Chapter 40
NOVA
The room is too quiet.
That kind of quiet that hums at the edges, like the walls themselves are holding their breath.
I shouldn't be here.
I know that.
But I also know Stark's lying through his teeth, and the only way to get proof is to dig past the layers he built to keep people like me away.
His terminal glows faintly under the low lights of the lab, screensaver cycling through neural net overlay schematics, each more opaque than the last. I override the retina lock with a microchip I palmed off Verzius last week. He doesn't know.
The terminal clicks.
Unlocks.
I slide into the chair like I belong there.
My fingers move fast. Faster than fear can catch up.
Terminal logs. Obscured file trees. Direct I/O patches. He's running a modeling cluster deep enough to avoid protocol audits. What I find tucked between dummy folders and recoded echo programs makes my throat go dry.
A live simulation.
Real-time anomaly mapping.
The wormhole's already forming.
Underneath Daveros.
The crust is thinning where the field stabilizers are staged. There’s a vibration pattern—it’s low-frequency, almost seismic. Not just unstable.
Volatile.
One wrong surge, and it’ll collapse inward. Take half the mountain with it. Probably the base too.
I sit back in the chair, blood rushing in my ears.
He knew.
He knows.
Every test. Every "perfect" run. It’s a lie built on top of a disaster waiting to tear us apart.
Then I see it.
Another tab.
Mission manifest.
Scheduled for tomorrow. 0700 hours.
Payload: Aerial Scout Frame 09C.
Tag: Life support concealed – cargo designation 'N.C.’
My initials.
He's not sending a drone through.
He's sending me.
I stare at the entry.
Hands trembling.
That bastard was going to launch me into the wormhole—alive—pretending I was cargo. Masking the life signs. Like I’m just another container of equipment to be fired off into cosmic uncertainty while everyone drinks morning caf and pats themselves on the back for theoretical progress.
And I wouldn’t even have a chance to scream.
The door behind me hisses open.
I barely have time to turn.
Stark steps through like he owns the night.
Cool.
Polished.
Predator calm.
His voice is honeyed poison. “Curiosity’s always been your weakness.”
I reach for the alert button on the console.
But I never touch it.
He moves fast—faster than I thought he could.
Something snaps against my neck. White-hot pain explodes across my spine, short-circuiting thought. My muscles lock.
Suddenly, darkness.
Time skips.
Sound warps.
I drift in and out, blinking against blinding white and buzzing fluorescents.
Pain hums behind my eyes.
There’s a cold floor under me. Metal. Grimy.
My wrists burn. Restraints.
Containment bay.
I know the shape of it from the inside of schematics. He’s got me in one of the prototype med-pod shells, stripped down for transport. Probably planning to slide me into the array housing like an extra battery.
I’m cargo now.
Just like the manifest says.
"You shouldn’t have snooped," he murmured before I blacked out—his voice echoing even now like static under my skin.
I don’t move.
Don’t breathe too hard.
I hear footsteps moving away.
Heavy. Deliberate.
He’s not worried.
He thinks I’m out.
He thinks he’s already won.
But I was ready for this.
Always had a contingency.
Verzius taught me that much.
I twitch my left thumb just enough to press the pad of my fingertip against the small embedded chip sewn into the lining of my glove.
It hums—silent, low-frequency—and blinks once.
My backup signal fires off.
Pre-coded.
Encrypted.
Three words only.
He has me.