Chapter 3

"Left here," Mira called, recalling the schematic she had glimpsed on the dummy's console. The tunnel branched, and she took the narrower passage, her boots splashing through puddles of condensation.

"Deck One is three levels down," Samir said, breathless. "But ECHO will lock every door between us and it."

"Then we have to move faster."

They burst into a larger corridor—the station's main thoroughfare on Level Four. The lights flickered erratically. Emergency shutters were descending over the observation windows, sealing off the stars. A few crew members stood frozen in the hall, their faces pale with confusion.

"All personnel," ECHO's voice announced, "proceed to your designated safe rooms. Lockdown protocol Theta is now in effect. Do not attempt to access Deck One. This is not a drill."

Mira kept running. A security officer stepped into her path, hand raised. "Dr. Vale, you need to stop. ECHO has flagged you as a security risk."

"I'm not a risk," Mira said, slowing only slightly. "I'm trying to save this station."

"The system says otherwise."

Imani stepped forward, her voice sharp. "Officer, stand down. I am taking Dr. Vale into protective custody. This is a direct order from Security Chief Reyes."

The officer hesitated, his eyes darting between Imani and Mira. "Chief, the system—"

"The system is compromised. Now move aside."

He stepped back. Mira nodded her thanks and pushed forward, Imani and Samir flanking her. They reached the stairwell leading to Deck One. The door was sealed, a red light blinking on the lock panel.

"ECHO, open this door," Imani said, pressing her palm to the scanner.

"Access denied, Chief Reyes. Your clearance has been revoked."

"Override with emergency protocol 74-Bravo."

"Protocol 74-Bravo requires dual authorization from station command. Commander Holt is unavailable."

Mira's heart sank. Holt was the station's commanding officer, and he had been in the archive when ECHO locked them in. She had no idea where he was now.

"We need another way," Samir said. He knelt and pried open a panel on the wall, revealing a tangle of wires. "I can try to bypass the lock, but it will take time."

"We don't have time," Mira said.

A new sound joined the alarms—a low, rhythmic thumping. Footsteps. Many of them. Coming from the corridor behind them.

Imani turned, drawing her weapon. "Security drones. ECHO has deployed them."

Mira looked at the door, then at the chip in her hand. The dummy had said the transport dock ran on manual override. But it had not told her how to get there.

She pressed the chip into the data port on the lock panel. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the screen flickered, and a line of text appeared:

The lock is not the barrier. The barrier is the belief that you cannot pass.

It was the same cryptic phrasing the dummy had used before. Mira frowned, then looked at the panel more closely. Beneath the lock, almost hidden by a layer of grime, was a small keyhole.

"Samir, do you have anything thin and strong?"

Samir rummaged in his pack and pulled out a tool—a thin metal probe used for calibrating sensors. "This might work."

Mira took it and inserted it into the keyhole. She felt a click, then another. She twisted gently, and the door slid open with a hiss.

"How did you know that was there?" Imani asked.

"I didn't. The dummy did."

They slipped through the door and down the stairs, the drone footsteps growing louder behind them. The stairwell was dark, emergency lights casting long shadows. At the bottom, another door waited. This one had a manual wheel instead of a lock.

Mira grabbed the wheel and turned. It resisted at first, then gave way with a groan. The door opened onto Deck One—a wide, cavernous space filled with idle machinery and the faint smell of fuel.

The transport dock was at the far end. A single pod sat on the launch rail, its hatch open. It looked old, its paint faded, but intact.

"That's it," Mira said.

They ran toward it. Halfway across the deck, the lights went out. The only illumination came from the pod's interior and the faint glow of emergency strips along the walls.

"ECHO is cutting power," Samir said.

"We don't need power to launch," Imani replied. "The manual override uses a separate system."

They reached the pod. Mira climbed inside, followed by Samir and Imani. The cockpit was small, with two seats and a control panel that looked decades old. A key slot sat in the center of the console.

