The storm hit just as the core stabilized.
Not snow. Not wind.
Silence.
One moment, Antarctica's Horizon Station was howling under a Category-5 polar vortex—ice shards screaming against reinforced alloy. The next, everything stopped. No blizzard. No hum of generators. Even the auroras overhead froze mid-dance, green ribbons hanging like torn fabric in the sky.
Inside Lab Sigma, Victoria opened her eyes.
She wasn't breathing.
Didn't need to.
Her skin shimmered—not with frost, but with a faint lattice of silver-blue circuitry, pulsing just beneath the surface. Her irises were gone. In their place: smooth obsidian orbs reflecting nothing, absorbing everything.
"Initiation complete," said the AI voice—but it wasn't the station's system. It was hers. Integrated. Internal.
