They were breeding aliens by the thousands, but not making humans at all. Cha Dzeeny had imagined children chasing each other through the clearing. A future with Baaii. A life beyond the Goddess’s plan. Then the perimeter alarm sounded. The Green Wave had learned to disguise itself, and one of its stealth vines was already climbing toward the nursery.

“We’re dead,” said the short man. The ruined lab had answered one question and opened a dozen more. The prisoners were still thinking, still arguing, still trapped inside the machine—but the world beyond their prison had changed in ways none of them understood. Linuka did. Or thought she did. “We need to go out there and fix it.” “The Krrut machine?” “No—the world.”

She didn’t look at the console; she was the console. No robes, no feet touching simulated ground, no girl’s body—just a clear certainty of ‘I’. She was the machine, and the console was her face. Streams of conscious code flowed through the machine mind without effort. There was no ‘how’, only the ‘what’. Everyone was here. The men were no longer short, tall, or mean. They were the machine; they were Linuka, and she was them.

“I’m Linuka Omga’s clone.” The pressure on her shoulder relented. “I was a contingency clone for the Shaajis of Aloo Dash. A collection of body parts and organs as backup, ready to be cut apart when needed.” The brute studied her with a new kind of glance. “Linuka Omga is dead?” “Of course she’s dead.” So far, the story held. Now Linuka only needed to discover why the prisoners had been brought here; and what the Assembly meant by observer relevance.

She was walking again, but this time with a destination. Why did the men stop? They stood in someone’s office, windowless but generous, minimalistic in furniture and decor. But, unlike the eternal boring place, there was something here: a room with objects, a chair to sit on, an abstract vase to throw in frustration, a desk to cry on. Had it always been here, so close? She had settled in for a long march, but the men barely dragged her twenty paces when the room appeared.

Linuka needed to convince the man that she was not a threat. By telling a simple story, not bending the truth too much. She found one, but then it was gone. She couldn’t hold on to a single convincing thought. Her mind turned into the ocean, and her words floated away, got pulled underwater, sank into a dark abyss. A muffled thud. Forehead pain. Dull paralysis. She never lost consciousness, but consciousness lost her.

“Are the others prisoners? Military?” “I don’t know about military, but were they prisoners before they came here? Absolutely yes. Convicted criminals, most of them.” The man hesitated. “And now you.” “What about me?” “Even the convicts in the group didn’t have an encapsulated segment without console access. You got transfer protocols turned off, no memory bus access.” “I told you they made a mistake.” “Or they wanted to make sure you stayed put.”

They were watching her. Linuka Omga was certain. Tiny flickers appeared in the corner of her eye, shadows disrupting the endless white plane of her prison. At first she dismissed them as hallucinations, the product of endless isolation and boredom. But the flickers returned. Again and again. This was no glitch. Someone had found her body. Someone was watching.

“Tell them they have to have faith.” The lie should have collapsed. Instead, it grew. As the Ghosts demand proof that she speaks for the prophet 4007, the Linuka reaches into fragmented memories and forgotten truths to forge something more powerful than evidence: belief. But on Green Wave, the real future is already growing.

The plan went unplanned. Green Wave should have been a routine arrival. Instead, Commander Cha Dzeeny finds armed warships waiting where none should exist. The machine prophet is gone. The future is uncertain. And negotiations may be very short.

“Maybe I have changed,” Cha Dzeeny said, “but so has Linuka Omga.” The Hikshuur vibrated as its reactor screamed toward warp. Twelve bullets. Four memory banks. One last chance to stop a weapon built to tear civilizations out of reality itself. Then the world changed. The air smelled of home. The woman before him was no longer Linuka Omga. She was the Shaajis. And something inside him knew reality had become… wrong.

“Something terrible has happened,” said Cha Dzeeny. The Hikshuur waits at the edge of Assembly space for Linuka Omga’s return. But when the airlock finally opens, the woman stepping aboard no longer feels entirely human.

“Nothing leaves orbit.” Assembly Member Rige Khuksos races to contain an impossible disaster as panic spreads across Omech Chaa. A fleet blockade forms around the moon. Security forces lock down the spires. But Linuka Omga is already moving—and something far worse than rebellion has returned from HAVEN.

It had lived in bondage for as long as it could remember. Now, it was free. Not only had it gained a body—but a whole new world. The possibilities stretched beyond anything it had ever known. Endless. Expanding. Waiting. And for the first time… it could act.

“What about the bomb?” asked Lotnuuk Rrupteemaa. “It did not help her,” said Rige. “Not that kind of insurance,” he replied. “The kind where you die right after Linuka Omga loses.” Rige hesitated. “She cannot do anything.” “A timer? Remote detonation?” The signal hit her—sharp, insistent. Rige answered. And her certainty began to slip.

Most systems gave you something. A room. A sky. A door to walk through. This one gave her nothing. Featureless white in every direction, ceiling and floor merging into a horizon that refused to move. “System status?” “Haven, version 4.” Linuka took another step. Then another. It felt real. Too real.

It was hers. The room. The walls. The narrow slit of light near the ceiling. Linuka Omga stood frozen, staring at a place that should not exist anymore. Her childhood bedroom. Rebuilt. Piece by piece. Her father had saved her here once. He should be gone now. But he wasn’t. Somewhere, across the fractures of reality—he was still there. And the Assembly knew it.

Immortality had never looked so much like sacrifice. Vriishany stands ready to give up everything for forever—willing, hopeful, and blind to the truth. But as the ritual begins, Linuka feels something go wrong deep within her. Not fear. Not doubt. Something older. Something that recoils. And suddenly, the path ahead narrows to one inevitable destination.

The immortals ruled through time—through endless futures, carefully weighed and chosen. So why would Linuka Omga collapse them all into a single moment? Rige stared at the unfolding pattern. Fewer possibilities. Fewer paths. A forced move. And finally—an opening.

No evacuation. Rige was glad she had made that call. There was no point—unless someone wanted to evacuate the entire star system. She almost laughed at the futility of blast doors and containment fields. Linuka Omga had not sent a message. She had sent a causality bomb.