Page 58 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

The room shifts again, and the arch nearest Anita brightens along its inner edge. I move ahead before anyone else can step toward it. The passage beyond smells colder than the chamber, and the darkness inside it swallows the beam of my shoulder lamp after only a few meters. The ruins are inviting us deeper, and I do not know whether that makes them guide, predator, or machine.

We continue.

The next corridors behave worse. Distance stretches until a short passage takes nearly fifteen minutes to cross, then compresses so violently that a doorway ten meters away snaps to arm’s length when Brakk turns his head. Our voices echo in reverse twice. At one junction, I hear Anita say my name before she actually says it, and the sound moves over my skin like a warning from the future.

When she finally does speak, her voice is tight. “Ghar, look at the left wall.”

I turn.

The wall is covered in embedded script.

Not the flowing recursive markings from the upper levels, but deeper strokes shaped by harsh angles and layered symbols within symbols. The silver lines beneath the black surface pulse when Anita approaches, and the archive case answers with a quiet hum that makes my teeth ache.

Sira moves beside Anita. “These fragments are more complete.”

Anita opens the case with careful fingers, and the cracked scanner core projects a shaky translation lattice across the wall. The symbols resist interpretation, shifting beneath the projection as though meaning itself objects to being pinned down. Sira raises one hand toward the script but does not touch it.

“I can guide the syntax,” Sira says.

Anita glances at her. “Are you sure?”

“No,” Sira says calmly. “But uncertainty has become unavoidable.”

Brakk settles his cutter against one shoulder. “That is the Pi’Rell version of hold my drink.”

Sira’s eyes remain on the wall. “I do not drink before translation.”

“See, that’s why your people never get invited to the fun crimes.”

Anita exhales something close to a laugh, then focuses on the scanner. “Okay, Sira. I’ll stabilize the field. You handle the conceptual mapping.”

They work together in quiet concentration, and I stand guard with my back angled toward them, watching the corridor ahead while their voices move behind me. Anita’s speech becomes sharper when she is afraid, faster when she is excited, and more precise when she is exhausted. Sira’s responses remain measured, but a subtle strain enters her tone as the translation begins to form.

“The first clause references inheritance,” Sira says.

Anita adjusts the scanner beam. “Genetic inheritance?”

“Not precisely. Spiritual, technological, and ontological inheritance appear interwoven.”