The sky changed first.
Kael noticed it while standing on the outer platform, where the forest canopy fell away into mist and fractured concrete. The clouds above Earth no longer drifted naturally. They rearranged—subtle, geometric, as if obeying an algorithm instead of weather.
Earth wasn't just being watched.
It was being processed.
"You see it too," Ryn said behind him.
He didn't turn. "Yes."
"That wasn't a question."
Kael exhaled. "Then I won't lie. The Responders have shifted focus. Not toward Earth—toward me."
Ryn walked to his side, following his gaze upward. "You're saying they noticed the bond."
"I'm saying I crossed a threshold that flags systems older than our species."
She cursed under her breath. "You always do this after I start trusting you."
Kael almost smiled.
Almost.
---
Dr. Voss was furious.
Not loud—never loud—but his hands trembled as he brought up cascading holograms, equations stacking on equations, models failing faster than he could collapse them.
"This wasn't supposed to be observable," he muttered. "The Continuum was designed to hide its transitions. To blur its footprint."
"It wasn't designed to bond with a living human," Lysa said quietly.
She stood near the core interface, eyes reflecting streams of data only she could fully read. Her augmentation synced differently now—closer to Kael's rhythm than the system's.
"That's the part you never accounted for," she continued. "You assumed the Signal would consume. You never considered it might collaborate."
Voss snapped his head toward her. "Collaboration implies choice."
Lysa met his gaze. "Exactly."
The room fell silent.
---
The first anomaly hit thirty minutes later.
A perimeter drone froze midair, its stabilizers locking as if gripped by an invisible hand. Telemetry spiked, then flattened. No explosion. No warning.
It simply… stopped.
Imani was already moving. "All units, defensive posture. No fire unless ordered."
Kael felt it before the alarms sounded.
Something vast brushed against the edge of Earth's systems—not entering, not attacking—sampling. Like fingers grazing water to test temperature.
"They're mapping us," Kael said.
Voss's voice was tight. "Responders don't map. They already know."
"Then they're confirming," Ryn replied. "Which is worse."
The air shimmered.
Reality bent—not visibly, not dramatically—but enough that Kael's vision doubled for half a second. Data flooded his mind unbidden: probabilities, trajectories, outcomes.
And something else.
A presence.
Not hostile.
Not friendly.
Curious.
You deviate, it conveyed—not in words, but in resolved certainty.
Deviation acknowledged.
Kael staggered, gripping the railing.
Ryn caught him instantly. "Kael—talk to me."
"They're… not here," he gasped. "They're near. Observing through layers."
Imani stepped forward. "Can they be reasoned with?"
Kael shook his head slowly. "They don't reason. They evaluate."
"And the verdict?"
He looked up at the shifting sky.
"Pending."
---
Unit-7 activated its external shell.
For the first time since its creation, it projected a partial physical form—angular, incomplete, shimmering with adaptive geometry. Not a weapon.
A statement.
Lysa stared. "It's… responding."
"No," Voss whispered. "It's introducing itself."
The presence in Kael's mind sharpened.
Another node emerges, it noted.
Conflict potential increases.
Kael straightened, pain fading beneath resolve. "They think this ends one of two ways."
Ryn tightened her grip on his arm. "Extinction or containment."
"Yes," Kael said. "But they're wrong."
Imani drew her sidearm—not aiming it, just holding it. "Then what's the third option, Commander?"
Kael looked at Unit-7. At the sky. At Earth beneath his feet.
"Evolution," he said. "On our terms."
Above them, far beyond sight, the Responder construct adjusted again.
Observation was over.
The trial had begun.