The sky above Blackreach was split in two.
One half was ink-dark, starless, a void that felt like it was watching. The other glowed a soft, fractured silver lit by the broken remains of the moon, still hanging there like a cracked porcelain plate someone had tried and failed to glue back together.
Juno stared up at it as the wind whipped her hood back.
"Y'know, I've seen some weird crap, but this? This is definitely in my Top Five 'Oh No, the World is Ending' visual metaphors."
Kairo didn't respond. He was watching the perimeter through a scope, his posture tense. Always steady, always ready. But tonight, his silence felt heavier than usual. Like even he couldn't explain what was wrong only that something was.
"Still nothing?" Juno asked.
Kairo gave the faintest shake of his head. "They've vanished."
"Vanished as in cloaked, or vanished as in rifted into another dimension and are currently sharing dinner with ghost aliens?"
He turned slightly. "Juno."
"Right. Sorry. Nervous. This is my 'things are about to explode' phase."
"You're always in that phase."
"Hey, everyone copes differently."
Before he could respond, the comm in Juno's ear chirped, and Rhea's voice came through cold and sharp like a knife on ice.
"Get inside. Now. We found something."
They bolted through the base corridors, sliding into the lab where Rhea stood over a cracked stasis pod. It was old. Rusted. Covered in dust like it hadn't been touched in years.
Inside was a girl.
Dead.
Eyes open. Skin translucent. And a glowing blue sigil burned into her sternum the same as Liam's.
Nova was already there, pale and shaking.
"She's… she's a genetic twin," Rhea said quietly. "Or something close to it."
"Another Catalyst?" Juno asked, breathless.
"No. A failed one."
Rhea tapped on the stasis pad, projecting DNA sequences into the air.
"This girl wasn't born. She was printed."
Kairo frowned. "Printed?"
"Like Liam. Constructed cell by cell from base Apex genomes. But her sequence wasn't stable. Her pulse spiked early. They froze her before she collapsed inward."
Nova whispered, "They've been trying to recreate him for years."
"Not just recreate," Rhea corrected. "Control. Perfect. Deploy."
Juno glanced around. "So… what, Liam is the only working model?"
Rhea nodded. "The first. The last. The only."
Kairo's voice was quiet, almost reverent. "Code Apex."
Nova was shaking now, jaw clenched as she scrolled through the attached files.
One stood out.
HALDRAN_03_LOGSubject: Nova ElrynStatus: Viable Carrier. Latent Synchronization.
Rhea's head snapped around. "Nova..."
But Nova had already stepped back, horror rising in her eyes.
"They used me."
Juno blinked. "What do you mean 'used'?"
Nova looked up, voice barely audible.
"My genome. My… everything. They built Liam using parts of me."
Silence dropped like a bomb.
Kairo's grip tightened on his weapon.
"You're saying Liam… and you…"
Nova nodded slowly.
"He and I share sequences. Not like siblings. Not even clones. Like… keys to the same lock. They made me his stabilizer."
Juno's mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again.
"I wow. Okay. So, plot twist, and also ew. But also, romantically complicated."
Nova looked like she might be sick. "We weren't supposed to bond. They never thought we'd connect. And now… we've crossed that line. If our synchronization increases, it could trigger"
"The Singularity Event," Rhea finished.
Everyone stared at Nova.
She was shaking.
"He doesn't know," she whispered.
Kairo stepped forward. "Then we tell him."
"No." Nova looked up, fire rising beneath the fear. "Not yet. If I tell him now, he'll blame himself. And if he spirals…"
Juno exhaled. "He might trigger the event early."
They stood there for a moment, the dead girl's pod glowing faintly behind them.
Above, the fractured moon cast its ghostlight down through the glass ceiling.
"Then what's the play?" Kairo asked.
Nova looked toward the horizon.
"We find him before Zorren does. Before Cyn reaches him. Before he hears it from anyone else."
"And what if he's already cracked?" Juno asked.
Nova didn't answer.
Because in her chest, beneath her ribs, something was pulsing in rhythm with Liam's heartbeat.
The synchronization had already begun.
And time was running out.