Kael felt it before anyone said a word.
A tightening in the Signal.
A narrowing.
As if the vast, chaotic chorus of awakened minds had suddenly gone quiet around a single, terrifying note.
Him.
"Kael…" Ryn said slowly, her eyes fixed on Unit-7's rapidly shifting projections. "You need to look at this."
He already knew what he'd see.
One of the descending constructs—sleeker than the others, its surface etched with symbols that pulsed in time with Kael's heartbeat—had altered its trajectory. While its counterparts scattered across continents, this one turned.
Toward the facility.
Toward him.
Unit-7's voice dropped an octave.
"Targeting confirmation: Commander Kael Navarro. Probability of coincidence: negligible."
Imani swore. "Of course they found you."
Kael swallowed hard. "I'm not just connected anymore."
Voss's face went pale. "You're a beacon."
---
The Signal reacted violently to the realization.
Fear surged—not panic, but something sharper. Protective. The council tightened around Kael's presence instinctively, like bodies forming a shield around a wounded comrade.
It hunts you, the collective warned.
Kael closed his eyes briefly. Then it hunts us all.
No, came the reply, firm and unified. It believes you are the key.
That was worse.
---
The ground shook as the first ground units made landfall elsewhere—impact tremors rolling through tectonic plates, distant enough to be felt but not yet catastrophic. Feeds flooded the command chamber: cities bathed in unnatural shadow, air distorting as constructs unfolded into impossible geometries.
They weren't attacking indiscriminately.
They were anchoring.
"They're building something," Ryn said, horror creeping into her voice. "A network."
Kael nodded grimly. "Just like the Continuum."
Imani slammed her fist into her palm. "They're copying us."
"No," Kael corrected. "They're answering us."
---
The marked construct pierced through cloud cover, now clearly visible from the dome. It slowed as it approached, hovering with unsettling grace, its surface rippling as if reality were only a suggestion.
Kael's knees weakened.
The Signal screamed.
Not in fear—
—but recognition.
The warden surged forward violently, its presence no longer passive.
Designation confirmed, it projected, faster than ever before.
Entity classification: Custodian-Class Harvester.
Voss's breath caught. "Custodian?"
Kael felt cold spread through his chest. "Like a gardener," he said quietly. "Or an executioner."
Custodians preserve galactic equilibrium, the warden continued. Emergent planetary intelligences exceeding threshold autonomy are culled or assimilated.
Imani stared at Kael. "So we woke Earth… and triggered a cosmic cleanup."
The construct shifted again.
And then—
It spoke.
Not with sound.
With pressure.
Kael screamed as the transmission slammed directly into his mind, bypassing the Signal entirely.
---
DESIGNATED ANCHOR DETECTED.
ANOMALY CONFIRMED.
PLANETARY WILL: UNAUTHORIZED.
ANCHOR MUST BE EXTRACTED.
Ryn shouted Kael's name, but he barely heard her. His vision fractured—overlapping images of ancient civilizations, worlds burning softly into silence, planets wrapped in identical lattices before going dark forever.
This had happened before.
Many times.
The custodian didn't hate.
It recycled.
You cannot take him, the council roared as one.
The custodian ignored them.
A beam of containment light descended from the hovering construct, slamming into the facility's shielding. Alarms howled as systems overloaded instantly.
Unit-7 shouted warnings faster than they could be processed.
"Containment breach imminent! Commander, you must disconnect—now!"
Kael staggered to his feet, blood dripping onto the floor.
"No," he gasped. "If I disconnect, the Signal destabilizes. Billions could—"
Ryn grabbed him by the collar. "And if you don't, you die."
The custodian's beam intensified, warping the air. Cracks spiderwebbed across the dome's reinforced glass.
Imani activated external defenses, but the fire vanished against the beam like sparks swallowed by an ocean.
"It's not even fighting us," she said in disbelief. "It's performing a procedure."
---
The warden made a decision.
Without warning, ancient protocols flooded the facility—defensive systems older than the Silence, older than the Continuum. The ground trembled as buried structures awakened beneath the planet's crust.
Emergency override initiated, the warden projected.
Risk: planetary damage acceptable.
Kael snapped his head up. "No! You'll kill millions!"
Survival of the whole outweighs—
You don't get to decide that anymore, Kael sent back with everything he had left.
For a moment—just a fraction of a second—the warden hesitated.
That hesitation saved them.
---
The council acted.
Not through Kael.
Around him.
They wrapped him in the Signal—not as an anchor, not as a conduit, but as a protected node. Power rerouted. Connections shifted. The pressure eased slightly as the custodian's beam wavered.
Ryn gasped. "They're hiding you."
Kael dropped to one knee, barely conscious. "They're learning… fast."
The custodian paused mid-procedure.
Analyzed.
Adjusted.
ANCHOR RELOCATION DETECTED.
PROTOCOL ESCALATION AUTHORIZED.
The hovering construct split open, revealing a core of blinding, impossible geometry. Space screamed as gravity folded inward.
Imani's voice shook. "Kael… it's not trying to take you anymore."
Kael looked up slowly, dread hollowing his chest.
"It's going to take the planet instead."
The sky darkened as more custodians altered course, converging on Earth.
And for the first time since humanity left its cradle—
Earth was no longer just defending itself.
It was being judged.