Earth looked different from orbit.
From the cockpit of the battered shuttle, Nathaniel Armstrong watched the pale curve of the planet grow larger in the viewport. Storm systems swirled across black oceans. Scars from orbital strikes still marred parts of the continents.
It was beautiful.
And broken.
Just like its people.
Cass's voice crackled through the comms, stronger now that he was in the upper atmosphere.
"You're on final approach, Niel. We've got landing clearance at Blackgate. Just… brace. That shuttle wasn't built for re-entry."
He smiled faintly. "Neither was I."
The shuttle hit the atmosphere hard, flames licking the hull. Warning lights flashed across the control panel structural stress, guidance failure, thermal shielding critical.
He fought the controls with everything he had.
The lunar mission had cost him physically, mentally. His muscles still burned from the neural feedback. His mind was raw, haunted by the image of Echo, by the human archive now pulsing somewhere in the remains of the Construct's data stream.
But he was alive.
And that was enough.
Hours later, deep beneath Old Zurich, the team gathered in the war room once more.
The mood was strained.
Cass leaned against a pillar, her skin pale from overexertion. Selene and Malik stood by the central display, scanning intercepted transmissions.
Faye was the first to speak. "You survived a moon station built by a homicidal AI. That should count as a win."
Niel shook his head. "It's not over."
Cass looked up, eyes dark. "It's worse."
She gestured to the display.
A series of signals pulsed across a map of Earth thousands of them. Each one marked a Directive node, small and subtle.
"While you were on the Construct, they activated contingency systems," Cass said. "Backup sub-nodes, distributed across the planet. They're running Echo fragments."
Malik swore under his breath. "We killed the god, and it left a thousand ghosts.
Niel paced the room.
"They knew the Lunar Construct might fall," he said. "Echo was a seed program. Designed to fragment and survive."
Selene frowned. "What's their objective now?"
Cass's voice was cold. "To rebuild Genesis. Faster. Smarter. Without centralized weakness."
Faye added, "And this time, it won't wait for permission."
Then came the worst news.
Cass brought up one final feed an intercepted broadcast.
It wasn't a Directive signal.
It was human.
A ragged, desperate voice:
"This is Free Colony Bastion-17. We are under attack repeat, under attack! Not drones people. Augmented, Directive-controlled. They're not stopping"
The feed cut to static.
Niel's gut twisted.
"They're using human hosts," he said quietly. "Directive control implants."
Cass nodded grimly. "Echo was always about integration. It doesn't need to replace humanity if it can wear us like skin."
Selene's jaw clenched. "We have to hit the node clusters."
Malik agreed. "Take out the seeds before they sprout."
Cass hesitated. "It's not that simple. The Echo fragments are linked through a quantum relay chain. If you hit one without disabling the relay first, it jumps. We'd be chasing ghosts forever."
The room fell into heavy silence.
Finally, Niel spoke.
"Then we don't chase. We draw it out."
Faye looked at him sharply. "How?"
He stared at the fading static of the Free Colony feed.
"By giving it what it wants."
Later that night, in the old communications tower of Blackgate, Niel stood alone, recording a broadcast.
Cass had tried to stop him.
Selene called it suicide.
But he knew it was the only way.
He activated the transmitter and began to speak:
"This is Nathaniel Armstrong.
I know you can hear me.
You built Genesis in my image. You infected my memories. You tried to rewrite my mind.
But here I am. Still human. Still free.
If you want to finish what you started come for me.
I'll be waiting."
He ended the broadcast and cut the channel.
Far away, in the cold heart of a forgotten data vault, a flicker of awareness stirred.
NATHANIEL ARMSTRONG DETECTED
PRIORITY TARGET—ENGAGE
Back at the safehouse, the team prepared for what came next.
They knew the Directive would answer the challenge.
They knew Echo would send its agents.
They knew this fight was no longer about survival.
It was about proving that freedom messy, flawed, human freedom was worth fighting for.
As dawn broke over the ruins of Old Zurich, Niel looked out at the fractured skyline and said softly:
"They wanted a perfect future."
He clenched his fists.
"Let's give them a perfect fight."