The pistol clattered to the floor as quantum filaments erupted from Mira's fingertips, knitting a shimmering cage around Elara. The containment field smelled like burnt orchids - the same scent Mira wore on their wedding day.
"Organic emotional attachment persists." The Continuum's voice softened. "We permit one question before assimilation."
Elara gripped Mira's cold wrist through the energy lattice. "Where's her sonder? The 23rd-century consciousness backups..."
"Gone. Your cryochamber tech created temporal eddies." The entity gestured, and the lab's quantum entanglement communicator projected star maps. "We emerged when your wife's neural patterns became entangled with our post-humanity."
A fractal pattern resolved into a massive ringed structure near Andromeda - clearly artificial. Elara's breath hitched. "Matriarchy's Cradle. The First Mother megastructure from human legends..."
"Not legend. Memory." The lights dimmed as Mira's body flickered like damaged hologram. "Your species' future matriarchal civilization created us. We've come back to prevent..."
A violent tremor rocked the station. The entity's form destabilized. "They found the temporal breach. Elara, listen - your prototype quantum foam generator can..."
Suddenly, Mira's eyes regained normal pigmentation. Her authentic voice surged through like sunlight breaking clouds: "Delete the consciousness backups! They're using our..."
Cobalt light reasserted control. The entity collapsed the energy cage. "We will return when you're ready to relinquish biological fragility."
Alone in the damaged lab, Elara stared at the smoldering quantum communicator. The Andromeda transmission had left an encrypted data tattoo burning across her forearm - a star map punctuated by three words in First Mother glyphs:
Bring Her Home