Page 83 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

There is no safe way back to ignorance.

There may not be a safe way forward either.

Then the preserved archive nexus begins to open.

CHAPTER 12

GHAR

The preserved archive nexus opens like a wound in time, and the ruins immediately begin to object.

At first, the change is almost beautiful. Silver light pours from the black node in long, liquid ribbons that rise through the suspended chamber and thread themselves into the ancient mechanisms above us. The archive lattices beyond the aperture awaken one by one, each suspended prism blooming with inner constellations of data. Holographic fragments flare and collapse in layers too dense for mortal comprehension: starfields that do not match any charted sky, species silhouettes erased before my ancestors crawled into history, and architectural diagrams of worlds folded inside probability shells. The air warms with ozone and deep mineral heat. Every breath tastes like lightning striking wet stone.

Then the chamber screams.

The sound does not come through my ears alone. It drills through my bones, vibrates behind my eyes, and claws at the old injuries sealed under my scales. The rings suspended around the archive column begin rotating at different speeds. Bridges shift. The newly formed walkway behind us splinters at the edges, each black plate shuddering as if arguing with the physical laws holding it in place. Across the open void, Choir rifle fire flashes through the upper access route, and the first rounds strike the outer mechanisms with bright, surgical bursts.

Brakk yells something vicious in Fratvoyan and throws himself behind a raised section of ring-wall. Sira drops near the archive node, one hand pressed to the floor while luminous lines race under her palm. Anita stands at the opened nexus with her face washed silver, utterly transfixed by the preserved lattices unfolding before her.

I know that expression now.

Wonder has hold of her.

Fear has not reached her quickly enough.

“Anita!” I shout, crossing toward her as another burst of Choir fire cuts across the ring.

She turns half an inch, not enough to save herself. “Ghar, the data structure is intact. This is a primary preservation chamber. Do you understand what that means?”

“It means move.”

“It means the suppression records were archived before Precursor Standard even stabilized. The original overwrite commands may be stored here.”

A projectile strikes the node’s outer casing and ricochets into a nearby support. The impact sends a violent tremor through the ring. The bridge behind us buckles in three places, and the chamber below answers with a deep grinding roar.

Brakk fires toward the upper access through a haze of silver dust. “I hate to interrupt the end of every religion, but the murder choir brought climbing rigs!”

I look past him and see them descending along the shaft wall in staggered formation. Their black armor grips the vertical surfaces with mechanical claws and magnetic spines. Sensor masts unfold from their backs like insect limbs, scanning the changing geometry. The Choir is not stumbling through the ruins anymore. They are adapting.

Sira lifts her head sharply. “The archive nexus is destabilizing because of external damage and resonance conflict. If the bridge collapses, the access ring may shear away from the column.”

Anita’s eyes finally sharpen. “Can we stabilize it?”

“Not from here,” Sira says.

Another wave of fire rakes the platform. I grab Anita’s arm and pull her behind a curved black barrier before she can protest. She stumbles against me, the archive light still reflected in her eyes, and that moment of contact nearly breaks my concentration. The bond surges with violent urgency, feeding rage into fear until my pulse becomes a war drum.

“Stay down,” I tell her.

Anita twists in my grip. “There’s a control array at the second lattice tier.”

“No.”

“We need those records.”

“We need you alive.”

Her mouth opens for an argument, but the ring suddenly drops beneath us.