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Brakk carries Sira with one of her arms draped over his shoulders, though she has regained enough strength to protest in short, dignified intervals. Her throat is marked where the collar burned her, angry red lines marring silver-white skin. She looks frail in a way that frightens me, but her eyes remain painfully clear.

“I can walk,” Sira says softly.

Brakk snorts. “You are walking. I am merely arguing with gravity on your behalf.”

“You are carrying most of my weight.”

“I contain multitudes.”

“You contain excessive pride and at least three untreated injuries.”

“See? Multitudes.”

The exchange should make me smile.

It almost does.

Then the corridor bends without bending, and the floor extends beneath us into a wide chamber filled with suspended coordinate latticework. Thousands of silver points hang in the air at different depths, connected by fine threads of blue light. The pattern resembles a star map until I realize the positions do not correspond to space. They correspond to layers beneath the ruins. Some points pulse with archive signatures we have already encountered. Others glow faintly, damaged or dormant. One point burns deep black rimmed in silver at the bottom of the lattice.

The archive case in my hands warms immediately.

My breath catches.

“There,” I whisper.

Ghar turns toward the lattice. “What is it?”

I step closer, watching the threads rearrange around my presence. “Coordinates.”

Brakk peers from behind Sira’s shoulder. “Please tell me they point to a cafeteria.”

“They point downward.”

“Of course they do.”

I set the archive case on a low pedestal that rises from the floor in response to my approach. The damaged scanner core inside the case lifts on its own, rotating slowly above the open lid. I raise both hands toward the lattice and begin aligning the nearest coordinate thread with the scanner’s projection field.

The work comes too easily now.

That should scare me.

It does.

My fingers move through the air, and the lattice answers with soft musical tones that make the hairs along my arms rise. The interface recognizes the recovered fragments, Sira’s translated syntax, the path we took through the transit systems, and the preserved nexus route. Each piece of data slides into place, building a map from partial memory and ancient intention.

A phrase appears beneath the black-rimmed coordinate.

DEEPEST SURVIVING SUBSTRATE ARCHIVE.

I stare at it until my vision blurs.

Sira leans against Brakk, her gaze sharpening despite exhaustion. “Substrate implies foundational storage beneath ordinary archive layers.”

“Primary memory,” I say. “Or something below primary. The part they could not move, could not destroy, and could only bury.”

Ghar steps closer to the projection, the silver light catching along the black ridge markings of his jaw. “Can we reach it?”

The lattice expands.