She stayed. Because the crack wasn’t finished. It was spreading—not through rock this time, but through the air itself. The sky was beginning to split along the same perfect, impossible lines.
“That’s not an earthquake,” her partner, Kai, said from the ridge above. His voice was hollow. “Look at the walls.”
“ARK.”
She looked at Kai. He was already running.
The CAD in Lena’s wrist began to screech. Error messages flooded the screen: Unknown composition. Origin: Extraterrestrial. Age: 4.2 billion years. Then, one final line: Warning: System reactivation in progress.