12:47 PM (CET)
The Kross Penthouse, Geneva, Switzerland
The storm over Lake Geneva churned like a bad habit—loud, relentless, but ultimately contained.
Alistair Kross didn't mind.
It gave the smart glass wall a dramatic backdrop, though he'd tuned it to a mosaic of feeds instead.
Data was his real weather: shifting, predictive, and far more lethal.
THE WATCHER
One panel flickered with infrared from a drone high above the Atacama.
ALMA's dishes ringed by black specks. Military shadows swarming like ants on a carcass.
Another blinked a stark SIGNAL LOST over C. WEI.
The smallest square held a high-school profile: Elias Vale, seventeen, staring out with eyes that looked too old for the frame.
Hollow cheeks. A faint scar on his jaw from some forgotten scrape.
Unremarkable, except for the bloodline.
Alistair sipped his scotch, the crystal tumbler cool against his palm.
He was all edges: tailored charcoal suit hugging a frame honed by discipline, not gyms. Black hair pulled into a tight knot that spoke of old-world severity.
As Director of Aegis Global, he made threats vanish—not with fanfare, but efficiency.
Governments called when scandals needed burying. Corporations, when innovations needed stealing.
The universe was a board, and he played it clean.
THE REPORT
"They've locked down the array," he said, voice even, like polished stone.
His aide, Lena Voss—mid-thirties, blonde bob sharp as her mind—nodded from the doorway.
"Argus-Spec moved fast. Dr. Vale's in containment."
"Containment." Alistair's lips twitched, not quite a smile. "Orion always did love his metaphors. He didn't whisper to the stars; he shouted. And now, something's shouting back."
Lena shifted her tablet. "Chen Wei's en route. Our intercept worked?"
"Flawlessly."
Alistair set the glass down, turning to face her.
His eyes—storm-grey, unblinking—held hers without warmth.
"Argus thought they were mopping up loose ends. We turned their mop into a diversion. Chen wakes up convinced he's the hero who slipped the net. In truth, he's our courier."
THE CATALYST
She glanced at Elias's photo. "The drive?"
"The catalyst."
Alistair's gaze lingered on the boy.
"Orion's work wasn't just signals. It was a map—to patterns older than our sun. The boy's lived in that shadow his whole life. Orion's blood runs patterns in him too. He's not a loose end. He's the next move."
Lena's expression stayed neutral, but her fingers tightened on the tablet. "Argus wants silence. We—"
"We want symphony."
Alistair picked up the tumbler again, swirling the amber liquid.
"The anomaly isn't a glitch. It's a door, cracked open. Argus seals doors. We walk through them."
He turned back to the glass, the storm's fury a faint rumble.
"Prep the Antofagasta team. And Lena—tell them to tread light. The boy's not prey. Not yet. He's the hand that turns the key."
4:32 PM (CLT)
Elias's Apartment, Downtown Antofagasta
THE WEIGHT OF ERASURE
Chen's words landed like fallout, slow and choking.
"...dissolved. Like static on a screen."
Elias stood frozen by the sink, the faucet still running cold over his knuckles.
The apartment felt smaller. The air thicker.
Dust motes hanging in the slanted light like witnesses to a crime.
Static.
The word echoed, meaningless at first, then carving deep.
Not gone. Not dead.
Erased.
Like Orion had been a file, dragged to trash and emptied.
THE BREAK
He shut off the water. Gripped the edge of the counter.
His reflection in the darkened window stared back—eyes red-rimmed, face slack.
The stoic wall he'd built, brick by careful brick since the crash that took his parents, didn't hold.
It didn't shatter.
It just... dissolved, same as the man who'd raised him from afar.
Letters scrawled with equations. Care packages of dog-eared books on quantum weirdness.
"See the patterns, Eli. The noise is just the universe clearing its throat."
A tremor started in his fingers, spread to his chest.
The glass slipped—simple, stupid—and hit the sink with a crack that split the quiet.
Shards scattered like accusations.
GRIEF ARRIVES
Elias sank to the floor, back against the cabinets, knees drawn up.
The linoleum bit cold through his jeans.
Breath came in hitches, shallow and wrong.
Grief hit then, not as a wave but a weight—pressing down until ribs ached.
Orion wasn't a hero from stories.
