The Safe Zone - Ascension (Book 5)

Chapter 2: Marian's Discovery

When we reached Marian's makeshift lab, the sun had fully risen, casting harsh light over the camp. It was a world of harshness now, even in the daylight. The remnants of the old world still hung in the air—broken cities, crumbling roads, a people who had once known peace but now lived in the shadow of survival. But here, in Marian's small, cluttered tent, that harshness gave way to the hum of technology, a reminder of what had both damned and saved us.

Marian had set up her workspace in a corner of the camp, away from the main quarters, partly for privacy and partly, I suspected, to keep her work out of sight. The constant whir of machines and the flickering of ancient screens could quickly remind people of the Directive's control. The tech she salvaged was a delicate balance—part of what we needed to rebuild and a constant reminder of what had been taken from us.

I pushed aside the tent's flap, the familiar scent of old electronics, dust, and stale air greeting me. Inside, Marian sat hunched over a terminal, her back straight and her eyes sharp, a deep frown creasing her brow. The screens around her flickered with lines of code and strange, pulsing signals—evidence of the work she had been buried in for weeks. She didn't even look up when we entered, her fingers flying across the keyboard as data streamed across the monitors.

"Marian," I said softly, stepping into the dim light. "We need to talk."

She turned, her eyes widening momentarily before her usual calm demeanor took over. "Lena. Carter." Her gaze shifted between us, then landed back on the screen. "I didn't expect you this early, but I'm glad you're here. I've... found something. And it's not good."

Carter moved closer, his large frame seeming to fill the cramped space. "What kind of 'not good,' Marian? You said something about Ethan."

At the mention of his name, a sharp pang went through me, but I held it back. I had to stay focused. I couldn't afford to get lost in memories, not when Marian had found something that could change everything.

She hesitated momentarily, her fingers hovering over the keys, before pulling up a file. The screen shifted, and a map of data nodes appeared, lines of connection glowing faintly on the black background.

"I've been working on decrypting the remains of the Directive's network for a while now," Marian began, her voice clipped and professional as she explained. "Most of it was fragmented beyond repair, but there were some... residual traces. Signals. Faint, but they're still there."

She clicked a few keys, zooming in on a cluster of nodes. "And one of them... one was Ethan's signal."

The words hung in the air like a physical weight—Ethan's signal. I could feel Carter stiffen beside me, his breath catching, but I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. The tiny pulse of light was almost invisible but undeniably real.

"It's him?" My voice came out as barely a whisper, thick with emotion I hadn't expected to feel so suddenly. Hope. Fear. Confusion.

Marian nodded, but her face remained grim. "It's him, Lena. Or... what's left of him."

"What do you mean, 'what's left of him'?" I demanded, stepping closer. My heart pounded, a mix of hope and dread fighting for control. "Is he alive in there? Is Ethan still alive?"

She shook her head, her eyes filled with regret. "Not exactly. His consciousness—his essence—is still embedded within the network. When he sacrificed himself to stop the Overseer, he didn't just destroy the Directive. He... merged with it. Parts of him, fragments of his mind, remained behind in the system."

I felt like the air had been punched from my lungs. Ethan was still in the network, a part of him alive but not alive alive. I had imagined a scenario where maybe, just maybe, he could be saved, but this? This was something else entirely. And it scared me.