Some memories are buried not in the mind, but in the marrow. Some truths are so devastating, they fracture time itself.
The lights inside Lab 9 dimmed as the projection stabilized—flickering layers of gravitational topography unfolding like a lotus in bloom. But what emerged from the pattern wasn't beautiful. It was wrong. Fractured. Like someone—or something—was trying to speak a language across time.
Nova stared at it, still and unblinking.
Behind him, KAI pulsed faintly in its drone form. "Pattern confirmation: Subharmonic resonance detected. Suggestive of encoded data stream."
"Not suggestive," Nova whispered. "Definitive."
KAI paused. "You've seen this before?"
Nova didn't answer. He didn't have to.
The scar beneath his collarbone burned—a memory not of pain, but of fire and betrayal.
He turned back to the board and typed. The gravity lattice twisted, forming a circular loop. Energy surged. Time slowed—only microscopically—but enough for someone like Nova to notice.
"This wormhole isn't a tunnel," he muttered. "It's a message in itself. A lock. And I'm the only one with the key."
*--------------------------------------*
Scene: Earth Orbit — AGC Lagrange Defense Array
Commander Lyra Chen stood with arms folded, watching the sensor reports flood in. Atmospheric tremors had begun—small, but unnatural. Something about the wormhole's field was bleeding into Earth's upper thermosphere. Cloud formations over the Pacific had twisted into spirals—mathematically perfect spirals.
"Commander," her tech officer called out. "We've intercepted a spike in the gravitational spectrum. Same frequency Nova asked us to watch for."
Her breath caught.
"Patch it through."
On the screen, a distorted waveform appeared. But behind the static, there was… rhythm.
A pulse.
Lyra leaned forward.
"It's a countdown," she whispered.
*--------------------------------------------*
Scene: AGC War Council — Global Underground Bunker, Atlas Protocol Tier
Patro's voice cut across the room like a sharpened blade. "We are not facing a natural event. This wormhole is directed. Manipulated. Possibly inhabited."
The global representatives were silent. The last hour had made it clear: The anomaly wasn't expanding at random—it was syncing with Earth's orbit. Every 144 minutes, it pulsed. And with every pulse, the world changed—minutely at first. Lights flickered. Clocks desynced. Dream patterns in patients near the equator showed identical imagery.
"Time itself is bending," said Kaelen Yurei, her voice brittle with disbelief. "Just like it did... during Project Vesper."
A hush fell over the room.
Only a few had clearance to even know that name.
Patro turned to her, slowly.
"You swore we buried that."
She met his eyes. "We did. But not deep enough."
Nova entered through the northern corridor, his coat half-buttoned, eyes ringed with exhaustion.
"They already know," he said. "Because they're watching us."
*-------------------------------------*
Flashback: Eight Years Ago — Restricted AGC Facility Theta-5
Nova was nine when they took him from the orphanage. He didn't cry. Didn't ask questions.
He remembered the sound of the shuttle door closing more than he remembered his parents' faces.
Project Vesper was never supposed to reach public records. It was humanity's first attempt at time-anchored gravitational displacement—a failed experiment meant to cheat entropy itself.
Nova had been its only success. Or rather, its only survivor.
He remembered standing in the test chamber. The cold. The smell of copper and ozone.
He remembered Patro—ten years younger, already a ghost of a man with too many secrets.
"You're not a weapon," Patro had whispered to him then. "You're the proof we need."
But even at nine, Nova knew a lie when he heard it.
*--------------------------------------*
Scene: Present — AGC Deep Vault, Tier-Zero Security
Kaelen guided Nova into the vault's central chamber. The room was filled with artifacts—relics of failed futures. Artificial suns, quantum anchors, fractured AI cores—buried secrets from before Earth's first orbital collapse.
And in the center, sealed in a chamber of obsidian alloy, floated a fragment of crystal—impossibly old. Not made. Found.
"This came through the first anomaly," Kaelen said. "The one from 2029. We kept it hidden, even from Patro."
Nova stared at it. The shard pulsed with the same frequency as the wormhole.
He stepped closer.
"I've seen this before."
"Impossible," she replied.
"No," Nova said. "It was inside the jump engine on the failed shuttle. The one I was in. Before the explosion."
Kaelen went pale.
"That engine was erased. Atomized."
"Apparently not," Nova murmured. "Or maybe... it escaped."
*-----------------------------------*
Scene: Orbital Relay — Edge of the Anomaly
Lyra Chen's team had launched a probe. It was fitted with a micro-spatial lens—a last-minute patch from Nova.
"Feed coming through," said her technician.
The room went dark.
A visual appeared. The probe had passed into the wormhole—but instead of tearing apart, it had… landed.
On the other side: a landscape of impossible geometry. Floating platforms. Crystalline cities hanging upside-down in the sky. Towers bent through time—some decayed, some untouched, all glowing with eerie familiarity.
Nova's voice crackled through the relay: "That's not another world. That's Earth."
"But—" Lyra stammered. "It's wrong. Different."
Nova nodded from his lab. "Not a parallel Earth. A future one. Or maybe... a failed version."
*-----------------------------------*
Scene: War Council Reassembled
"This confirms it," Nova said, addressing the council. "The wormhole connects to a branching timeline. One in which something happened—something catastrophic. They're trying to reverse it. To overwrite it. That's why it's pulling our Earth in. To replace the broken one."
"But why us?" one general asked.
Nova didn't blink.
"Because we caused the fracture. Decades ago. During Vesper."
He let the silence stretch.
"And now something... someone... is trying to correct our mistake. Or punish us for it."
*-------------------------------------*
Scene: Patro's Private Quarters
Later, Nova found Patro alone—staring at a cracked photo of a family long gone.
Nova closed the door behind him.
"You knew all along," he said.
Patro didn't answer.
Nova stepped closer.
"Why did you let them do that to me?"
Finally, Patro looked up. His eyes—always sharp—were duller now. "Because I thought it would save us. I thought one life sacrificed would be worth the millions it could protect."
"And if you were wrong?" Nova asked.
"I was," Patro said.
They stood in silence.
Then Patro added, quietly, "That scar on your neck—it wasn't from the explosion, was it?"
Nova's voice was cold.
"No."
He turned and walked away.
Patro didn't stop him.
*----------------------------------*
Scene: Mission Briefing — Project Final Horizon
In the war room, a new plan took shape.
A jump pod—built from the remains of Project Aegis, fused with the crystal shard—would carry a single passenger through the stabilized wormhole. A one-way trip. To map the other Earth. To find the source of the corruption fracturing time.
Nova volunteered.
"No," Lyra said. "You go, you might not come back."
"That's the point," Nova said.
Yurei whispered, "He was born in the anomaly. He might be the only one who can survive it."
KAI floated beside him. "Mission parameters updated. Confirming pilot: Nova."
Patro stood across from him. "You're not ready."
Nova looked at him.
"I've been ready since the day you made me."
*--------------------------------------*
Quote Fragment — Logged by KAI, Timestamp 21:09 UTC
"There are moments in history when time folds inward. When fate offers no mercy, and sacrifice becomes the only language the universe understands."
"This is one of them."