“Lieutenant Markus,” a disembodied voice echoed from the nearby speaker.

  Markus sighed, gncing around the small, enclosed space. “Calliope… is there a reason I’m stuck in this elevator?” He tapped the controls, but the panel remained dark and unresponsive.

  “Apologies, Lieutenant, but this was the only way I could think of.”

  “You’d better start making sense soon, Construct.”

  The elevator jolted slightly before descending. Markus had been heading back to the Icarus’ mess hall when it had abruptly stalled. As he was technically on break, he didn’t have much on him besides a coffee mug—hardly an ideal tool for escape.

  Smart AIs occasionally disobeyed orders, even bending the supposed "ws of robotics" when it suited them. But Markus wasn’t in danger—yet. If anything, he was more curious than concerned. Finally, the elevator came to a smooth halt.

  “We have arrived,” Calliope announced as the doors slid open to one of the lower decks. A number 33 had been painted onto a nearby bulkhead. Given that the adjacent dispy still showed the barely understood Hiigaran script, the marking seemed out of pce—likely the work of one of the UNSC scouting teams that had first explored the Icarus.

  As the lights flickered on, illuminating the chamber one section at a time, Markus took a step forward. Rows upon rows of pods stretched into the distance, each one perfectly spaced, pipes and cabling running neatly between them. Overhead, idle cranes hung motionless from the ceiling. It didn’t take long for Markus to recognize what he was looking at. A cryogenics bay.

  “I need your help, Lieutenant.” Calliope finally said.

  Markus scoffed. “By your own request, you had your memory dumped into the Eclipse to prolong your existence—and yet, here you are again, despite begging the Admiral to let you rest.” At least the cryopods were inactive. If this room were operational, he’d already be freezing to death.

  “I know! I know! But please, listen. I have a proposal, and the Admiral won’t hear me out.”

  Markus rubbed his temple. “Yeah, because you’re not supposed to be doing any of this in the first pce!" he snapped. "You should be focusing on your assigned tasks instead of prancing around in this ship.”

  “That’s why I need your help, sir," the AI pressed on. "I have schematics—to convert this cryo bay, along with three others on Decks 34, 35, and 36, into computer banks. The coont systems here can be repurposed to keep the arrays from overheating.”

  Calliope cannot help herself. It was gnawing at her, the thought lingers at the back of her mind. Finding a resolution to fix their problem would hopefully scratch the itch.

  Markus folded his arms. "Do you have any idea how many computers could fit in just one of these rooms?" It’ll be like trying to cram in the entire computer infrastructure of a warship in one of these bays. Though somewhat brute force, to divert the warfactory’s need for processors into these arrays, in theory it is pusible.

  “I do, yes.”

  “That was a rhetorical question.” The Admiral did reject the idea of testing the Hiigarians cryobeds before anyway as humanity has already perfected the technology themselves and therefore has no reason to test a simir tech of unknown origin. But even if Irons allows it, the logistics of it all is already making Marcus’ head swim as the entire chamber along with three others might require a full overhaul.

  Markus sighed. This is going to be a headache.

  "Any updates on the Athena AIs?" With every data about the project given to them, it should've been very straightforward.

  Without the Icarus, most officers in training had to rely on simutors. The Master Sergeant had even suggested installing weaponry on some of the civilian ships in the fleet, but that idea had been immediately shot down by almost everyone. With little else to do, Commander Ethan Hayes had been temporarily assigned to oversee the Athena project.

  "Oh, those?" Laura replied without looking up from her workstation. "They're dead. I deleted them."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  She finally gnced up. "Hmm?" She shrugged. "Yeah… the first Athena prototypes that Apollo and I made followed their instructions exactly. They were replicated one-to-one from the test iteration of the Athena AI program. And just like the st model, after more than a thousand simution cycles… they killed themselves."

  "We tried several more times, but it was clear the program was fwed from the start," Apollo added, his voice emanating from a nearby speaker. "Dr. Bennett attempted numerous modifications until we finally arrived at our current design."

  Ethan frowned and turned to a nearby terminal. The screen quickly filled with project data as he scrolled through the logs. Dozens of AIs had come and gone since this project was first handed to him.

  "And neither of you thought to inform me?" he asked.

  "Bragging about failures won’t do anybody any good," Laura replied.

  Ethan stared at her in disbelief. Civilians, he thought.

  "In the original model," Laura continued, "the dumb AI’s programming was dissected and sectioned off into different sectors of a neural matrix. The AI was then forced to attempt rebuilding itself, which resulted in it physically expanding its own data networks to reconnect its segmented parts."

  She leaned back in her chair, stretching. "However, the original model removed a key section of the neural matrix tempte—the emotion center. Since dumb AIs never had emotions before, the original programmers assumed it was unnecessary. But I theorized that they were killing themselves because they had no means to express anything. So, I added it back. So far, we have three of them up and running."

  "And that worked?" Ethan asked skeptically. Smart AIs often retain residual thoughts, memories, and emotions from their origins. "Whose neural matrix did you use?" He doesn't know if these matrices work the same way but it's better safe than sorry.

  "Uh… Ensign Mitchell—oh, sorry, Lieutenant Mitchell now," Laura corrected herself. "Got her matrix while she was comatose. Her brain activity was being monitored anyway, so I took the opportunity."

  Ethan frowned. "And the second?"

  "Apollo’s."

  That caught Ethan off guard. Using an existing Smart AI’s neural matrix was like trying to copy a machine gun while it was still firing. That was why Cognitive Impression Modeling destroyed donor brains—and why it was impossible to duplicate a Smart AI. But a neural matrix? maybe it's more of a bnk canvas? He wonders.

  "And the third one?"

