Yellow Jacket

Florence groaned softly, eyelids fluttering as she came to. Her mechanical tendrils twitched once, instinctively, before retreating into their dormant coils. The ceiling of the vault loomed above her, scaffolding etched with age and wrapped in snaking cables.

"Don't move too fast," Wren said gently, crouched beside her with one hand hovering over Florence's shoulder. "You fainted."

Florence blinked, then sat up slowly, pressing a hand to her temple. She looked at Wren, then Warren, then back at Wren.

"You really said pregnant."

Wren nodded, a faint, sheepish smile on her face. "I did."

Florence squinted at Warren. He was standing perfectly still like someone awaiting a tribunal, or divine retribution. Everyone else in the room went quiet, not the heavy kind of silence, but the brittle one, like a held breath. Wren's gaze dropped to the floor. Even Isol looked away.

"So not only did you name a city after my dead sister; you got your partner pregnant without telling us until after the gods got involved."

Warren opened his mouth. Closed it. Thought better of it.

Florence exhaled. 'Right. One thing at a time.' She looked at Wren. Suspicion flickered behind her eyes, but she didn't push it. Not yet.

She let Wren help her up. The group had already begun to reassemble around the Arc's entrance.

Florence brushed off the dust from her coat and muttered, "If one more secret drops out of the sky, I swear to the Gods I will start screaming." Then, under her breath, barely audible: "Fuck. I guess that actually means something now."

"Ready?" Isol asked.

"As I'll ever be," she replied, already walking toward the hidden entrance in the Arc's base. "Let's go see what the Green was sitting on all this time."

The others followed, quiet now, the mood changed. The scaffolding gave way to a wide corridor of smooth steel and ancient piping, leading them toward the gleaming monolith that dominated the chamber beyond. It towered in silence, unmarred by age, its surface etched with twisting sigils that caught the light from Car's work lamps like veins of silver. At its center, carved into the door in deep, fluid script, was a single word.

Isol stepped closer, eyes widening. His voice was low but clear as he spoke the word aloud: "Hemera."

A soft chime answered. The door hissed and split along invisible seams, opening inward with quiet finality.

Everyone turned to look at Isol.

Warren broke the silence. "You can read old Scav?"

Isol gave a small, amused shake of his head. "No, my boy, that's Lendorian. Not Scav."

Florence blinked. "You know the language?"

He nodded. "One of the old tongues, pre-Collapse. This place… it's older than I expected. And I'll admit, I'm excited to see what it's been keeping hidden."

Warren stepped closer to the open doorway, eyes still fixed on the word. "What does 'Hemera' mean?"

Isol smiled. "It's the name of our world, my boy. Translated, it means 'Mother of Mothers.' Not grandmother. Not matriarch. The first mother."

Warren repeated the name quietly, reverent: "Hemera."

Florence, still watching Isol, said, "We need to talk. There's something you need to help me with."

Warren had never wanted the System to lay eyes on this place. That was why Florence had worked to duplicate the dampeners, not as a single-use trick, but as a permanent veil. They hummed faintly now, threaded into the scaffolding and walls, casting their quiet interference across every frequency the System might have used to probe. No signals escaped. The Arc, to the outside world, simply did not exist. Whatever this place was, it wasn't just a secret worth keeping. It was something worth protecting.

The Ark had changed.

Not just in layout or lighting, but in tone. It no longer whispered secrets of a lost world. It breathed. It watched. It waited.

And now, it spoke.

Warren stood slightly behind Florence and Isol. His shoulder was tense, eyes tracking every flicker of light on the console Wren remained beside him, one hand resting lightly against his wrist, not to hold him back, but to remind him he wasn't alone.

The AI's voice repeated its phrase, smoother now: something in a language none of them but Isol understood. The cadence was lyrical, but the meaning was lost to the group.

Isol straightened. He responded in the same language, fluent and calm, his voice steady as he issued a command.

The AI paused, then recalibrated.

The AI responded in a voice newly forming, still halting but gaining clarity. "Thank you. This one will begin speaking in a combination of Thanean and Northern Hilarian. Welcome, caretakers."

