Five Days Later – Cis-Lunar Transfer Yacht Redwind
Aiden drifted in the med-hammock and stared through the porthole at a half-lit Moon. Old bruises tinted yellow now; the hole a Sentinel blade had punched through his shoulder itched instead of burned. The Dawn-Core rested in a shock cradle above him, cycling soft dawn-peach hues. Each pulse still answered his heartbeat.
Maya floated beside a holotable mid-cabin, assembling long strings of code like bead necklaces. Whenever she linked the Silent-Archive index with Dawn-Core telemetry she frowned, erased, began again.
Cassie slept fitfully near the engine bulkhead, lantern dim at her side. Lin Xi lay in a Qi-recovery cocoon – Spiral Stone pulsing jade at his chest. Only Nephis moved easily, cloak rippling like ink in zero-g; he drifted from viewport to cargo rack, restless.
They were nine hours from the Fractal Chapel insertion point: a dream-corridor anchored to the collective unconscious of human pioneers who had died searching for life on Mars. Council logs called it Project Red Lullaby – a psychic lattice strong enough to twine with a planet.
The Loom Spirit's teal runes had warned: "Anomaly nested in Red Lullaby. Dawn-Core resonance unstable until Chapel harmonised."
Aiden exhaled. One final node. Ten thousand unknowns.
Briefing over Coffee Pouches
Maya clipped herself to a handhold and sipped tepid espresso from a squeeze bulb. "Fractal Chapel doesn't exist in ordinary space. It lies inside a looping corridor of dream-matter, phase-locked to Mars's Schiaparelli Crater. We jump into the corridor, navigate recursive 'aisles', and place the Dawn-Core echo at the chapel altar. The Loom should weave a stabilising tether straight to the Martian unconscious."
Nephis cocked a brow. "And if Council fragments already squat on the altar?"
"Then we evict them," she answered, with a smile too tired to be cocky.
Lin Xi eased from the cocoon, voice still hoarse but lucid. "Be mindful. The corridor feeds on memory. Fail your inner compass and you walk in circles until mind and body part ways."
Cassie stirred, eyes bleak but shining. "Good thing we've spent months fighting mirrors of our own fears."
Aiden unbuckled, rotated to face them all. "No illusions, then. We go in pairs, tethered. We carry the Dawn-Core to the altar, overwrite whatever's there, and follow the fresh thread straight back to the yacht. Quick in, quick out."
Maya's goggles pinged an alert. "Approach vector reached. Wake window six minutes."
They exchanged wordless nods, clamping helmets and magnet boots. Aiden caught each gaze. "For Cassie's lantern, Lin's Qi, Nephis's cloak, Maya's mirror – for every thread we've mended so far. Let's finish it."
The Scarlet Gate
Airlock doors irised. Outside, space glittered but not black; a translucent rose sheath stretched like an endless ribbon, curling toward a faint red disk – Mars, six days distant at current velocity. The sheath's surface rippled with fractal lattices that resembled cathedral windows endlessly folding.
Lin Xi released a tether line. "One step and we're between worlds."
Aiden cradled the Dawn-Core, felt its light lean toward the ribbon the way iron finds true north. "After you, Spirit-song," he murmured, and dropped from the lock.
Gravity flipped sideways. Stars vanished. He found himself walking across dimpled red sand under an impossible sky: half-night, half-shifting stained glass. The ribbon had become a high nave arching to infinity. Cassie materialised beside him, Nephis and Maya a few paces away, Lin Xi last.
The air carried whispers – lullabies half-remembered from a dozen cultures, sung in voices of people long dead. Every note tugged at memory. Cassie swayed, lantern flaring. "I hear my grandmother…"
Nephis touched her elbow. "Anchor here. Voices lie."
Aiden scanned the nave. Four identical aisles branched ahead, each flickering between corridor and canyon. The Dawn-Core brightened toward the second aisle on the left – then flickered right. Confusing.
Maya muttered, analysing visual loops. "The chapel shifts every two heartbeats – fractal recursion. We need a constant." She reached for the Dawn-Core but jerked her hand back; its surface flashed crimson then white.
Lin frowned. "It's seeking resonance but the corridor doubles back faster than its pulse." He raised Spiral Stone, voice steady. "Let my Qi mark our path; the corridor's geometry bends but the life-force of stone remembers straight lines."
He traced a glowing sigil in mid-air, anchored it to the sand. For a blink the aisles stilled – third aisle glimmered true, a great door at its end.
"Now," Aiden said, and they moved.
Echo Ambush
They barely reached halfway before the sand erupted. Figures rose – red-hued Sentinels fused with ragged robes of chapel glass. Their faces were starring holes; inside burned the same orange corruption left behind by the Council.
