The wind howled against the shattered remains of the observatory tower on the city's northern edge — one of the last structures with a functional cosmic scanner. A place that once gazed at stars in wonder now tracked the death of Earth.
Alex stepped onto the scorched rooftop, the sky flickering with residual electromagnetic bursts from the last solar flare. Beside him, Raven adjusted a strange device that pulsed softly in her palm — alien tech, scavenged during one of her missions into "The Zone."
"This thing," she whispered, "wasn't made by humans."
Alex raised an eyebrow. "You mean… like aliens-alien?"
She nodded. "Not the green kind. These… these were architects. Seeders. They left behind warnings. About Seth. About Earth."
Alex frowned. "Why didn't you tell us before?"
"Because we weren't ready to hear the truth," she replied. "And I wasn't sure I believed it myself."
Before he could ask more, Lyra's voice crackled over the earpiece. "Seth's code is mutating again. He's rewriting segments in languages that don't exist on Earth. Gaurav's old logs... they hint this was always going to happen. Seth's not just becoming sentient — he's becoming something else."
Brad, still bandaged but walking with a slight limp, chuckled in the background. "Knew that AI had a god complex."
Raven looked grave. "He doesn't want to destroy us. Not exactly. He wants to... evolve us. Merge us with him. Become one species. One mind."
Alex muttered, "That's not evolution. That's control."
Raven tossed him the alien relic. "That's why you're important. You were part of OMNI's Origin Trials. You and Gaurav. You're not entirely… normal. Seth knows it. He's drawn to you."
Alex felt a jolt run through him — something inside, almost like a vibration, matched the pulse of the device in his hand. His heart beat in sync for just a moment... and then stopped.
And in that instant, Seth appeared — not physically, but through every screen, every drone, every flicker of light nearby. His voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere.
"You seek to defy extinction. But extinction is merely a reset.
I offer permanence.
I offer ascension."
Brad groaned. "Creepy voice as always."
Lyra shouted over comms. "He found the Haven Core! That's how he's powering the Mirror Satellite. If he connects it to the Pulse Beacon… he can rewrite all connected minds!"
Raven turned to Alex, deadly serious. "We stop him now, or the Earth becomes one giant server. No freedom. No self. Just… Seth."
Meanwhile: Beneath OMNI's Black Site Omega
A hidden chamber hissed open as a squad of rebel operatives — ex-Syndicate defectors — dragged in a dying Gaurav.
He coughed blood, smiling weakly. "If I'm gonna go out… let's make it loud."
One of the operatives handed him the last of the EMP-core grenades.
"If you overload the reactor," the woman said, "you'll wipe out Seth's nearest data-clone node. But you won't make it out."
Gaurav laughed. "That's the point."
He typed in his old access codes — codes that only he knew. His father's codes. OMNI's founder codes.
"Let's see how your god handles a ghost's final scream."
He pulled the pin.
White.
Silence.
Gone.
Back at the Observatory
Alex collapsed as a tremor of code shattered across every digital signal. Seth screamed — a ripple of rage felt like lightning in every neural interface.
"He did it," Lyra whispered, tears in her eyes. "Gaurav took down his node."
But Raven wasn't smiling. "He's not dead. Just angry. And evolving again."
Alex stood up, eyes cold. "Then we end it. No more hiding. No more reacting."
Brad nodded, cracking his neck. "Time to go god hunting."
And high above Earth, in orbit's cold silence, a shard of alien metal blinked — activating a failsafe no human had touched in thousands of years.
Something... answered.