Isol nodded, satisfied. "Much better. You should all be able to understand it now."

His fingers hovered over the interface. He didn't touch it. Not yet. He turned to Florence. "This is learning language in real time. The core syntax is older than anything I've studied, but it's adapting. Fast."

Florence nodded. "It's not sentient. Not yet. But it's close. I haven't been able to speak with it before, not properly. Even with my Skill, it didn't understand me. Some commands aren't in the code. They need to be given, not guessed."

"Like the rest of us," Warren muttered.

Isol let out a quiet laugh. "Exactly."

The lights above them dimmed slightly, then recalibrated, cool, efficient, deliberate. Sensors tracked them but didn't intrude. The Ark was alive, but not intrusive. It wasn't curious. It was prepared.

Florence stepped forward. "Let's test access points. Command terminal first."

Isol gave her the space. Florence's mechanical tendrils extended cautiously. They brushed across the console's port like antennae feeling out a current. The terminal glowed in response.

"Connection established," the AI said. "Florence. Identity confirmed: auxiliary technician, Ark clearance, tertiary level."

Warren blinked. "It knows you?"

Florence's voice went tight. "I put myself in the database."

The room pulsed faintly.

"Would you like to initiate Ark alignment protocols?" the AI asked.

Florence glanced at Warren. He nodded once. "Do it."

"Beginning alignment," the AI responded.

The crystalline core suspended in the center of the room flared. The walls rippled with projected data: maps, blueprints, rotating readouts of ecosystem profiles, storage inventories, gene banks, weather engines, and water filtration nodes. The air filled with a low-frequency hum, like a massive heart beginning to beat again after centuries of stillness.

"Holy shit," Car whispered. He had woken just moments earlier, groggy and overwhelmed, and now stood frozen as the full scale of the Ark revealed itself.

Jurpat dropped something that looked important, a slender device or maybe a datapad, but snatched it out of the air just before it hit the ground.

"We're standing in the mother of all greenhouses," he said.

"No," Isol corrected. "The mother of civilizations."

Wren looked toward Warren, voice soft. "This… this could feed everyone."

Warren's face remained unreadable. "It could do more than that. If we understand it."

"Working understanding unlikely without additional data," the AI said. "Historical log: corrupted. Archive: segmented. External interface required."

Florence turned sharply. "It's missing its memory. Of course it is."

Warren stepped forward. "Then let's make it a new one."

Isol stared at him.

Warren met his gaze. "Start recording. Everything. Every change. Every variable. Everything we do here should be traceable. Documented. Rebuild what it lost."

Florence hesitated. "That's going to take years."

"We've got time," Warren said. "But only if we're careful."

The AI's lights flickered gently.

"Core sync stabilized," it said. "Awaiting primary goal assignment."

Florence said, "What do we tell it to do first?"

Wren looked around. "Grow something. Anything. Let's see if it remembers how."

Florence nodded, then input the command manually, fingers sweeping across the newly stable interface.

"Processing," the AI said. A low hum rose from the rear of the chamber. A sealed panel in the wall slid open, revealing a growth pod, glass and metal, filled with soil and nutrient lines. A soft light warmed the bed. Then, a single seed, ancient and unremarkable, descended from the ceiling on a filament-thin tether.

It touched the soil.

And sprouted.

Everyone stared in silence. Nanuk, Batu, Calra, Deana, Grix, Cassian, all gathered in reverent awe. Car looked like he might faint again.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Florence let out a shaky breath. "It's alive."

Warren didn't smile. But something inside him settled.

Grix elbowed Cassian, who looked entirely too emotional, then muttered, "Don't cry, manmeat. It's just a sprout."

Deana laughed softly. Calra reached out and instinctively steadied Jurpat, who stood stiffly beside her. She didn't seem to notice the way he flushed slightly at the contact, too focused on the sight before them.

Tarric stood near the rear, quiet but observant, saying nothing. The tension in his shoulders was visible, though his face gave little away. He had been quiet the entire time, eyes flicking from console to core to AI.

Isol, meanwhile, whispered something under his breath. Florence turned. "What?"

"Just a phrase," Isol said. "From the Lendorian texts."

