The rift flared open above the Atlantic, just beyond international radar, and from it came a vehicle unlike any seen on Earth. Lockdown's frame had been reforged — part Cybertronian, part Skynet alloy, and all weaponized perfection. In the driver's seat, Shepherd Fox sat calm and alert, his eyes focused ahead as the coastline of Brazil emerged in the distance.
The Fast & Furious world had changed. Han was gone. Gisele, too. Shaw had been defeated. Brian had left the life behind for good. Dominic Toretto and the crew were scattered, living quieter lives in the wake of the chaos and loss. And Shepherd… he had been gone far longer than they knew.
His journey across dimensions had reshaped him. The fusion of the Rift Core with Skynet's past and future fragments had resulted in something far more than an upgrade. RIFTNET, a living AI framework built from the minds of humanity's most dangerous artificial futures, now lived inside him — part advisor, part engine, part weapon. And with it came understanding. The Plunderers were real. The threats to Earth weren't limited to rogue agents, warlords, or black ops.
There were larger games being played. And Earth was vulnerable.
Shepherd had returned, not to rejoin the crew, but to build something that could stand between this world and what came next.
His hidden accounts — boosted by vault gold, off-world resource sales, and alien tech trade — funded the construction of a private megacorporation outside Rio de Janeiro. NovaEdge Industries was born within months. On the surface, it was a green-tech firm working on future fuels and urban mobility. In reality, it was a weapons-and-science forge — a place where Earth's survival was being rewritten in steel and code.
Lockdown became more than a car. Shepherd rebuilt him as a semi-autonomous hybrid AI — capable of transforming into a tactical defense drone, a high-speed transport, and a rift-energy capacitor. The vehicle now bore Skynet's predictive targeting systems, Cybertronian nanite skin, and stealth functions mapped from cloaking tech in the Terminator universe.
Every night, Shepherd ran tests, simulations, and rift-casting events. RIFTNET monitored the multiverse for anomalies, threats, or dimensional tears. And it found something.
A signal.
Complex, encoded, buried deep in quantum channels — the language of the United Federation of Planets.
A Starfleet probe had breached the edge of rift-space. It was faint, drifting, nearly collapsed — but its metadata contained something priceless: maps of known worlds, stardates, Prime Directive signatures, even mention of an ancient temporal war.
Shepherd stared at the data as it unfolded in holographic layers around him. The Star Trek universe — a world of peace and exploration, of massive starships and dangerous ideologies. A world where the balance of ethics and technology was constantly under siege by the unknown.
"Alix," he said — calling out to the voice that had once guided his lab, now enhanced beyond anything human. "Align dimensional coordinates. Begin Rift Core cycle."
"Rift Key calibrated," RIFTNET replied. "Star Trek universe identified. Warning: Cultural contamination protocols active. Stealth entry required."
Lockdown growled beneath him, engines spooling. "Time to see how they run a utopia."
Shepherd didn't say goodbye to Dom. Not yet. The crew had earned their peace, and dragging them into his next war wasn't part of the plan. But he left NovaEdge under failsafe automation, with a data packet locked in vault-code: In case I don't return… build the future anyway.
He drove straight into the rift.
And the stars bent around him.