Sparks showered from the conduit coupling, a brief, violent constellation of orange against the sterile white of The Dome’s reactor core. Irina Pavlenko ignored the sting as a molten fleck landed on her cheek. Her world had shrunk to the heavy, fiber-optic cable in her hands, the final artery for the machine of hope she was building from scrap and theory. The rhythmic clang of the siege outside was a constant, brutal drumbeat, a clock counting down the seconds they did not have. She forced the thick plug into its socket, the connection groaning with the protest of new parts forced into an old system. Eighty percent. The energetic lattice, a web of physical cables and mnemonic conduits linking the three Keys to her Perun’s anchor and The Dome’s reactor, was almost complete.
A new sound cut through the din of battle, a sound worse than any explosion. It was a high-pitched whine that climbed the scale until it tore, leaving behind an absolute and profound silence. The Dome’s shield had failed. For a half-second, the only noise was Irina’s own ragged breath. Then came the crackle, like a thousand knuckles snapping at once, as the Mnemonic Vultures poured into the upper levels. The white alloy walls of the corridor flickered, their memory of being solid wavering under the psychic assault. A maintenance panel across from her went translucent, revealing the humming power lines within before snapping back to opacity.
— Sector Gamma, report! — a voice screamed over the comms. — What’s your status?
The reply was a burst of static, then a different voice, thin with terror. — They’re not fighting… they’re just… stopping. I see them… they’re forgetting how to…
The transmission died. The internal defense was collapsing. It was not a rout; it was a system crash. Men and women trained for a lifetime to fight were standing slack-jawed, their rifles slipping from hands that no longer remembered their purpose. The Vultures were not killing them. They were unmaking them, erasing the memories of duty, of training, of loyalty, leaving behind only empty, breathing husks. The fragmentation was no longer just a threat to cities and machines; it was inside the very minds of the defenders.
Pavel Orlov saw it happen. He watched a veteran Union 9 heavy gunner, a man who could field-strip his weapon in the dark, stare at a jammed feed as if it were some alien artifact. Pavel’s fear burned away into cold, hard fury. He grabbed the younger crewman beside him, whose face was a mask of vacant horror, and shook him hard.
— Look at me! — Pavel roared, his voice a raw bolt of purpose in the spreading silence. — We are Union 9. We hold the line.
He shoved a fresh power cell into the man’s rifle and pushed him back toward the barricade. He gathered the few who were still fighting, their terror a shield against the Vultures’ psychic anesthetic. They formed a small, desperate island of resolve in a sea of confusion, their backs to the corridor that led to the reactor core. They were the final physical barrier.
— For the Union! — Pavel bellowed, his voice a litany against the void. — For the future!
Irina risked a glance away from her work. Sineus stood guard over her, a statue in the storm of dissolving reality. His eyes were closed, his posture calm. He held no weapon. He was not fighting the cultists of the Seed of Oblivion who were now surely flooding the breached corridors. He was fighting the silence. Irina could feel the waves of pure despair washing from the Vultures, a psychic cold that made her own thoughts feel brittle, but the waves seemed to part around Sineus. He was a breakwater for her mind, a silent anchor that allowed her to hold the impossibly complex schematic of the lattice in her head. He was her shield.
She tightened a final clamp on a coolant line, her knuckles white. The familiar maker’s mark of a three-spoked gear was stamped into the steel, a small, solid truth in a world dissolving into lies. It was a symbol of honest work, of things built to last. It was the memory of her people, and it grounded her. She would not let it be erased.
With a final, grunting effort, she slammed the last heavy power conduit into its housing. The connection clicked home with the solid finality of a vault door. The separate, discordant hums of the three Keys, the deep thrum of her Perun’s anchor, and the clean, massive power of The Dome’s reactor suddenly merged. The air vibrated as the sounds resolved into a single, powerful, resonant chord.
— It’s ready! — Irina shouted, her voice raw, tasting ozone and victory. — The lattice is complete!
A final, desperate scream from Pavel echoed from the corridor, cut short by the overwhelming roar of enemy weapons. The sound of his last stand was swallowed by the approaching tide. The time he had bought with his life, and the lives of his squad, was gone. The enemy was seconds away.
Irina turned to the activation console, her hands burned and trembling. Sineus was already there. He had opened his eyes. They were clear, calm, and held no trace of fear. He met her gaze, and in that look, a universe of trust passed between them. The skeptic and the mystic. The engineer and the scout. The builder and the dreamer. All that was left of their alliance, forged in the fire of a shared and impossible task.
He nodded once. It was time.
She placed her hand next to his on the activation key, the cool metal a final, solid thing in a world about to be remade or unmade forever.