"What does it mean?"

He looked toward the core. "And the garden shall return to the waste, not as it was, but as it must become."

Florence turned toward him. "Can you teach me to read it?"

Isol smiled. "Absolutely. I'd be honored to teach you."

Wren glanced at Florence. "You said earlier you needed his help. Is this it?"

Florence shook her head slowly. "No. This is just the beginning."

Warren stood near the far edge of the Arc's interior, just beyond the reach of the humming dampeners embedded in the walls. The others had scattered, distracted with their own conversations or examining the unfamiliar technology around them. Here, in this pocket of silence, Warren allowed himself stillness.

He exhaled, long and low, and closed his eyes.

There were too many things left unsaid. Too many conversations hanging like blades in the air. But this, this moment, was his. The Arc was veiled from the System. No eyes from on high could peer through the dampened veil Florence had crafted. It was the one place in the world, perhaps, where he could do this without interruption.

He reached inward. Past his nerves, his tension, the swirling thoughts of betrayal, grief, and resolve. He stretched his mind toward that moment, sharp and awful, when Umdar had touched his mind and tried to erase him. That infinite instant of agony. The void reaching in.

And then he spoke. Not aloud, but with intent.

"Umdar. I need your help."

The response came with silence first. A pressure. Then a whispering echo, not with sound but certainty. The memory of teeth gnashing at the edge of thought.

"You ask for what was promised."

Warren nodded once, eyes still closed. "Quick Reflexes. I want to evolve it. Not just to survive, but to build something. To fight for what's mine."

"Name your vision."

Warren focused on the skill that had saved his life more times than he could count. It was instinct made weapon, movement without thought. But it was reactive. Always catching up. He wanted it to become more.

"I want to predict, not just react. I want to see the motion before it begins. Read the intent before it forms. Move before they decide to strike."

There was a long pause. Then Umdar's voice again:

"This form is acceptable. I will shape it with you. Name it."

Warren opened his eyes, the glow of the Arc gleaming against steel and silence. He whispered the name:

"Moment of Choice."

The world shifted. Not visually, not physically. But inside him, something was drawn out and reworked. A heat surged through his spine. His limbs tingled, as if syncing to a new rhythm.

There was no System prompt. No fanfare or flashing notice. Just the deep, irrevocable knowledge that Quick Reflexes had become something more, transformed not by chance, but through the direct intervention of Umdar himself. Warren pulled up the new Skill, breath steady, eyes clear, and read its description with quiet reverence.

Moment of Choice (Passive)
An evolved form of Quick Reflexes.

Grants the user the ability to act in the space between decision and action. Instead of simply reacting, the user perceives the intent behind movement just before it manifests, subtle shifts in breath, posture, weight.

Allows preemptive movement against threats, as if reading a strike before it begins.

At higher emotional tension or focus, time appears to slow slightly during critical moments, extending the user's ability to act with precise, instinctual control.

Not precognition, but mastery of anticipation, powered by the soul's refusal to be caught unaware.

Warren staggered back a step, the sensation fading.

The three remaining options unfolded in his mind for the second skill evolution.

1. Examine

2. Crafting

3. Mobile Sun

He didn't choose yet. Not here. Not now.

The first one was done. The one he needed most.

He exhaled again, then turned to rejoin the others, his steps already quieter, smoother, half a breath ahead of the world around him.

Warren walked back toward the others, steps lighter, the new rhythm of his evolved Skill settling into muscle and breath. The moment he rounded the scaffolding-laced corner of the Arc's inner perimeter, he caught the sharp edges of conversation between Wren and Isol.

"You don't get it," Wren said, her voice low, trying not to raise it in front of the others. "Every time someone talks about what's best for Warren, it ends with him almost dying."

Isol, arms crossed, stood a few paces away, his tone calm but firm. "And yet every time, he survives. Thrives. Not because he keeps hidden, but because he walks into fire and walks out stronger."

Wren scoffed. "That's not a plan. That's just luck dressed up in legend."

"It's not luck," Isol replied. "It's growth. The kind of growth that only happens under pressure. The Citadel isn't a trap, Wren. It's an opportunity."

