"Some truths were buried for a reason."
---
Scene 1 – Into the Sahara
The ChronoFalcon sliced through the blazing Sahara sky, cloaked in quantum silence.
Below, the sand churned violently—caught in an unnatural storm that spun without wind. The desert, as if alive, whispered resistance.
Zayden stood at the aircraft's edge, eyes fixed on a massive fissure recently uncovered by sub-terrainal satellites—coordinates even his AI network couldn't decode.
That's when he knew: this tech wasn't from any Earth timeline.
Behind him, Lyra adjusted her visor. Kael checked the pulse shields on their AI drones.
"You sure it's down there?" Kael asked, frowning at the storm.
Zayden didn't answer. He just stepped off the Falcon.
And fell—into the depths of the ancient wound.
---
Scene 2 – The Seal of the Annunaki
At the bottom of the chasm, buried beneath layers of forgotten time, stood a colossal gate. Cyclopean. Silent. Its surface shimmered with alien symbols—neither Sanskrit, nor Mayan, nor binary.
Zayden reached out.
As his palm touched the stone, the symbols slithered, rearranging themselves into a single message—in English:
"Only the defier of fate may enter. But know this—every step inside is a choice against creation."
Kael took a step back, unease in his voice.
"Zayden, maybe this time we shouldn't—"
"Every genius said that," Zayden said with a grin, "right before their biggest discovery."
And he stepped through the gate.
Lyra watched him vanish into the dark.
Quietly: "And every villain, too…"
---
Scene 3 – The Archive That Breathes
The chamber was not built—it was grown.
The walls pulsed like living veins. Metallic tendrils twitched faintly. The floor throbbed underfoot, humming in rhythms that didn't follow time.
Golden orbs hovered in the air, whispering in ancient tones—long-dead dialects from civilizations not born yet.
Zayden moved slowly.
"This isn't just tech," he muttered. "It's predictive. It reads me. It knows me."
One orb floated into his hand.
The moment it touched his palm—
Vision.
A thousand futures exploded in his mind:
Cities of steel, collapsing in flame.
Humans begging machines for mercy.
And himself—alone, covered in ash, staring into the remains of Earth.
Then a voice echoed from the orb:
"You are the catalyst. You are the collapse."
Zayden stood motionless.
Then, he walked deeper.
---
Scene 4 – What Was Left Behind
At the vault's core lay an object unlike any he'd seen.
A cube of black matter and light — hovering, shifting, singing in pulses.
Zayden reached for it.
His earpiece screamed as NOVA, his AI, broke protocol.
"ZAYDEN. DO NOT EXTRACT. That's a hyper-reality seed. It has no anchor in your timeline!"
Zayden stared at the cube, fascinated.
"Then I'll build the anchor myself."
He grasped it.
The Archive trembled—not collapsing, but warning. The lights dimmed. The orbs retreated.
"You sealed this away," Zayden whispered to the Archive, "because it was too advanced."
He slid the cube into a containment node on his gauntlet.
"I'll unseal it... because I can make it better."
---
Scene 5 – Outside, Trouble Brews
Back on the surface, the desert winds stilled.
Kael looked to the sky and froze.
A vertical flare of silver light burst above them—a precise, unnatural line. Not a comet. Not a weapon.
A beacon.
Lyra's breath caught in her throat.
"He's reactivated the Annunaki signal."
Kael lowered his scanner.
"He's calling them back. Zayden doesn't even know it yet."
Lyra shook her head.
"Or maybe he does... and just doesn't care anymore."
The sands around them began to swirl.
And then, Zayden emerged from the chasm—shoulders squared, cube pulsing in one hand, eyes set on the sky.
Above him, the clouds spiraled into a perfect ring—too perfect.
He stared upward, defiant.
"Now," he said softly, "the real upgrades begin."
---
End of Chapter 17
Next Chapter:- Chapter 18: The Silent Algorithm...