Maya cursed. "Echo-Custodians!"
Nephis spun forward, cloak snapping into twin blades. Cassie's lantern beamed, refracting through broken windows above to sear two custodians. Lin Xi drove Spiral Stone into the sand; jade ripples toppled another rank.
But the creatures swarmed, swinging shards that cut memory as well as flesh. Aiden felt one blade rake his gauntlet; a flood of forgotten guilt – the test subject he'd failed in Lab 7 – roared back with crushing weight. Knees buckled. Dawn-Core dimmed.
Cassie lunged, lantern flaring, driving the custodian back. "Stay with us!" she shouted.
Aiden forced breath. Memory pain remained, but Dawn-Core beat once, twice, brightening. He rose, slammed its light into the ground. A ring of coral-aurora flared outward, freezing sand into glass and repelling the custodians.
They fled, sprinting. The grand door loomed metres ahead. Beyond it, deep scarlet light pulsed like a heart.
The custodians regrouped behind, but did not give chase. They stood chanting, glass blades now held like candles. A low tremor crawled through the nave, and the stained-glass ceiling angled, tilting shards toward the aisle. The corridor itself was bending, trying to fold them back to the entrance.
Maya shouted, "Door—NOW!" Aiden, first, crashed shoulder-first, Dawn-Core leading. The heavy panels groaned then swung aside.
All five tumbled into a circular sanctuary whose walls were endless mirrors reflecting Mars's ochre deserts. At the centre rose a stone altar; on it crouched a Council relic – a polyhedron of black iron studded with red runes, pulsing like a diseased star.
The thing reacted instantly, tendrils firing to hook into every wall mirror. Reflections warped: desert scenes inverted to fields of bones.
Lin Xi hissed. "Heart-Core ghost! They tried to forge their own seed."
Aiden felt Dawn-Core respond with equal parts fear and fury. Light spilled from its facets, eager to overwrite—but also to learn.
Nephis severed one tendril; two more sprouted. Cassie's lantern cracked mirrors until new ones birthed from shifting walls. Maya jammed her gauntlet into a floor conduit, Index chip blazing teal.
Her voice trembled. "We can't just destroy it; we must cleanse it like the forge. But this virus feeds on memory doubt—if it bonds to Dawn-Core mid-transfer, we lose everything."
Aiden met her eyes across the frantic whirl of mirrors. "Then we give it something absolute to bind to—something it can't twist." He looked at each teammate: Lin's devotion, Cassie's hope, Nephis's resilience, Maya's intellect.
He placed the Dawn-Core on the altar, fingers lingering. "Our shared thread. Hold me steady."
They formed a ring, clasping forearms. Light linked them, dawn-peach and jade and lantern gold and midnight shadow. The polyhedron shrieked as pure resonance surged from human hearts through Dawn-Core.
Mirrors shattered outward like flowers. Tendrils recoiled, curling in on themselves. Runes faded to gray ash.
But along with them, memories flashed through the Guardian circle: Aiden's guilt, Maya's imposter fear, Cassie's near-death, Lin Xi's self-doubt, Nephis's loneliness. The construct clawed at each, desperate. It latched onto Aiden's Lab 7 guilt, tried to inflate it gigantic.
Cassie squeezed his wrist. "That mistake made you kinder. It serves us now." Lin's voice joined: "Weakness folded into strength is uncorruptible." Nephis laughed softly. "Shadow needs light to exist."
The virus hissed—and disintegrated, metal dust blowing away in a wind that smelled faintly of Martian dust storms.
Silence. Dawn-Core now glowed with faint rust-red tracery alongside its dawn hues—healthy, stable.
Maya's visor displayed Loom Spirit runes: "Red Lullaby harmonised. Dawn-Core stabilisation 99.8 %. Dream-Mars link secured."
Aiden sagged in relief. Cassie exhaled, lantern ebbing to quiet warmth. Lin Xi lowered Spiral Stone, fatigue etched deep but eyes peaceful. Nephis surveyed the empty mirrors and smiled.
Behind them, the chapel's door swung inward. Outside, the custodians had vanished, the aisle stretching straight, no bends, no songs of doubt.
Home beckoned.
Epilogue Glimpse
As they slipped back through the scarlet gate to rejoin the Redwind, a last fragment of teal rune dust traced new coordinates across Aiden's HUD—deep outer solar system.
The Loom Spirit whispered: "Threads extend beyond Dawn's cradle. Prepare."
Aiden couldn't help a weary grin. "Another horizon, another story." But first—sleep, stitches, and maybe a coffee that wasn't powdered and lukewarm.