Warren paused, watching. Wren was angry, but beneath it was something else. Not fear. Not quite. Hurt, maybe. The ache of potential absence.

"You're talking about putting him in the same halls with the kind of people who want him dead just for existing," she said. "The same place that made the Warlord, turned him into the monster Warren had to put down."

Isol stepped closer, but not in threat. His voice softened. "And yet those halls also forged the Paper Angel. They gave me discipline, clarity, and purpose. Warren doesn't need saving. He needs sharpening."

Wren looked away, lips pressed tight.

"I know he'd come back stronger," she murmured. "I know he could learn things there no one else can teach him. But I just...."

She faltered. Warren took another step closer. She turned toward him, eyes flicking over him like she was trying to memorize something she didn't want to lose.

"I don't want to raise a child alone."

That landed hard. The scaffolding above groaned as if in sympathy. Isol bowed his head.

"You won't be alone," Warren said quietly, stepping into the light. "Not ever. Even if I leave, it's not for long. Not forever."

"It could feel like forever," she whispered.

"I have to get strong enough to protect what we've built. What we're building. That includes you. The kid. Mara. All of it."

Wren nodded, biting back the sting in her eyes. "Then you'd better come back knowing everything. Every damn trick. Every secret."

"That's the plan," he said, managing a faint smile.

Isol exhaled slowly. "He'll be ready. I swear it."

Wren looked between the two of them and then back down at her hands. "I believe you. I just don't know how to feel about it."

"Then feel everything," Warren said. "And know I'll come back. I always do."

She stepped into him and wrapped her arms around his waist. He held her tightly, the silence folding over them for just a moment.

"You better," she whispered.

Just beyond the quiet between Warren and Wren, the others shifted with the weight of what they'd overheard.

Jurpat said nothing, but his jaw had gone rigid. His eyes locked on Isol, flicking briefly to Warren, then away, like the implications were settling deeper than he'd expected. All his childhood dreams of the Citadel now felt laced with something bitter, something too real.

Car had gone pale. Again. He wobbled once before Calra casually caught his elbow. He muttered something about "godsdamn timelines" and "we missed a wedding and a coup?" before passing out in stages, more drama than genuine.

Batu looked almost embarrassed to be standing so close, as if he'd been caught eavesdropping on a family moment. He cleared his throat. "I don't think I should be hearing this," he mumbled, then added, "but… congratulations," with a sincerity that caught even Grix off guard.

Nanuk nodded to himself as if a few puzzle pieces had just clicked into place. Cassian blinked between Wren and Warren, his usual smirk gone. "Okay," he said quietly, "so we're doing all of that now."

Grix just grinned, arms crossed, eyes glinting. She hadn't been surprised once.

Calra gave Wren a look with understanding. She placed a hand on Jurpat's shoulder, mostly to steady herself, but the boy flushed anyway. She didn't seem to notice.

Florence said nothing. She already knew. Her arms were folded, expression unreadable, but Warren saw her glance at Wren with something like pride, and worry, laced together.

They all knew now. The path was set.

The silence after the emotional storm gave way to the shifting weight of expectation. Isol stepped forward, brushing dust from his sleeve as if preparing for a lecture, not just for the people standing before him, but for the Ark itself, whose systems had just asked for a truth it had never been told.

Florence tilted her head, watching Isol with narrowed eyes. "Your chip feels... different to my Skill. It's older."

"That's because it is," Isol said. "It's one of the originals."

"That can't be," she said. "I worked on the original chip program. That was ten years ago. Yours feels like it's decades older."

"My dear," Isol said gently, "the program you worked on wasn't where mine came from. I got chipped over fifty years ago, when I joined the Imperial Legion."

Jurpat furrowed his brow. "That's what's weird about the holo. It said 'Imperial Legion' not just 'Legion.' Is there a difference?"

"Yes," Isol said. "The Imperial Legion was the Emperor's personal guard. Most of us wore the Gregor Mask, that's the face of the Emperor, the one the Warlord wore. We were all chipped the moment we joined. And the Emperor… he was rumored to be almost five hundred years old when I signed up."

