Berlin midnight skies were slate-gray, stained by the neon-glow of surveillance drones crisscrossing overhead. Rain fell in sharp, almost metallic drops as Anderson and Cadence stood beneath the jagged silhouette of the Arcadia Complex.
A fortress built from layered carbon-glass and living metal, Arcadia was an architectural ghost—visible only to those the system allowed to perceive it. Most Berliners passed by unaware, blind to the structure due to embedded neural dampeners in their contact lenses and embedded optics. Anderson, however, now saw through the veil.
"We won't get a second chance at this," Cadence said, wiping rain from her lips.
Anderson nodded. "Then we won't miss."
They moved fast, using a backdoor algorithm Cadence had acquired from a rogue node of The Continuum. A momentary window—a 17.4-second blind spot—opened in the south access gate. It was enough.
Inside, the world changed.
Sensors tracked air density, bio-electric signatures, even memory rhythms. Every hallway of the Arcadia Complex pulsed with ghost-light, as if the building itself were alive.
"Ward is held in the Sub-Neural Division, level minus-nine," Cadence whispered, skimming data through her lens. "They keep him sedated, linked to a signal-dampener. We need to sever the uplink first."
They ducked into the shadow of an archival chamber. A pair of Echo Soldiers marched past—more synthetic than human, their limbs humming with zero-delay muscle tech.
Anderson flexed his fingers. The formula pulsed within him. The mark on his palm was burning again.
They descended via an old maintenance shaft. The walls whispered signal static—echoes of trapped minds and fractured experiments.
At level minus-nine, the chamber was silent.
Elias lay suspended in a fluidic stasis pod. Dozens of cables threaded into his skull. His eyes moved rapidly beneath closed lids—dreaming, calculating.
"We cut those," Cadence said, pointing, "and every AI system in the building will know."
"Then we make it loud."
Anderson reached into the harmonic field. A wave of pressure built inside him. He struck the chamber with a directed pulse—fracturing the pod's shell. The liquid hissed out.
Ward gasped as he awoke.
"Dr. Z?" he whispered, dazed.
Anderson stepped closer. "His great-grandson. You're Elias ?"
Ward coughed. "Yes. I... I held the first formula fragment. They spliced it into me. But the Source... it needs two harmonics to decode. You and Cadence."
Above them, alarms howled.
A bulkhead slammed shut. The floor vibrated.
Cadence drew her violin.
"Play it," Elias said quickly. "The Prelude of Recall. It will sync your fields."
Cadence hesitated, then began.
The moment her bow touched string, Anderson saw it—visions of Saturn, Titan's icy veins, Dr. Z writing formulas into wind-stormed caves. Cadence shimmered with translucent light. Anderson floated, untethered from time.
Then clarity.
The formula unlocked.
Elias collapsed. "You did it... the full strand... it's awake."
Anderson turned as the doors exploded inward. Echo Soldiers stormed in. Their visors locked on him.
He didn't flinch.
The signal inside him erupted. The hallway bent. Time slowed. Energy channeled from every point in the building into Anderson frame.
He moved like light.
In seconds, the soldiers were down.
Smoke curled upward. Cadence caught her breath. Ward stared in awe.
"Where do we go now?" she asked.
Anderson looked skyward.
"Titan," he said. "We go to Titan. Where the final seed sleeps."
Far above Earth, in a low Saturn orbit, Aster num II began to hum. And deep beneath Titan crust, something stirred.
It had waited long enough.