The journey to the resistance coordinates led the team across desolate terrain—ash-covered valleys where the Hive had once reigned supreme, and swamps now eerily quiet, their usual clicking and skittering absent. Something had shifted. The Hive had gone silent.
Too silent.
By day three, the land began to change again. The air grew heavier, the sky darker. They reached a coastal ridge overlooking a black sea that churned like oil. Jagged stone pillars jutted from the water, covered in crimson growths. The old uplink station—once a proud tower of pre-Fall civilization—stood hunched over the cliff's edge, half collapsed, half reborn into something else.
"This place gives me the creeps," Brinley muttered, scanning the horizon.
Selene's eyes were fixed on her display. "There's a signal coming from the tower. Definitely the same one we intercepted. And there's life signs inside."
"Human?" Julius asked.
"Human… adjacent," she said cautiously.
They approached with weapons drawn.
As they stepped through the broken threshold, the interior of the tower surprised them. Makeshift barricades, operational tech, power conduits rerouted to jury-rigged terminals—all signs of life. Of adaptation.
And then the lights shifted, and from the shadows emerged three figures, armored in hybrid gear. One of them—a woman with a prosthetic jaw and augmented left eye—lowered her weapon slowly.
"You're Echo Unit?" she asked.
Julius nodded. "That's us."
She exhaled, her voice a raspy tremor. "Thank the stars. I'm Commander Ryka of Outpost Helix. We thought we were the last."
Her companions relaxed slightly, but the tension never fully left the air.
"How many of you are left?" Vara asked.
Ryka glanced over her shoulder. "Thirty. Maybe less if the scouts don't return. We've been scavenging, rebuilding—trying to outpace the Hive's adaptation cycles."
Selene stepped forward. "The Hive's gone quiet. That doesn't concern you?"
"It terrifies us," Ryka said flatly. "They're not retreating. They're reorganizing. Every pattern we've seen suggests something massive is coming."
She turned to Julius.
"And you're the one wearing Echelon. Symbiote Zero."
He blinked. "You know about me?"
Ryka smirked. "We've been watching. After Vorr fell, the network trembled. We saw your signature tear through the Hive's command matrix like a sword. You're a variable they didn't account for. That gives us a chance."
Julius shifted uncomfortably. "I didn't sign up to be anyone's savior."
"You don't have to be," Ryka replied. "You just need to keep surviving."
A low alarm blared from one of the terminals. A young soldier shouted, "Something's breaching the outer field!"
The room shifted to high alert.
Selene rushed to a viewport. "They found us already?"
Ryka's eye glowed red as her systems activated. "No. This isn't Hive."
They all watched the screen as a figure limped into the perimeter—humanoid, wrapped in broken armor and pulsing with violet light.
It collapsed at the gates.
Julius moved instantly. "Let's get them inside."
Minutes later, the figure was in the med-bay. The helmet was cracked—barely holding together. But beneath it, a face—half synthetic, half scarred flesh—flickered with life.
And then it whispered a single word:
"Seraphel…"
Vara stiffened.
The past had come back, dragging secrets with it.