He was the uncle who forgot birthdays but remembered to wire rent money. The voice on grainy calls, rambling about signals from beyond Pluto, voice cracking with that mad light in his eyes.
The only tether to something bigger than this cramped life.
"He's gone," Elias murmured, voice breaking on the edges. "Just... gone."
Tears came hot, silent, tracing paths down his cheeks.
He pressed palms to eyes, but the image burned: Orion, fading to snow on a feed.
What kind of world did that?
THE HUNTERS ARRIVE
Chen knelt awkwardly, hands hovering like he wanted to help but knew better.
His face was a ruin—dirt-streaked, eyes haunted.
"Elias... I wish I could—"
A low rumble cut him off.
Engines, heavy and throaty, growling up from the street.
Not traffic. Something armored, idling with purpose.
Chen bolted to the window, peeling back a blind slat.
His face drained white.
"SUVs. Black. No markings. They're stopping right below."
THE TRUTH UNFOLDS
Elias wiped his face, surging to his feet.
The grief lodged like a stone, but adrenaline sharpened it to a blade.
"How?"
Chen backed away, voice dropping. "When Orion... vanished... those men in black, Argus-Spec... they weren't the only ones."
Elias turned, slow. "What do you mean?"
"I grabbed the drive from the servers, like he said. They cornered me in the access hall. Guns up, closing in."
Chen's hands shook as he patted his jacket.
"But then—shadows. Different gear. Grey, not black. They hit the Argus team from behind. Fast. Precise. One clipped me across the head. Lights out."
"You woke up free?"
Elias's mind raced, piecing fragments.
Orion's warnings, the cryptic texts. Not random. Orchestrated.
THE HANDOFF
Chen nodded, pulling the drive from his pocket.
It caught the light—matte grey, unassuming.
"Station was locked down when I came to. Argus gone. And this... it was waiting. But there was a mark on the console. Etched deep: 'To the boy. He's the pattern.'"
Elias took the drive, thumb tracing its edge.
Not escape. A handoff.
Someone else in the game—watching, waiting.
Footsteps echoed now, heavy in the stairwell below.
Boots on concrete, climbing fast.
"Roof," Elias said, voice steadying.
He slung his backpack, stuffing the laptop inside.
"Stairs to the access door. Move."
THE CLIMB
They slipped out, door clicking soft behind them.
The building groaned under them as they climbed—metal treads cold, breaths echoing.
Elias's heart hammered, but his steps were sure.
Grief wasn't gone. It burned, fueling the clarity.
Orion had seen this. Planned for it.
The roof door banged open to a blast of hot wind, city lights smearing below like spilled code.
Antofagasta sprawled indifferent—harbor cranes skeletal against the dusk, distant waves whispering secrets.
Chen slammed the door shut, barricading it with a loose vent grate.
"We're pinned. No way down."
THE PASSWORD
Elias dropped behind the HVAC unit, its fan whirring cover.
He plugged in the drive, screen flickering to life.
Offline mode—smart.
One file glowed: READ_ME_ELI.txt.
He opened it.
Eli,
The lock's yours. Password: the one riddle I couldn't crack. The one she solved.
The Isabela Anomaly.
-O.
"Isabela."
The name hit like a skipped heartbeat.
Reyes. The girl from class—the one who'd glance his way in the halls, leave notes in his locker he never answered.
Brilliant, untouchable, daughter of astronomers with ties to the observatory board.
She'd tried reaching him once, twice—messages through Sofia about a shared project, an invite to a stargaze event he ghosted.
He'd told himself it was pity, or worse, curiosity about the "freak's nephew."
Never replied.
Now? Orion's ghost tying them.
THE CALL
No direct line. But Sofia—hacker heart, loyal to a fault.
Elias tethered his phone for a heartbeat, firing off a burst message on their dark-net relay.
SOFIA. EMERGENCY. SECURE LINK TO ISABELA REYES. ORION CODE RED. ROOF. NOW.
The reply pinged instant. Tether cut. Voice channel hummed open.
"Elias?"
Isabela's voice—clear, edged with that quiet command he only knew from overhearing her debates.
No warmth, but no surprise either.
"Isabela." He kept it low, fan drowning his words. "Orion's gone. Dissolved. Argus-Spec in the building. SUVs outside. They're coming."
A pause, breath sharp. Keys clicked faint on her end.
