[upd] | Ion265

She reached out, not with her hand, but with the probe's manipulator arm. The moment the carbon-tipped claw touched the violet lattice, the silence broke.

Elara smiled. "Because you asked nicely. And because we're not ready for your answer. We haven't even learned to ask the right questions yet."

But the violet filaments were already moving, not attacking, but offering . A single strand drifted toward her faceplate, humming a frequency that resonated with her own alpha waves. It wasn't a weapon. It was a key. ion265

She initiated the failsafe. The Odyssey 's engines roared, pulling her tether taut. As she flew backward into the black, the Ion265 lattice pulsed one last time—not angry, not pleading. Curious.

"No," she said, and retracted the probe. She reached out, not with her hand, but

The violet light flared, confused. Why? it seemed to ask.

Dr. Elara Venn floated in the central nexus, her tether to the research vessel Odyssey a thin, silver filament against the abyss. Below her, the asteroid wasn't rock. It was a skeleton. A lattice of carbon-silicon alloy, woven with filaments that pulsed a faint, sickly violet. Three years they'd tracked the signal. Three years of denying what it meant. "Because you asked nicely

"Singularity," she whispered, the word fogging her visor. "You're not a point. You're a design ."