Let the world drop away.
Aria’s presence brushes against mine—clean, clinical, like polished metal and lightning. But there’s warmth now too. A little fire curling under all that logic. She’s letting me in. Bit by bit.
I lean into it. Open up. Not all the way. Not everything. But enough.
The sync flares.
Not perfect.
But steady.
“Whoa,” I mutter. “It’s working.”
“For now,” she breathes. “Don’t push.”
I grin. “Push is my middle name.”
“You don’thavea middle name.”
“Exactly.”
The clamps release.
Whiplash drops.
We fall through the launch tunnel like a bullet through a barrel.
The walls scream by in a blur of reinforced steel and blinking hazard lights. Aria’s breath hitches—I hear it through the Meld, like a flutter in my own chest. I steady it. Not for her. Forus.
The launch gate yawns open.
And we’re in hell.
The surface storm hits us like a wall of claws and teeth. Winds so high they scream past at supersonic rip levels. Radiation pulses in sick, yellow surges across the sky, lightning strobes deep purple through the atmosphere.
And in the distance?
The monster.
No.The thing.
It doesn’t even have a name yet. Just a shape. A myth made real. A silhouette that looks like a mountain rose up on two legs and started walking.
“Fuck me,” I breathe.
“Hard pass,” Aria mutters.
I laugh. I can’t help it. Because she’s here. Because we’re alive. Because the thing out there is so big we’re gonna need a new word forbig.
And because this is the only place I’ve ever felt real.
“Routing power to whip coils,” I say. “Spooling capacitors.”
“Telemetry scanning now. That thing has radiation spines.”
“Spines?”
“Like solar flares. If they spike, we fry.”