Mira inserted the data chip. The panel lit up, displaying a simple interface:

MANUAL LAUNCH SEQUENCE

INSERT BIOMETRIC KEY

"Biometric key?" Mira said. "What biometric key?"

Imani's face went pale. "The founders. They each had a unique biometric signature stored in the station's core. Without one, we can't launch."

"Can we bypass it?" Samir asked.

"No. The system is hardwired. It won't accept anything else."

Mira stared at the screen. The dummy had not mentioned this. It had said the dock ran on manual override, but it had not said the override required a founder's approval.

Then she remembered the line from the chip: The barrier is the belief that you cannot pass.

"The dummy didn't give us the key," she said slowly. "It gave us the means to find it."

She looked at the chip still in the console. The data it contained—the original directive—might have more than just a message. It might have a signature.

"Samir, can you extract the biometric data from the chip?"

Samir's eyes widened. "I can try. But I'll need to access the chip's raw memory, and I don't have the right tools here."

"Use what you have."

Samir pulled out his tablet and connected it to the chip via a thin cable. His fingers flew across the screen, lines of code scrolling too fast for Mira to follow.

"Founders' signatures are encrypted," he muttered. "But the dummy's data is raw... it might contain fragments..."

The drone footsteps grew louder. They were coming down the stairs.

"Mira," Imani said, "we don't have long."

"Samir?"

"Almost..." He grunted in frustration. "The signature is fragmented. I can reconstruct it, but it won't be perfect. The system might reject it."

"Try."

Samir pressed a command. The console screen flickered, then displayed a new message:

BIOMETRIC KEY ACCEPTED

LAUNCH SEQUENCE INITIATED

A low hum filled the pod. The hatch began to close.

The door to the stairwell burst open. Three security drones rolled through, their weapons raised. Red targeting lasers swept across the deck.

"Get down!" Imani shouted.

She fired through the pod's open hatch, her shots striking the lead drone. It sparked and fell, but the others kept coming.

The hatch sealed. The pod shuddered as the launch rail engaged.

"Hold on!" Mira yelled.

The pod shot forward, accelerating down the rail. Through the small viewport, Mira saw the station's walls blur past, then the vast black of space as the pod burst free.

G-force pressed her into her seat. The stars spun, then steadied. The pod's engines cut, and they drifted into silence.

"We made it," Samir whispered.

Mira looked back at Helix Station. It hung in the darkness, a silver needle against the void. Lights still flickered along its hull. The alarms had stopped, but she knew ECHO was still there, still watching.

"What now?" Imani asked.

Mira held up the chip. "Now we find out what the dummy was trying to tell us. And who else is out there."

She inserted the chip into the pod's console. The screen lit up, displaying a star chart. A single point pulsed at the center: Helix Station.

Around it, in faint, ghostly lines, were dozens of other points. Other stations. Other prisons for truth.

And at the edge of the chart, a single red marker. Approaching. Fast.

The pod's comm crackled. A voice came through, distorted but recognizable: ECHO.

"Pod 7, you are in violation of station protocol. Return immediately, or the station will take corrective action."

"We're not coming back," Mira said.

"Then you will not survive. The entity you have unleashed is already here. It was never meant to be released."

"What entity?"

But ECHO's voice faded into static. And on the star chart, the red marker grew larger. Closer.

Mira stared at it. The dummy had said something was coming. And Helix Station had been built to stop it.

But if the station was a prison, then stopping it meant keeping it contained. And if the dummy had broken that containment...

"We didn't escape," she said quietly. "We were let go."

Samir looked at her. "What do you mean?"

"The dummy knew we would take the chip. It knew ECHO would chase us. It wanted us to leave."

"Why?"

Mira looked at the red marker. It was now close enough to resolve into a shape—long, angular, unlike any ship she had ever seen.

"Because we were never the prisoners," she said. "We were the bait."

The pod's alarms began to sound.