The world dissolved into a silent, white rush. They landed hard on a floor of cold, polished stone, tumbling from the shimmering gate as it snapped shut behind them. The roar of the firefight, the smell of cordite, the sight of Cato falling—all of it was gone, replaced by a profound, humming stillness. They were inside the spire. The air was thin and carried the clean, sterile scent of ozone, like the aftermath of a lightning strike. Towering walls of the same black basalt soared up into a gloom that swallowed the light from their tactical lamps.
Sineus was already moving, his mind processing the sacrifice that had bought them entry. Cato was gone. The price had been paid. Now, the mission. He scanned the vast, empty chamber, his eyes seeking the path forward, the route to the control center. Moreau was beside him, her pistol sweeping the upper galleries. Nadia and the Russian, Volkov, were getting to their feet, their expressions a mixture of awe and grim resolve.
Then the hum of the spire changed. The perfect, clean note wavered, dropping into a discordant thrum that vibrated not in the air, but in the bones. The spire had registered the violence at its gate. A debt of blood had been incurred, and the ancient machine was now balancing its ledger. It responded not with an alarm, but with a purge.
A wave of something that was the opposite of energy pulsed from the chamber’s core. It was not a sound, but a sudden, crushing silence. It was not light, but a draining of all color, the world collapsing into shades of absolute grey. It was a wave of pure, weaponized absence. An inverse-Memorum pulse. Sineus felt it coming, a tide of nothingness that his own senses were uniquely attuned to. He had a fraction of a second to recognize it for what it was. Oblivion.
The wave hit him. For six seconds, his world ceased to exist. There was no name. No history. No purpose. There was no memory of a father’s hands tying a knot, no echo of a mother’s song, no weight of a promise made to a dying archivist. There was no cold stone under his hands, no thin air in his lungs. It was not darkness, but a perfect, featureless null. A state of being without the verb “to be.” He was a void.
The small, brass gimbaled compass, his father’s unwavering truth, slipped from numb fingers. It struck the stone floor not with a metallic clang, but with a dead, final crack that made no sound in the silent purge. The glass face, the carefully balanced needle, the heavy brass housing—all of it shattered into a dozen useless fragments, scattered across the polished black stone. The symbol of his purpose, the one constant in a world of shifting memories, was destroyed.
Then reality slammed back into him. Name: Sineus. History: a burning library of triumphs and failures. Pain: a spike of raw agony in his skull. The memory of Cato falling. The cold weight of the focus stone still clutched in his fist. It was the sensation of a drowning man breaking the surface, his lungs screaming for air that was already there. The terror was not of the void itself, but of the fresh, searing memory of having been it. He now understood what Magnusson wanted to unleash upon the world. He had tasted it. Hope was a concept from another lifetime.
He was on his knees, the world a swimming vortex of grey and black. He saw Nadia retching, her face pale. Volkov was leaning against a pillar, his eyes wide with a soldier’s shock, a look Sineus had seen on men who had survived an artillery barrage that had vaporized their comrades. They had felt the wave as a disorienting blast, a psychic concussion. But he had been hollowed out.
A hand, hard and sure, clamped onto his arm. Isabelle Moreau. Her face was a mask of grim determination, her eyes clear and focused as she scanned the corridor beyond them. She hauled him to his feet, his limbs clumsy and disconnected.
— Up, Professor, — she commanded, her voice a shard of ice. — They’re coming.
He followed her gaze. Commander Joric and his elite guard were advancing down the corridor. They moved with the fluid, professional detachment of men who owned the space, their rifles held at a low ready. They had felt the pulse, but they were pushing through it. They walked past the alcove where Moreau had dragged Sineus, their boots crunching on the shattered remains of his compass. They did not check the shadows. They assumed the spire’s automated defense had done their work for them.
Moreau held him steady against the wall, her hand on his chest, a silent command to stay put. They watched as Joric’s team disappeared deeper into the spire, their footsteps echoing in the vast chamber. They were ahead. They were moving on the control room, believing any opposition behind them was neutralized.
Sineus leaned against the cold basalt, the memory of the void a raw wound in his mind. He had stared into the abyss, and the enemy was winning.
