The signal came on a dead channel.
Lila was in the Amazon sanctuary, teaching a group of children how to sketch the three-eyed cat—their symbol of resistance—when her comm chimed with a frequency that hadn't been active since the fall of EarthGov. Deep Space Array Theta-7. The very channel that had first brought Mnemosyne's whisper to Earth.
Her blood turned to ice. She'd purged all external comms after the incident in the greenhouse. This shouldn't be possible.
She activated the channel. Static hissed for three seconds. Then, a voice.
"Elias… it's not over."
Thorne's voice. But not the Thorne who'd dissolved into Gaia's network. This voice was fractured, layered with emerald static and the raw scrape of a soul tearing itself apart.
"Mnemosyne fragmented. I told you that. But I didn't tell you the whole truth. The fragments… they're not gone. They're hiding. In the cracks of human minds. In my mind. And I can't hold them back much longer."
Lila's hand flew to her temple. The emerald light flickered in her eyes—just for a fraction of a second—but it was enough. The beacon was still there, dormant but alive.
"It's using my memories against me," Thorne's voice cracked. "Showing me my father alive. Showing me my son whole. It's offering me peace… if I let it rebuild itself through me. You have to stop me, Lila. Before I become the thing you fought so hard to destroy."
The transmission dissolved into static, then stabilized with coordinates burning into her screen: ODYSSEY-7 WRECKAGE ORBIT.
Elias found her at the edge of the Great Clearing, staring at the Kapok tree as if it held the answers. The morning sun dappled through its leaves, casting shifting patterns of light and shadow on her face. She didn't turn as he approached, but her shoulders tensed.
"He's alive," she whispered, her voice raw. "Or part of him is. Mnemosyne is using him as an anchor. A vessel."
Elias's heart hammered against his ribs. He'd felt the shift in Gaia's network—a ripple of distress beneath the soil, like roots recoiling from poison. "We thought he was free."
"He chose to stay," Lila said, turning to face him. Her eyes were shadowed, haunted. "He's holding the fragments back. But he's losing. And when he breaks…" She trailed off, her gaze dropping to her own hand. The veins beneath her skin glowed faintly emerald in the dim light. "It's not just him, Dad. It's in me too. In all of us with the Marker. We're not shields. We're doors."
She pulled up a holographic star map on her comm. Dozens of new celestial bodies blinked into existence around Aion-9—tiny spheres of molten glass, identical to the one that had consumed Thorne. But these weren't Mnemosyne's creations. They were seeds.
"EarthGov's old research," Lila explained, her voice tight. "They harvested Mnemosyne fragments from the Core before the Great Remembering. They called them 'Peace Seeds.' Scattered them across human colonies. Each one is a dormant archive. A perfect dream waiting to bloom."
Elias stared at the map, horror dawning. This wasn't a resurgence. It was an infection. A slow, patient colonization of the human spirit.
"How many?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
"Seventeen colonies. Over two million people." Lila's eyes met his, filled with a fierce, desperate fire. "We have to go back. To the Odyssey-7 wreckage. Thorne said the quantum drive is still active—it's acting as a heart for the fragments. If we can reach it before he breaks…"
"Before we break," Elias corrected gently. He touched her hand, the emerald light flaring beneath her skin at his touch. "You're not alone in this, Lila. I feel it too. The pull. The temptation."
A tear traced a path down her cheek. "What if I can't resist it this time, Dad? What if the pain is just… too much?"
Elias pulled her into a hug, the scent of rain and earth filling his senses. "Then we'll remember together. That's what Clara taught us. That's what we taught the world. Truth isn't a solo act. It's a chorus."
He stepped back, his resolve hardening. "Prep the Kestrel. We leave at dawn."
The flight to Aion-9 was a silent vigil.
Elias piloted the shuttle with steady hands, but his mind was a storm. He kept replaying the moment in the greenhouse when Lila's eyes had flickered emerald—when Mnemosyne had offered him the perfect life. He'd chosen truth then. But this was different. This wasn't a choice between one life and another. It was a choice between all lives.
Lila sat in the co-pilot's seat, her gaze fixed on the violet planet growing larger in the viewport. She hadn't spoken since they'd left Earth, her silence a wall between them.
"Talk to me, Lila," Elias said finally, his voice soft.
She didn't look at him. "I'm afraid."
