The moment Agent Vale named Orion as the "key," the room tightened around him—every eye narrowing, every breath held as if waiting for him to transform into something monstrous.
Orion felt exposed, as though someone had peeled back the protective layers of his identity and was staring at the fragile core beneath.
Lyra stepped between him and Vale, jaw set.
"You don't get to point at Orion and act like he's some kind of… gateway device. He's a person."
Vale didn't flinch."A person who has already been touched by the Signal."
Orion's stomach twisted."Touched how?"
Before Vale could answer, Dr. Kessler projected a floating hologram of Orion's bio-data—taken automatically during the recent system scans.
The display flickered, revealing an impossible new pattern:
A small symbol in Orion's neural activity map—hidden deep in his frontal cortex.
A glowing, looping symbol.
∞
Orion's heart dropped.
Lyra gasped."Orion… how long has that been there?"
"I—I don't know," he stammered. "I didn't feel anything."
"Which is exactly the problem," Kessler replied coldly.
Prof. Solven stroked his chin thoughtfully."It hasn't infected him. It's… a mark. A signature. Something placed deliberately."
Dr. Verdan added,"Like a lock waiting for the correct key."
Rowan muttered,"Or a beacon."
Rhea cut through the noise."Enough. Orion, does the symbol… mean anything to you? Before today? Before the tear? Anything at all?"
Orion shook his head, but hesitated.
"Maybe…"He swallowed."When the dragon projected the future vision. When the Infinity Signal first whispered through the ship… it felt familiar. Like deja vu."
Vale leaned closer.
"Because your other self—your future self—already saw it. Already understood it. Already lived through it."
Orion's head spun.
Lyra grabbed his hand firmly."It doesn't mean you're corrupted."
Vale said nothing.His silence said everything.
Kessler cleared her throat, cutting into the moment.
"We need to decode the Infinity Signal. Now. Time is bleeding away by the minute."
She expanded the hologram into a massive fractal diagram, rotating and shifting with impossible geometry. Numbers spiraled into symbols. Symbols folded into waves. Waves broke into repeating sequences.
The Infinity Signal was not a message.
It was a structure.
A construct.
A key.
Solven pointed to the spiraling center."This segment—right here—this is mathematical prime recursion. A signature of a multiversal origin."
Verden gestured to the layered patterns."And these repeating sounds? They aren't sound—they're meanings. Memories wrapped in frequency."
Rowan frowned."These spikes look like power signatures from a temporal core. The same kind used in—"
He froze.
Everyone looked at him.
"In what?" Rhea demanded.
Rowan exhaled slowly.
"The same kind used in Archive Zero experiments."
A chill swept the room.
Lyra whispered,"So the Signal… came from the same tech that caused all of this."
Rowan nodded grimly.
"Yeah. And somebody enhanced it. Refined it. Enough to send it backwards across timelines."
Kessler tapped a sequence in the fractal.
"And this part? This is a cipher. A lock. The Signal isn't just information—it's encrypted."
Rhea leaned over the table.
"Can you break it?"
Kessler gave a humorless smile.
"With enough time? Yes. With only nine days…?"She shook her head."We need help."
All eyes slowly turned to Seraxis, flickering weakly on the holo-screen.
The Archivist bowed its crystalline head.
"My people preserved fragments of the pre-collapse data—scraps of the original signal we intercepted before fleeing our realm."
Solven's eyes lit up."A partial key."
Seraxis nodded."A shard of truth. But we must link minds. Our language is photonic, not vocal. You cannot read our cipher the same way we do."
Lyra hesitated."You mean a neural link?"
"Correct."
Rowan slammed his hand on the table."Impossible. Their atomic structure is incompatible with ours. Too much difference in baseline physical constants. A neural link could fry our brains."
Seraxis dimmed.
"We will weaken soon. If not stabilized, my people will perish before the countdown ends."
Silence choked the room.
Orion stared at the fractal cipher swirling before him.
It pulsed like a heartbeat.
His heartbeat.
He stepped forward.
"I'll link with Seraxis."
Lyra whipped toward him."Orion, no! You could—"
"I know," he said softly. "But I'm already marked. The Signal's signature is in me. If anyone can interface safely… it's me."
Vale spoke quietly.
"He's right."
Lyra stared at Orion as if he were dissolving before her eyes.
"You heard your future self," she said, voice trembling. "This—this thing destroys minds. It ended entire universes. You could die."
He squeezed her hand gently.
"Or we could all die if we do nothing."
The fractal lights intensified, awaiting his decision.
Orion stepped closer to Seraxis' projection.
The Archivist extended a trembling crystalline hand.
"Then let us begin," it said softly."Before the Signal wakes fully."
The countdown ticked on:
09:23:41:1209:23:41:11
And Orion placed his hand against the light.