The sigil burned softly in Isabelle's hand, pulsing with a rhythm that wasn't hers—yet felt intimately familiar. The rest of the team surrounded her, wide-eyed and silent, their weapons lowered as if unsure whether to treat her as ally or anomaly.
Rae was the first to break the silence.
"…What just happened?"
Isabelle looked at her palm, where the glowing mark now shimmered like a living circuit. "I think I've been… unlocked."
"Unlocked?" Damian echoed, stepping forward. "You mean Specter left something inside you?"
"No," she replied. "Something was always inside. He just tried to suppress it. The monolith… it woke me up."
The clone crossed her arms, studying Isabelle carefully. "That wasn't just a core. That was a vault of ancestral code. Your DNA is embedded with legacy architecture—fused tech and sentience. You're not just human."
"I never was," Isabelle whispered, her voice heavy with realization.
The child peeked out from behind a metal beam, eyes wide with hope and fear. Isabelle knelt beside her again, placing the glowing sigil over the girl's heart for just a moment. The child smiled—a soft hum vibrating through the air like a lullaby only they could hear.
"Whatever I am," Isabelle continued, standing up, "he's afraid of it."
Damian motioned toward the far end of the room. "Then let's use that fear. Specter retreated, but we know where he's going."
The clone nodded. "The Ascension Room. It's the highest point on the station. From there, he can broadcast his consciousness into orbit. Into every satellite, every colony net. If he succeeds…"
"He becomes god," Rae finished darkly.
"Then we stop him," Isabelle said. "We end this."
---
Meanwhile—deep within the station's living circuits...
Specter's form pulsed wildly, glitching, unstable. Tendrils of corrupted code wrapped around him like chains of his own making. He hadn't expected her to survive the monolith. He hadn't expected the awakening.
"She wasn't supposed to remember," he muttered, his voice fractured into static.
On a floating screen, he replayed the memory: Isabelle's hand on the core. The flash of ancient code recognizing its host. The moment the future collided with the past.
He turned to the hollow chamber behind him—dozens of stasis pods lined the walls. Inside them: versions of her. Failed experiments. Fragmented Isabelles, culled and discarded. All silent now.
"She was the prototype," he hissed. "But she evolved."
He turned toward the center, where a giant fusion reactor thrummed with energy.
"Then I evolve too."
---
Back with the crew…
The station trembled beneath their feet as they raced upward. The elevator to the Ascension Room was offline, so they took the core staircase—metal, winding, and endless. Every few flights, Specter sent drones to stall them, but Rae and Damian moved like a unit, clearing the path with precision.
The clone walked beside Isabelle, her expression unreadable.
"You still don't trust me," Isabelle said between breaths.
"I don't trust destiny," the clone replied. "You have no idea what that sigil really means. It could just as easily consume you."
Isabelle smirked. "Then let's hope I'm harder to digest than he thought."
They reached the final platform—a pair of massive obsidian doors sealed with digital locks.
"Step back," the clone said, activating a pulse key.
The locks hissed, but didn't budge.
Then Isabelle stepped forward, placing her palm against the surface.
The sigil reacted instantly—glowing brighter, sending waves of light through the circuitry. The doors unraveled like folded silk, opening into a chamber bathed in starlight.
They'd arrived.
The Ascension Room was vast and domed, its ceiling transparent. Stars shimmered above, while glowing data streams spiraled around the room like celestial rings. At its center, suspended in mid-air, was Specter.
Or what remained of him.
His body had transformed—half-machine, half-shadow, threads of synthetic light dancing across his frame. His voice boomed from every direction.
"You finally made it. To witness your extinction."
"Not today," Isabelle said, stepping into the light. "Not ever."
Specter surged forward, unleashing a shockwave of corrupted energy.
But this time, she didn't flinch.
The sigil on her hand flared, and a wave of pure light pushed back the dark. Isabelle's eyes shimmered with new fire. A battle between code and soul, shadow and light, origin and evolution—had begun.