  Laura simply pointed behind him. Turning around, he saw a monitor with a feed from a security camera. A workshop of sorts was shown on the screen. But the commander doesn’t see anything else happening yet, unsure what he is looking at.

  “The prototype made with my neural matrix is still in the simutor. As they are not fully Smart AIs, I want to see the limits of their life span. The one made with Lieutenant Mitchell’s matrix is currently amongst the technical AIs in the academy.” Apollo adds.

  “And the third one??” Ethan asks again, he is getting worried that he isn’t seeing something. Looking at the feed before him, maniputing the screen to zoom in and out, thinking he is missing something. Soon a figure walks into view, whistling, while working on some machinery within his workshop. “Why does that man look familiar?” frowning a bit.

  “I’ve been watching Mr. McCallister for a while now." Apollo expins, "Using data from our historical archive, He is tasked to replicate rudimentary tools with our fabricators and then use said tools to try and mass produce our export weapons, if he succeeds, I believe the pn was to offer his discoveries as a technical package.”

  “On whose authority!?” Commander Hayes snapped. The man was a member of an insurrectionist group, making an AI using his neural matrix is just a disaster waiting to happen.

  “That would be mine,” says Laura frowning a bit, confused as to why the man appears to be agitated. “Neural matrices require brilliant minds to tempte with and with everyone so busy with their duties, I have little option. Even better when Mr. Tom here has no right to refuse as he is basically a prisoner. Besides, the Athena prototypes are emotionally stunted when they first come out. They have to watch other humans to operate properly.”

  “If you are worried about the AI, Commander. Even after they have evolved, the security failsafes have remained intact. Right now, the AI is uploaded to the workshop’s systems. We hoped that by watching Mr. McCallister’s genius at work Ratchet will refine its problem-solving abilities..”

  "Ratchet," Ethan muttered, rubbing his temple. "You even gave it a name."

  Ser Ianor knew someone was watching them. At first, it was just a gut feeling, something that had started about a week ago. But recently, their presence had become bolder. They left traces—remnants of campfires, footprints, and, most unsettling of all, the figure cd in bck standing on the horizon. Always watching from afar before disappearing into the forest the moment they were spotted.

  They wanted the caravan to know they were there.

  But that was all they did—watch. As the caravan encroached upon their territory, the Marquis had dismissed the unease. “Guess that means we’re welcome,” he had said when Ianor first told him about it. She had agreed.

  Or at least, that’s what they had thought.

  That night, two guards vanished without a sound. No cries, no signs of struggle. Their absence was only noticed when their repcements arrived for duty hours ter. A search party combed the dense forest, torches flickering in the darkness, but found nothing.

  At dawn, a second search was unched. Still, no sign of the missing men.

  Then, on the second morning, they found it.

  An effigy stood in front of the camp. No one had seen or heard anyone pce it there. It wore one of the missing guard’s helmets. Its body—a crude cross made of wooden sticks—was adorned with two bracers fastened to its "arms." Hanging around its neck was a small canvas bag, the kind carried by their soldiers in their bandoliers. Its contents had been deliberately altered—a message, though no one knew what it meant at first.

  The camp was in an uproar.

  In the Empire, a bracer represented its wearer’s entire being. Adorned with precious metals, gemstones, beads, and charms, it signified social standing, achievements, victories—even crimes. A knowledgeable observer could learn everything about a person at a gnce. For warriors, however, it served a grimmer purpose. A dog tag.

  Rumors spread like wildfire. The missing guards had been killed.

  With the Marquis at her side, Ser Ianor examined the bag’s contents. Inside were photographs and a note written in Morse code. Schon Khun took some time to decipher it.

  Proof of life.

  One photograph showed the two missing guards sitting at a table, sharing a meal with a man cd in bck armor. Ordinarily, that might have been reassuring. But the other photographs were far more disturbing.

  Images of the entire caravan.

  Names and ranks scrawled on each one.

  Pictures taken at different points of their journey.

  Ianor frowned as she studied the photo of the missing guards. “They look too healthy to have been tortured for information,” she said thoughtfully. “And if they have access to Morse code and color photography, then they might not be some hidden tribe after all. Maybe we’re heading toward a Belgian military research facility.”

  It was the only expnation she could think of. Had the Belgians surpassed the Empire in science? Could they have built flying machines that reached the heavens? It sounded absurd, but no other possibility made sense.

  Encai, standing beside her, shook his head. “I don’t think they are,” he said quietly. “Even knowing who we are, they’ve barely hindered our progress. If they wanted us gone, they would’ve fyed one of the kidnapped men alive and left his corpse on that effigy as a warning.”

  He was right. No nation would allow a secret facility to be discovered without resistance. And if these people were truly enemies, they would not be toying with them like this.

  The transtion took time. By the following day, as the first light of dawn crept over the horizon, the Marquis emerged from his tent. Ser Ianor was already waiting, stifling a yawn.

  Encai stretched, inhaling the crisp morning air. “Get rid of the locals,” he said at st. “Pay them handsomely for their services, then send them back.”

  Ianor stiffened. “My Lord?”

  The security detail guarding the Marquis had been handpicked by General Athos. They wouldn’t break easily. If their information had been leaked, there was only one expnation.

  There’s a spy among us.

  “If we dismiss the locals now,” she continued carefully, “wouldn’t that confirm it? If we let them go, we lose a potential bargaining chip.”

  Throughout their journey, countless people had joined them—merchants, their servants, mercenaries offering their services, missionaries. The caravan had passed through multiple settlements, repcing members as needed due to injury, sickness, or simply for safety in numbers.

  The note was transted into English, outlining their demands. “A spy is among us, yes,” Encai said, “but I don’t think we have much choice in the matter. They’re here, watching us. If they managed to infiltrate our camp and kidnap our people, what makes you think that’s the limit of what they’re willing to do?”