The sirens did not grow louder.
They grew closer.
Not the panicked wail broadcast to civilians. These were compressed pulses, short and disciplined, designed for units that already knew where to go.
A.C.U. approach signals.
The figure from HELIX watched the tunnel ceiling, counting silently.
"Thirty seconds," they said. "Maybe less."
My mouth felt dry. "You said I could leave."
"You can," they replied. "Physically."
The fragment shifted again.
Not toward me.
Toward the sound.
Its membrane tightened, then relaxed, as if recognizing a familiar pressure. Internal structures aligned in a pattern I had seen only once before, on classified diagrams meant to explain threat response.
It was preparing.
"Why show me this," I asked. "If you know they're coming."
"Because they will erase it," the figure said. "And they will erase you with paperwork if you go back ignorant."
The lights flickered.
Dust fell from the ceiling in thin sheets.
[krkk]
Metal grinding against reinforced rails somewhere above us.
I looked at the containment chamber again.
Up close, the cell fragment was no longer abstract. It was not just mass and membranes. There were repeating formations now, nodal clusters that behaved less like organelles and more like decision points.
A wrong word surfaced in my mind.
Neural.
"That thing," I said slowly, "it's not just adapting. It's modeling us."
The figure nodded once. "Finally."
They tapped their wrist. The lattice surrounding the fragment shifted configuration, opening microscopic channels that glowed faintly blue.
"Apoptosis Protocol taught cells when to die," they said. "What we never asked was what they learned while waiting."
A heavy impact shook the station.
[BOOM]
The fragment recoiled, then stabilized faster than before.
Learning rate increasing.
I felt something twist in my chest.
"If I stay," I said, "they'll mark me as compromised."
"You already are."
Another impact.
Closer.
This time, the bioluminescent veins along the walls pulsed irregularly, reacting not to power loss but to stress. The station was alive enough to be afraid.
The figure stepped toward me, voice lowering.
"You saw the hesitation because you study failure patterns, not success," they said. "Your work on protocol drift, on delayed compliance. You wrote that systems reveal intent only when they break."
I stared at them. "You read my unpublished drafts."
"We archived them before they were deleted."
The tunnel behind me lit up with harsh white beams.
A.C.U. search lights.
Voices echoed.
"Containment breach suspected."
"Visual confirmation pending."
"Prepare suppression."
The word suppression hit harder than neutralization.
The fragment pressed fully against the lattice now, its surface rippling in synchronized waves. Not panic.
Anticipation.
"Last chance," the figure said. "Stay, and help us translate what it wants."
Another impact.
The wall near the entrance cracked.
I exhaled.
The truth settled with a strange calm.
There was no version of this where I went back to normal.
I stepped forward.
The figure did not smile.
They simply turned and placed their hand on the chamber controls.
"Good," they said. "Then you should know its first message."
The lattice dimmed.
The fragment pulsed once.
A pattern appeared across its membrane, luminous and deliberate.
Not random.
Not biological noise.
A structure mimicking signal encoding.
It was simple.
Efficient.
Almost polite.
The figure spoke quietly.
"It isn't asking how to survive."
Another explosion rocked the station.
The fragment pulsed again.
"It's asking why it was ever told to die."