No anger.
Just clarity.
And the beginning of the end.
I don’t run.
I just stand there, back against the monolith, the last flicker of override data pulsing like a phantom across my implant display. My hands hang loose at my sides. Not in surrender—just stillness. Like everything in me has finally gone quiet.
The station is no longer theirs.
Not entirely.
The hum beneath my boots has shifted again. Subtle, almost imperceptible, but it’s there. Like the bones of the place are re-learning how to breathe. I can feel it in the air—heavier, charged. No alarms, no klaxons. Obol was never loud when it worked. It simply rewrote you and moved on.
But now?
Now it’s vulnerable.
Now there’s a gap.
Footsteps echo somewhere beyond the garden entrance.
Two sets, maybe three. The rhythm’s sharp, purposeful. Military. The kind of walk that doesn’t bother with subtlety because it never had to.
They know I’m here.
Of course they do. Jax’s ping was never clean. They’ve been tracking this grid since the minute he went dark. And I don’t care.
I close my eyes and breathe in the dust and data of the place, the scent of old stone and oxidized air filtering through the crumbling leaves of the dead garden.
My heart’s steady.
Not calm. Not fearless. But resolved.
Let them come.
I’ve already done what I came here to do.
The first voice I hear isn’t barked or cold.
It’s cautious.
Female.
“Subject identified. Confirmed visual on Mara?—”
A pause.
She’s checking her display.
“...Tatek’s Mara.”
I open my eyes.
Three soldiers. Full armor. Black ops livery—no insignias. Standard-issue neural shock rifles held at low ready, not quite aimed. Their visors scan me in a cascade of light. I stand still, hands open, shoulders square.
They expect a fight.
