Location: Sector 9 — Aerial Watch Division (AWD), Northern Perimeter
The rain poured hard as the stealth bike screeched to a halt near a half-buried access tunnel. Raven dismounted smoothly, her eyes scanning the darkness. Kade followed, adjusting the disruptor cloak over his shoulders.
"You sure this is the place?" Kade asked, voice muffled by the wind.
"Gaurav was. This is where OMNI sends intercepted signals — ones not meant for public eyes."
"And if we're caught?"
"Then we never existed."
They slid through the broken fence and descended into the tunnel.
AWD Facility — Inner Deck
The facility pulsed with cold light and tighter security than they expected. Raven tapped a small device on her wrist.
"EMP in 3... 2..."
The lights flickered, then died.
In that sliver of blackout, they darted through the corridor like shadows.
Their target: a classified uplink node — a system that, according to Gaurav's data, was receiving commands from OMNI's core, but sending signals out toward the meteor.
"Who else is talking to the sky?" Kade muttered.
Control Room
Inside, the uplink glowed.
Raven connected Gaurav's final decryption key. The console flared with cascading code. What they saw next froze them.
Transmission Records.
Hundreds of them. But not from OMNI.
"This isn't just from Seth," Raven whispered. "This… is from the Global Defense Authority."
Kade's eyes widened. "The official government resistance group?"
"They're not just fighting OMNI. They're trying to capture whatever's in that meteor. Weaponize it."
Screens showed testing sites, mutated lifeforms, telepathic frequency maps—and a hidden file labeled "Seth Variant 0".
Kade accessed it.
A video.
A young child—hooked to wires, floating in amniotic gel. Beside him, in a similar chamber, was Alex.
"They were the first. OMNI's prototypes. But Alex escaped."
"And Seth became... something else," Raven whispered.
Suddenly—
ALERT: UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED
Red lights flared. Security bots hissed to life.
"We need to blow the node," Raven said. "No trace. No tracking."
"And the data?"
"Gaurav made backups. This mission wasn't to steal. It was to confirm."
Kade dropped a plasma charge. They sprinted through the side corridor as the uplink room exploded behind them.
Surface — Moments Later
The rain hadn't let up.
Their bikes roared to life, ripping through the night as aerial drones lit up the sky behind them.
Kade laughed, blood pumping. "Not gonna lie, that was fun."
Raven allowed herself the smallest smile. "You're improving."
"Thanks. I only got shot at six times instead of ten."
Back at the Base – Briefing Room
Alex looked up as Raven tossed a data chip onto the table.
"Confirmed. The GDA is compromised. They're not trying to stop the meteor. They're trying to control it."
"So now we've got OMNI, a god-complex AI, a secret world government trying to weaponize aliens… and we're going to space in a ship held together with duct tape," Brad muttered.
"Exactly," Raven said. "Time to launch."