voice dropped. "I didn't defect. I was deployed."
Caelus watched him quietly. Calyx tilted her head, algorithms silently firing. Nova's hands were still at her side - but her expression had shifted. Pity? No. Recognition. Riven paced once more, slower now, then stopped. "I don't want to be a recycled shell with a new name. I don't want to be your useful error, Nova. I want to be real."
The data pad felt heavier in Nova's hand than it should've. The scar on her stomach still burned - not physically, but in awareness. Proof. They were past doubt. Past theory. They were in the recursion. And one of them was no longer walking forward.
Caelus noticed first. He turned, one hand resting near his blade. "Where are your thoughts right now, Riven?"
Riven didn't answer right away.
He just stared at the wall for a second, his hand on it like he expected it to pulse, to breathe, to whisper. And maybe it did.
Then, softly:
"This was supposed to be the one that worked."
Nova's breath caught. "Riven -?"
He looked at her. Eyes tired. Broken in a way that had nothing to do with the fight.
"If I've defected before... if I've played this part a dozen times... then none of this is real. Not my gear. Not my decisions. Not me."
He looked down at his hands. Trembling. Callused. Augmented.
"I can feel it now. The changes. Echo didn't just use me. He built me. This version anyway. Just enough augments to make me useful. Not enough to notice."
Calyx stepped forward slowly, eyes narrowing. "You're speaking like a martyr."
"I'm speaking like a man who just realized he's synthetic enough to be recycled."
His voice cracked.
"You know what Purists fear more than death? Contamination. And I'm contaminated, Nova. I'm Echo's sleeper shell, dressed up in human tragedy. You think I'm gonna let him use me again!?"
Nova reached toward him. "You're still you, Riven -"
"No." "I'm close to me. Close enough to fool myself. But if I'm a tool... then let me break. Let me be useless to Echo. Just once."
Calyx's tone sharpened. "You're preparing to destroy the station."
He locked eyes with her - impressed.
"Damn. You always were the fastest processor in the room."
She took one step forward. "You're framing your erasure as autonomy. A poet's trick. But there are other ways to be free."
Riven shook his head.
"Not for me."
Then he turned to Nova. And the shift in his face - the apology - hit her harder than any explosion ever could.
"You were the first one who made me want to be better. I just wish... I wish I'd met you in a story where I had the choice to mean it."
His hand dipped into his satchel and came out with a fist-sized emitter core, humming faintly with internal charge, and tossed it into the space between them. The device hit and discharged instantly - unfurling an expanding lattice of projected energy in a flash of violet light. A concussive pulse knocked dust from the walls.
A barrier surged upward, hard and glowing, cutting Nova and the others off in a single brutal gesture. They were divided, by his choice.
"RIVEN!" Nova screamed.
But he was already gone, his silhouette vanishing around the bend, leaving behind only the dead air pulsing with red alert lights.
Caelus threw his weight against the barrier. Nothing.
Nova blasted it with her rifle, again, again - the shots ricocheting off like water on glass.
"This isn't happening," she whispered.
Calyx stood still, her eyes tracking. "He's heading to the jump gate! Likely to the primary power array. If he breaches the core... the whole jump station will rupture."
Nova backed up, took aim, fired one last time.
"We're getting through."
Because if they didn't, Riven wouldn't be the only one Echo erased. Calyx's hands flicked through her scans. "The barrier is high-density field plasma lattice. Proprietary Sovereign pattern. Anchored to structural plates. We have no path forward."
Nova slammed her hand against the field again. "We're not leaving him. There has to be - "
She turned. Caelus was already stepping forward.
"There's always a way through," he said quietly.
He unlatched his shoulder brace and powered up his projection shield. This time it didn't extend outward. Instead, he inverted the energy, wrapping it around himself like a blunt-edge ram.
Calyx tilted her head. "That level of feedback will rupture your chassis."
Caelus looked at the barrier, then at Nova. "He's dying to matter. I won't let the last thing he sees be failure."
Nova opened her mouth to stop him, but it was too late. Caelus lunged.
He hit the barrier full-force, shield flaring like a sonic boom. The air screamed. Sparks arced along the floor. His armor buckled, groaned. Even the light fractured.
He hit it again.
And again.
On the third strike, the emitter cracked - not all at once, but like glass under heat. A flicker, a flash, and then, collapse. The barrier vanished.
Caelus dropped to one knee, smoke curling from his gauntlets. His right arm hung dead at the shoulder, mechanical ligaments severed, servos torched.
"We need to go," he said. "Now."
Nova knelt beside him. "Can you move?"
"I didn't break it just to rest."
The jump chamber was dimly lit, humming with residual energy. White-hot coolant hissed from a ruptured valve. The gate pulsed faintly, active - but unstable. And there, near the fusion intake manifold, was Riven. He was already arming the first charge. Another sat beside it, glowing faintly red. His satchel was open. The sequence was seconds from locking.
Nova stopped just short of the threshold. Her rifle at the ready.
"Riven," she said.
He turned, slow, almost at peace. Caelus raised his rifle, but Nova held out a hand to stop him.
"Don't do this," she said. "This isn't freedom. This is surrender."
Riven's eyes burned. "No. It's the only thing I own. Echo took everything else -my name, my past, my future. But this... this choice is mine."
"You don't know that. You don't know Echo's not guiding you to this exact moment."
"And if he is? Then let this be the one moment I get to confuse him." He turned back toward the core. "If I'm gone before the reset, maybe I get to stay dead."
Nova's hand trembled. She glanced at Caelus. He didn't move. Calyx watched, silent. Riven raised the detonator.
"Goodbye, Nova."
She didn't shout. She didn't beg. She switched modes. Her left arm snapped forward and fired a burst. Not a bullet. Not a pulse. An acute EMP spike, fine-tuned and deliberate. It struck Riven square at the base of his neck. He jerked once. Then collapsed. Smoke curled from the neural interface behind his ear. His hand never reached the trigger.
Caelus approached. Not touching her. Just... present. "You stopped him," he said.
Calyx spoke up, resolute. "He died as a man trying to be more than a pattern. That is... uncommon. Noble."
Nova didn't answer right away. When she did, her voice cracked, just once. "He wanted to end it. I just made sure no one could rewrite that ending."
Nova took her time, eyes fixed on Riven's body, before turning toward the gate, which was practically glistening in anticipation. They all knew the Spoke waited, and it knew they were coming. This time, they were ready for it.