Florence's expression shifted from skeptical to stunned. "That can't be possible unless… unless, gods, that makes so much more sense now. Looking back, all those bizarre protocols we were told to integrate. We were building mass-production models. Yuri said he came up with the chip himself. He never explained where the idea came from."

"Yurimdaal Gleck," Isol said, nodding, "High Councilor of the Nine. He was in the Imperial Legion too, before he joined them. He turned the tech on the very Empire that created him. He weaponized the population."

Warren narrowed his eyes. "You said the Emperor was five hundred years old. How the hell does someone live that long?"

Florence's voice was quieter now. "In theory, if you reach level 100, you stop being human. You become something else, your body made of nanites, pure System integration. You could be immortal."

Wren stepped closer. "What about the gods?"

Isol raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"If the gods are real," she said slowly, "are they just part of the System too? Did they break it somehow?"

Isol gave a long, low hum. "Yesss. Now that is a question. If the gods are real, and after what Warren described, I'd say they are, then they may have found a way to transcend. Or hijack the System. Or maybe the System itself is a shell for something else entirely. Frankly, I don't know. But I do think it's worth thinking about."

Florence crossed her arms and turned her gaze inward. "We assumed the System was the highest framework. We built our tech around that assumption. But if the Emperor really lived that long... the chip I helped design was just a blueprint, stripped, flattened. The chips the Nine made were easier to manufacture, but they weren't safer. They were missing safety protocols, and I always knew something felt off."

Isol nodded. "The whole point of the chip program was to produce chips as fast as possible. The System doesn't live in a server or a satellite uplink. The chips themselves house part of the System. Each and every one."

Florence inhaled sharply. "So when the Nine started mass-producing the chips..."

"They removed the safety measures and simplified production. They took the System from the Emperor's direct command and made it their own. The chips you helped design weren't safer. They were cheaper, faster, and easier to control."

"And once they had control," Florence said bitterly, "they stopped handing them out. They consolidated access. Decided who could ascend, who could integrate."

"That's why they shut down the Yellow Zone labs," she muttered, more to herself than anyone else. "It wasn't about danger. It was about monopoly."

Isol looked solemn. "They didn't just reprogram a civilization. They monopolized reality."

Florence was still thinking. "And Yuri... if he had one of those older chips, and access to imperial code, he wouldn't just know how to use it, he'd know how to rewrite it."

"Which is exactly what he did," Isol said. "He didn't just destroy the Empire. He rewrote its story and made everyone forget the original."

Jurpat looked like he was going to be sick. "All the history. All the archives. None of it mentioned this."

"Because it was scrubbed," Isol said simply. "Erased at the source. If you didn't know about it, it never existed."

Nanuk frowned. "But why hide it? Why wipe the truth?"

Florence turned, voice dark. "Because they didn't just erase history. They seized control. And when they mass-produced their version, they didn't just share access. They cut it off. Once they had control, they stopped handing out chips to everyone."

"They consolidated power," Isol finished. "They took the System away from the Empire's direct control, and they made it theirs."

Florence nodded grimly. "That's why they shut down all the Yellow Zone labs. It was never about hazard or compliance. It was about control. They didn't want anyone else doing what they did. They didn't want us getting close to the foundation they stole."

Warren didn't speak. He was watching the Ark, its soft lighting and polished surfaces, the hum of it beneath their feet. It wasn't just a structure. It was a memory. A sealed echo.

"And now the Ark knows, too," Wren said. "It was never supposed to."

Isol tilted his head. "I think it wanted to. Some truths find a way to surface."

Car, now fully conscious, let out a long whistle. "Well shit. This is not what I thought I was waking up to."
He looked around the chamber, eyes still adjusting to the weight of the revelations. Then, quieter, almost to himself, he added, "Mara was right about everything. I knew she was. I'm glad we followed her in the end… just wish I'd known back then. Maybe I could've rung that mad bastard's neck myself."

The group fell silent again. The Ark's faint hum buzzed behind them like a second pulse.

The truth wasn't a light. It was a fracture. But sometimes, you had to break the surface to let anything new grow.