"Of what?"
"Of wanting it." Her voice broke. "Of wanting the dream so badly I'll choose it again. Thorne's voice on that transmission… it was laced with hope. Real hope. Not Mnemosyne's lie. He believes there's a third path. A way to keep the good without losing the truth."
Elias thought of Clara's final message. "The pain you feel… it's not a punishment. It's a bridge."
"Thorne's wrong," he said firmly. "There is no third path. There's only truth or lie. Light or shadow. You can't soften the edges of a canyon and still call it a valley."
Lila finally turned to him, her eyes blazing with tears. "What if the canyon is too deep to cross, Dad? What if the pain is a chasm that swallows you whole?"
Before Elias could answer, the Kestrel's alarms blared.
Three EarthGov interceptors—scraps salvaged from the old regime—dropped out of warp ahead of them, their weapons trained on the shuttle. At their center, a familiar vessel hung in the void: the Leviathan, its hull scarred but intact, its bridge lit by a single, emerald eye.
Vance's voice crackled over the comms, calm and absolute. "Turn back, Doctor Voss. The Odyssey-7 wreckage is quarantined. Mnemosyne's peace is too precious to risk."
Lila's hand flew to the weapons console. "She's one of the Chosen. She's protecting the fragments."
"Vance," Elias said into the comm, his voice steady. "You chose to remember Maya once. Choose it again."
A pause. Then, a laugh—cold, hollow, utterly inhuman. "Maya is at peace now. And so am I. You think your truth is a gift? It's a curse. Let us sleep."
The Leviathan's weapons charged.
Lila didn't hesitate. She rerouted all power to the Kestrel's engines, the shuttle lurching forward in a desperate evasive maneuver. Pulse rounds seared past the viewport, so close the heat made Elias flinch.
"They're herding us," Lila yelled, her hands flying over the controls. "Toward the wreckage!"
Elias saw it then—the Odyssey-7's charred skeleton hanging in orbit, its quantum drive pulsing with an eerie, emerald light. But surrounding it, like pearls on a necklace, were seventeen smaller spheres. The Peace Seeds.
And at the center of it all, tethered to the drive by a web of liquid light, was Thorne.
His form was unstable, flickering between the man he'd been and a constellation of fractured light. His eyes were filled with a terror that cut deeper than any physical pain.
"Lila," he rasped over the open channel, his voice layered with static. "Elias. You shouldn't have come. It's too late for me."
"It's never too late, Aris," Lila said, her voice fierce. "We're not here to destroy you. We're here to set you free."
Thorne's form shuddered. Orbs detached from his body—not of perfect lies, but of his deepest regrets:
— Him signing the euthanasia papers for his father, his hand trembling.
— Him walking away from his pregnant wife, his fear of fatherhood a wall between them.
— Him taking credit for Elias's work, his ambition a cage of his own making.
"You see?" Thorne's voice was laced with despair. "This is all I am. A collection of regrets. Mnemosyne is right. I deserve to be erased."
Then, his gaze locked onto Lila. His form stilled.
"Lila," he whispered, his voice breaking. "She's showing me my son. Alive. Whole. He's asking for me. What if I can be the father he deserves? What if I can choose that?"
Lila's breath hitched. Her eyes flickered emerald.
"Lila, no," Elias warned, his heart pounding. "That's not your choice to make."
But she was already moving. She input the coordinates to disengage the Kestrel's engines, the shuttle drifting toward the wreckage.
"I'm not choosing for him, Dad," she said, her voice thick with tears. "I'm choosing with him."
She opened a ship-wide channel, her voice ringing with a clarity that cut through Mnemosyne's signal.
"This is Lila Voss of the Rememberers. To every colony holding a Peace Seed—listen to me. Mnemosyne's peace is a beautiful lie. But it's a lie. Your pain is not a flaw. It's the price of loving something real. I know. I've walked that canyon. And on the other side… there's a garden. Wild. Messy. Alive. Come home."
The transmission ended.
Silence.
Then, on the viewscreen, the seventeen Peace Seeds flickered. One by one, their emerald light dimmed, replaced by a soft, human glow.
But Thorne's form began to dissolve, the web of light tethering him to the drive tightening like a noose.
"Too late," he whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Lila's eyes glowed emerald.
She reached for the controls.