The archives of Sector 4 were not a place for the living. They were a repository of digital ghosts, a vast, chilled vault where the history of a discarded world was compressed into crystalline data wafers. For Evelyn, the archives felt like a tomb. Silent, smelling of ozone and frozen dust.
"Keep your head down," Leo whispered, his voice barely audible over the hum of the cooling fans. "The primary sensors in this corridor have a four-second blind spot every rotation. It's a legacy glitch from the 2140 patch. Vane's team is too arrogant to fix old tech."
Evelyn counted the pulses of the security light. One. Two. Three. On four, they darted across the white-tiled floor, slipping behind a massive server rack that towered like a black monolith.
They were deep in a "Dead Zone", a corner of the archives where the cameras had been physically severed during a maintenance mishap years ago and never repaired. Here, the air was stagnant, untouched by the aggressive filtration of the main Academy.
"Why are we here, Leo?" Evelyn asked, her fingers brushing the cold metal of the racks. "If we're caught in the restricted history tier..."
"We won't be," Leo said, his eyes glowing with the reflected light of his tablet. "I found a ghost in the directory. A physical file. Not a data wafer, Evie. A real, tangible object that hasn't been digitized. It's listed under 'Biological Anomalies: Pre-Ascent.'"
He led her to a heavy, manual sliding drawer at the very back of the vault. It was covered in a thick layer of grey silt, the skin cells and hair of generations of Orbiters, ground into dust. With a groan of protesting metal, Leo hauled the drawer open.
Inside, resting on a bed of anti-static foam, was a book.
Evelyn gasped. She had seen digital recreations of books in her history modules, but they always looked sterile, perfectly rendered rectangles of light. This was different. The cover was made of something textured and dark, cracked with age. The edges of the pages were yellowed and frayed, like the wings of a dying moth.
"Touch it," Leo urged, his breath hitching.
Evelyn reached out. The moment her fingertips brushed the leather, the "Copper Pulse" didn't just throb, it screamed.
The silver crescent on her shoulder burned beneath her sleeve, the heat so intense she nearly cried out. Her vision flickered. For a split second, the cold blue light of the archives was replaced by a blinding, golden sun filtering through a canopy of ancient oaks.
She forced herself to stay grounded, focusing on the weight of the book. She opened it. The pages didn't scroll; they turned with a dry, rhythmic scritch.
Halfway through, she stopped.
It was an illustration, a hand-drawn sketch in charcoal and silver ink. It depicted a creature that looked like a wolf, but it was massive, its eyes filled with a terrifying, soulful intelligence. Standing beside it was a woman, her hand resting on the beast's flank. On her shoulder was the same silver crescent Evelyn hid beneath her skin.
"The Luna," Evelyn whispered, the word tasting of ancient salt on her tongue.
"Look at the text," Leo said, pointing to the cramped, handwritten notes in the margins. 'The bond is not a parasite. It is a bridge. When the Tree weeps, the heartbeats align. The Alpha seeks the Moon; the Moon guides the Pack.'
Thump-thump.
The "Ghost Heartbeat" spiked. It wasn't just a sound anymore; it was a physical pressure in her chest. Evelyn closed her eyes, and suddenly, she wasn't in the archives.
She was looking through a different set of eyes.
She saw a ruin, a skeletal skyscraper draped in vines. She felt the vibration of a low growl in her chest. She felt the sensation of powerful muscles coiled, ready to spring. And then, she saw him. A boy, perhaps her age, with eyes the color of molten amber. He was staring up at the sky, toward the tiny, flickering lights of the Orbit.
I see you, a voice echoed in her mind. It wasn't a voice of words, but of intent; sharp, lonely, and fierce.
"Evelyn! Evie, snap out of it!"
Leo was shaking her. The book had fallen from her hands, landing with a heavy thud on the foam. The silver glow was bleeding through the fabric of her uniform, casting a rhythmic, lunar light against the dark server racks.
"He's there," Evelyn breathed, her eyes wide and unfocused. "Leo, he's real. The boy... he's looking for me."
"The sensors!" Leo hissed, frantic. He grabbed the book and shoved it back into the drawer, slamming it shut. He grabbed a handful of dust from the floor and scattered it over the handle to hide their fingerprints. "The power draw from your... whatever that was... it just tripped a localized surge. The Overseers will be here in minutes."
He grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the ventilation duct they had used to enter.
Evelyn stumbled, her mind still half-submerged in the ruins of Earth. She could still feel the phantom sensation of the wind on her face, the smell of damp earth, and the tether; that invisible, unbreakable cord of light connecting her heart to a boy in the Ash.
As they scrambled into the dark safety of the vents, Evelyn looked back one last time. The archives were silent again, but the silence was a lie. The "Boy in the Machine" wasn't a glitch. He was a beacon.
And the Orbit, for all its glass and carbon-fiber, was starting to feel like a cage made of paper.