Page 180 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

A shape gathers beyond the rupture.

Calling it a body is generous and probably academically irresponsible. It condenses in layers of pale gold, translucent white, and edges that do not remain edges when observed directly. The form approximates height, limbs, a head, and hands, perhaps because it has decided we need the courtesy of something vaguely person-shaped or because the archive is translating impossibility into local expectations. Its face is almost there, then not, then there again with too many expressions stacked under a single mouth.

It looks at me.

Then it looks at Ghar.

Then it looks at the floating debris, the Choir bodies suspended in broken gravity, the archive rings frozen in impossible alignment, Rolaev ’s shattered key, Sira’s tears, and Brakk’s cable spool.

The being says, with a voice like light passing through water and a tone disturbingly close to social embarrassment, “Oh. This persisted.”

No one speaks.

Brakk stops swearing.

Then he whispers, “I beg your pardon?”

The First One echo turns toward him with mild interest. “You are very compact.”

Brakk’s eyes bulge. “That is not the main issue!”

“Is it not?” The being considers him, then seems to consider the concept of issue. “Ah. Sequential urgency. Yes. Your local continuity is unstable.”

Sira’s grip tightens on the cable. “You are a First Architect.”

The being looks at her, and the chamber fills with a faint chime that might be its surprise. “That is an ornate name.”

My throat is dry enough to hurt. “What should we call you?”

The entity pauses.

Not because it searches memory in any human way. The pause is stranger than that, as if naming itself requires it to compress something too large into a handle that will not crush us.

“I do not think I kept a small-name,” it says. “This projection can answer to Echo, if that fits your narrative habits.”

Brakk turns his head slowly toward me. “Did the godlike pre-reality being just call itself Echo because we are too stupid for its real name?”

“I think that was the polite version, yes.”

“Fantastic. I hate being right about ancient things needing less personality.”

Echo looks back at me. Its almost-face shifts toward what might be concern. “You are distressed.”

I laugh.

The sound comes out wrong, high and brittle, because if I do not laugh I might scream until my lungs resign. “That is a strong possibility, yes.”

Ghar forces himself to stand.

He does it badly. I can see the pain carve through him, but he gets his feet under him anyway, because apparently even after reality ruptures and an entity from before time casually manifests, Ghar Vek’Talan remains constitutionally opposed to staying down. He takes one step toward me, then another, each one careful.

“Do not move closer to it,” he says.

Echo turns toward him. “You are guarding her.”

“Yes.”

“From me?”