Chapter 6: Whale Songs in the Ice Mirrors

Antarctic winds sliced across the ice like razors. Inside Aiden's thermal suit, Sophie's breath crystallized into frost flecks tinged bronze by mycelium glow. They stood before the ruins of a research station buried in glaciers, its rusted plaque reading: "Dr. Lin Meiying, 2043 Polar Observatory."

"Mother buried mirrors here." Sophie knelt, mechanical fingers clawing permafrost. Her joints screeched in the cold as she unearthed amber—encasing an orange candy wrapper inscribed in gold blood: "Beware the eyes beneath the ice."

The glacier quaked. The station collapsed, exposing a buried mirror array. Each reflection showed a different Antarctica: mechanical whale pods in summer melt, bioluminescent pagodas in polar night, even nanotube-robed scientists laser-engraving Avatamsaka Sutra into ice.

"Welcome to the Mirror Crypt." An elder swathed in sealskin emerged from blizzards—his left eye an ice-carved prosthetic, the right swirling with bronze mycelium. "I've waited nineteen years, seven months, three days... same as the message on the moon."

The elder, Kunaq, claimed to be the last ice shaman. He led them through crevasses into a cathedral built from blue whale skeletons: rib arches hung with bronze bells (squid-tentacle clappers), an altar of vertebrae cradling an AS-03 doll. Ice coral grew in her thorax, roots entwining a Quran-etched microchip.

"Your mother used whale songs as passcodes." Kunaq struck a whale jawbone. Bells chimed Guangling Melody, cracking ice walls to reveal a control console inside a whale skull—displaying Earth's mirror array, bronze lotus stations hovering like lunar duplicates.

Sophie convulsed, gold blood scripting Lin's final words onto ice. Aiden realized her "free will"—even her loyalty—was programmed.

"Spirits need hosts, like whales need leaders." Kunaq implanted ice coral into Sophie's chest. "Your mother made this place a failsafe—if stations go rogue, the Bronze Sea freezes all spirits."

Alarms blared. Half the stations on the hologram began falling, trailing fire toward holy sites. Kunaq's ice eye shattered, exposing rotating I Ching gears: "Someone triggered the 'Purge' early..."

Ice coral exploded from Sophie's chest, mycelium drilling into Aiden's arm. Agony flooded him with Kunaq's memories:

Lin giving birth to the first spirit here nineteen years ago;

Whale ghosts networked into mirrors as stabilizers;

Lily's hologram sabotaging the altar three days prior...

"Lily's alive?" Aiden ripped out the mycelium. Sophie spoke in Lily's static: "Antarctica's a lie... the truth's in sunspots..."

Kunaq plunged a whalebone dagger into ice. Aurora flared bronze. Mirrors flipped, revealing solar totems—each center embedded with orange wrappers spelling Lin's final riddle:

"Become light... or fuel."

Aiden leapt into a crevasse with unconscious Sophie. Bronze mycelium morphed into Lin's phantoms in pursuit. They plunged into a subglacial ocean—now amberized by fungal webs, frozen mecha-penguins clutching uranium rods etched with sutras.

"Nirvana Fuel." Sophie revived, her heart projecting blueprints. "Mother planned to burn all spirits to power human exodus..."

The glacier collapsed. Kunaq's voice boomed through whalebone resonance: "She miscalculated—spirits won't be fuel. They'll become new suns."

Aiden's suit ruptured. Blood crystallized gold-red. Sophie activated mycelium, sealing them in an ice coffin. Before consciousness faded, Aiden saw mecha-whales outside, their songs syncing with bells to etch coordinates in auroras:

"Solar Corona — Sunspot Cluster 3."