"I heard whispers this morning. Father's network flagged a blackout at ALMA. Black op, off-books. Elias—where exactly?"
"Roof access. Four-oh-seven building, downtown edge."
THE KEY
"Got your grid." More typing. "Argus. Private mercs, no oversight. Father's hands are tied."
"The drive." Elias glanced at the file, password prompt blinking. "Orion left it for me. Says the key's the Isabela Anomaly."
Silence stretched, heavy.
Then: "That's... not just a paper title. It's classified. He named it after my thesis on pulsar irregularities. The sequence—the primes that matched the anomaly. 71, 97, 239, 409."
He typed them in, fingers steady despite the shake in his gut.
The container cracked open—terabytes unspooling: spectral graphs spiking with that three-beat pulse, logs of cross-system glitches, Orion's voice memos timestamped frantic.
It's not noise, Eli. It's memory. From before.
THE BREACH
The roof door rattled—metal stressing, voices muffled below.
"They're breaching," Chen whispered, pressing flat.
"Isabela, door's giving. Seconds."
"Hold." Her voice hardened, keys flying. "Can't call them off. But I can reroute. Faking a gas leak alert—two blocks south. Full evac protocol. Cops swarm in, cordon the zone. Argus pulls back or gets spotlighted. You get... four, maybe five minutes."
Sirens wailed distant, swelling fast—red-blue strobes painting the rooftops.
"Got it," Elias said. "Thanks. I—"
"Go," she cut in, firm. "Decrypt the rest offline. And Elias? Orion believed in you. Don't waste it."
Click.
THE ESCAPE
The door buckled once, twice—then paused.
Boots retreated, curses faint.
The soldier on point barked into comms, frustration thick.
Elias yanked the drive, laptop slamming shut.
"She bought time. North edge—fire escape to the alley. We climb down, cut through the market. Lose them in the crowd."
Chen nodded, face ashen but set.
They edged along the parapet, grief and fear forging a fragile bridge.
As they dropped to the shadows below, Elias's mind clung to the files' ghost-glow.
Patterns. Not noise.
Orion's inheritance wasn't data. It was a warning—a thread from the void, pulling him in.
The stone in his gut twisted, but it pushed him forward.
For the first time, the dark felt like direction.
4:35 PM (CLT)
Isabela's Bedroom, Instituto de la Estrella del Norte Dorm
THE CONNECTION
Isabela Reyes ended the call, heart slamming against her ribs.
The room—posters of Hubble deep-fields peeling at edges, desk buried in printouts of radio bursts—felt too small, too still.
She'd patched the line through Sofia's relay, a trick she'd learned from dark-net dives, but hearing Elias's voice... raw, stripped bare... hit different.
She'd tried before.
Notes slipped into his locker after that assembly on cosmic signals—Hey, Vale. Your take on the hydrogen line? Coffee?
Crumpled, unread.
A group chat invite for the astro club, ghosted.
Sofia said he was "walled up," but Isabela saw more: the way his eyes tracked equations in class, hungry, like they were lifelines.
Orion's shadow, yeah, but something sharper underneath.
She'd watched from afar, piecing him like a puzzle she wasn't sure she deserved.
THE REALIZATION
Now? Father's aides buzzing about ALMA blackouts, whispers of "Vale Echo" in secure feeds.
She'd connected dots quiet—Elias's silence today, the stares in the halls.
When Sofia's ping hit, she'd known.
Grabbed the throwaway rig, routed the call.
Four primes, spilled like confession.
The anomaly wasn't just math. It was her proof that signals could carry intent, not chaos.
Orion had seen it, named it after her work.
Honored it.
Sirens howled outside, her alert blooming chaos downtown.
She leaned back, staring at the ceiling cracks like star maps.
THE PULL
Elias was running—alone, scared, carrying whatever bomb Orion left.
She couldn't chase, not yet. Father's world was glass walls and NDAs.
But this? This pulled at her own patterns—the itch to decode what others dismissed as noise.
Her tablet chimed: Sofia. He's out? What the hell, Isa?
She typed back: Working on it. Keep eyes open. This isn't over.
For the first time in months, Isabela felt the pull of something real.
Not pity. Not curiosity.
Alignment.
Elias Vale wasn't a ghost anymore.
He was the signal breaking through.
And she'd be damned if she let it fade to static.