There was something about coming back to base after almost dying that made coffee taste like divine intervention.
Liam stood in the glass-walled elevator, a fresh bruise blooming across his jaw and half-dried blood caking one sleeve. The lights of Blackreach flickered below him like a circuit board from hell, vertical towers stacked with surveillance drones, anti-air plasma nets, and more secrets than a god could sort through.
Nova stood beside him, quiet. Not her usual quiet, thoughth it was the kind of silence you could hear breathing.
"You haven't said anything since we landed," Liam said.
She didn't look at him. "I'm thinking."
"About?"
"If I say it out loud, it becomes real."
"That bad, huh?"
Her lips tightened, and he got his answer.
The elevator dinged softly and opened to Level 7: Core Debrief a sterile white hallway lined with motion-sensor doors and the faint smell of burnt ozone. The hallway always smelled like that. No one knew why. Juno blamed the coffee machine.
Waiting for them was High Executor Zorren Kael, standing like a statue that got tired enough of being worshipped.
"Vale," Zorren said, voice calm as a glacier. "You've returned."
"I would've sent a postcard, but the crater kind of destroyed the mailbox."
Behind Zorren stood Ardent Ysae, flanked by two Ghost Engine technicians. He looked like a man who had never once blinked in his entire life. The kind of person who whispered in code even when ordering lunch.
"We need to scan him," Ardent said without preamble.
"I'm right here," Liam said. "Try talking to me like a person."
"Protocol doesn't care about feelings," Ardent replied. "You pulsed."
Nova stepped forward. "You can't just "
"Yes, he can," Zorren interrupted. "And he will."
Liam raised a brow. "You always this charming, or did I miss the staff meeting where we voted for more jackassery?"
"I'll take that as consent," Ardent said, and before Liam could throw a punch, two microdrones injected into his neck with surgical precision.
The world blinked.
He was standing in the memory dome.
Everything around him was grayscale, frozen, surreal. His own memories—dissected and displayed like museum exhibits.
A holo-version of Ardent floated beside him. "Don't worry. I'm only going to skim."
"That's what you said last time. You found out what I eat when I'm stressed."
"Popcorn. With peanut butter."
"Shut up."
Ardent's scan swept across Liam's mind, pausing at something.
"Interesting."
"Nope. Not interesting. That's the sound of you finding trauma I haven't processed."
"It's not trauma," Ardent said. "It's… a firewall."
"Like mental shielding?"
"No," he said, frowning. "This isn't to protect you from others. This was designed to protect others from you."
The dome trembled.
The lights stuttered.
A pulse echoed a double beat.
Liam winced and clutched his head. Ardent stared.
"There's a second neural rhythm. Buried deep. Artificial."
Liam growled, "What the hell does that mean?"
"It means," Ardent whispered, "there's another mind hiding inside yours. And I think it's starting to wake up."
The dome shattered.
Liam snapped back into his body, staggering as Nova caught him. Zorren looked mildly inconvenienced, which was Zorren-speak for deeply disturbed.
"What did you see?" Zorren asked.
Ardent's gaze flicked to Liam, then back. "We need to rerun the scan in isolation."
Liam shoved him. "Like hell. You just found a second brain in my head you don't get a second shot until someone tells me what I am."
Zorren's smile was thin and tired. "You are Apex, Liam. You are the weapon we paid for. And if we don't control what's inside you… someone else will."
A chime echoed through the hall. Rhea's voice came through the comm.
"Emergency alert. Another body found. Crimson Wane sigil. We've got a pattern."
Juno cut in next, "Also, I'm stealing someone's sandwich from the break room. Whoever labeled it with a heart emoji? You messed up."
Nova squeezed Liam's shoulder as he steadied himself.
"You okay?" she asked.
He looked at her for a beat too long.
"No," he said. "But that's never stopped me."
And they were off again running toward another corpse, another mystery, and maybe, just maybe, the next crack in the truth.
Because something was waking up inside him.
And it didn't feel like a savior. It felt like a countdown.