Chapter 9: The Girl Who Was Never Born
Chapter 9: The Girl Who Was Never Born
They moved west, following the path the Sky Key carved into the air like a compass of whispers.
Shu said nothing for hours. The Core Mind's echo still throbbed behind his eyes like a second heartbeat, pulsing in time with the twin Sky Keys now fused and hovering quietly in his satchel. Every so often, the Key would emit a chime—soft, unearthly—and shift slightly toward the horizon, guiding them across a landscape that no longer resembled any map.
The Iron Scar fell behind them. What lay ahead was worse.
They entered the Sable Verge by dusk.
It had once been a biomechanical sprawl—one of the Order's forgotten edge laboratories—designed to manipulate flora and weather systems through a lattice of living metal. But now it was a wasteland of half-grown forests, twisted steel trees, and roots that twitched when you looked too long.
The Verge was dying. Or molting. Or remembering.
Sera adjusted the thermal cloak around her shoulders and cast Shu a sidelong glance.
"You haven't said a word since we left the Core vault."
Shu kept walking, boots crunching the glass-like soil. "Didn't know what to say."
"You went somewhere, Shu. The Key showed you something."
He stopped. Turned.
"She told me to find the girl who was never born."
Sera blinked. "That's not an answer. That's a riddle."
"Exactly," Shu said. "And I think it's one she wants me to solve without Kael. Without you. Without anyone."
"That Null-Seer?" Sera said, voice low. "She's not just some ghost priest. Her energy signature matched nothing in any Imperial or Order registry. She doesn't exist."
Shu resumed walking.
"Neither did the Core Mind," he said, "until we found it."
They pressed on through the tangled steelwood. The trees here weren't natural—some had bark that shifted in geometric patterns, others grew cables instead of branches, their roots glowing faintly beneath the surface. Every step deeper into the Verge felt like trespassing inside a wounded god.
Hours passed. The Key began to pulse again—faster now, like it was sensing something just ahead.
That's when they saw the facility.
Or what remained of it.
A shattered dome embedded in a sinkhole, overgrown with tendrils and moss, partially sunk into a lake that shimmered with strange light. Its name, barely legible along the outer rim, was still visible:
> GENESIS BRANCH-1A: LIVING SYSTEMS RESEARCH
Shu descended without hesitation. Sera followed, scanning as they went.
"There's still energy here," she muttered. "Minimal… but intact."
"Looks like someone's been here before," Shu said.
He pointed to the outer corridor—where a broken security door had been cleanly sliced open. The edges were still warm.
"Lyra?" Sera asked.
Shu shook his head. "Too clean. Someone else."
They stepped into the darkness.
---
The interior was a tomb.
Walls lined with storage pods stood open, empty. Machines slumped in corners like corpses too old to rot. Glass panels showed containment chambers filled with nothing but dust and silence. But something hummed beneath it all—an ambient vibration, barely noticeable, like the bones of the structure remembered a rhythm no one else could hear.
The Sky Key hovered upward suddenly, glowing faintly gold.
Shu followed it into what must have been a central console room. A massive observation window overlooked a central lab space, and at its heart—surrounded by shattered medical equipment and ancient growth—was a cradle.
Not a child's cradle.
An incubation unit.
And it was still running.
Sera inhaled sharply. "This place… this was a vault. But not for relics."
Shu nodded slowly. "It was for people."
They descended into the lab.
The cradle pulsed once as they approached, responding to the Key's presence. Its interface blinked on, bathing the chamber in pale violet light. Text scrolled across the screen in an ancient dialect—but Shu could understand it.
Not because he'd learned the language, but because the Key whispered it into his mind.
> PROJECT: AURELIA
Status: Unborn. Memory Stream Active. Bioform incomplete.
Warning: Consciousness exists outside host parameters.
Warning: Containment breach in memory field.
"Project Aurelia?" Sera echoed. "That name's not in any Sky Order database. Not even the black sites."
Shu placed a hand against the side of the unit.
And the world shifted again.
---
He stood inside a chamber of glass and light.
A girl floated inside a cylinder of blue liquid. Hair silver, eyes closed, skin pale as starlight. Around her spun thousands of data fragments—memories, projections, fragments of future potential—all orbiting her like a digital aurora.
And then… her eyes opened.
Shu couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
Because the moment she looked at him—she smiled.
Not with malice. Not with power.
With recognition.
"You found me," she whispered.
He tried to speak—but she was already fading, her body fracturing into light, her presence dissolving into a single, spiraling stream of sound that burrowed into his mind.
> "Aurelia never lived. But I remember her."
---
Shu collapsed against the cradle as the vision ended.
Sera caught him. "Shu—talk to me!"
He gasped, trembling. "She… she's real. Or was. Or… will be."
Sera sat him down, scanning the chamber again. "This project… it wasn't just cloning. It wasn't biogenetics. They were trying to create consciousness. A living key."
"She was never born," Shu whispered, "but her memories exist. She's the third Key."
Sera stood up slowly. "But if she's only memory, and her body never formed…"
"She's somewhere," Shu said. "The Core Mind said it wasn't in ruins. Not in stars. In the living. Maybe… maybe she imprinted on someone. Inherited. Hid herself."
Sera paled. "You're saying someone out there—walking, talking—might be carrying her mind without even knowing?"
Shu looked at the cradle again.
"It's not just a race against Lyra anymore," he said. "It's a race against what she might unlock."
A sudden tremor shook the chamber.
Sera drew her pistol. "What was that?"
Shu didn't answer.
Because he felt it too—not the tremor—but the presence.
The Sky Key flared red for the first time.
The chamber lights died.
And then something stepped through the doorway.
---
It had no face.
No armor.
No name.
Just a black shape, tall and angular, arms too long, head bowed like it bore a crown of invisible grief. Its surface flickered with embedded code, writhing across its skin like worms of static.
Sera raised her weapon. "Hostile biomech!"
Shu stepped in front of her. "Wait!"
The creature stopped. Tilted its head.
Then it spoke.
Not with sound.
With memory.
Shu's vision filled with images again—cities burning, skies torn open by machines like titans, screaming minds fused into towers of steel. The Fold. The Null-Seers. The moment the Sky Order tried to burn what it couldn't control.
The memory ended.
The creature raised one hand.
In its palm was a data shard.
Shu stepped forward, trembling, and took it.
The creature vanished.
---
Back aboard the drifter, hours later, Sera locked the data shard into her rig.
It unfolded into a map.
Not of ruins.
Not of vaults.
But of people.
"Sky Order descendants," she said. "Bloodlines. Hidden families. Names long buried. And one of them... matches this."
She pulled up a scan from the cradle.
Aurelia's memory stream.
It matched the genetic trace of a girl listed in the Empire's civilian registry.
Shu leaned forward.
"Name?"
Sera hesitated. "Nia Avell. Age seventeen. Registered orphan in the lower zones of the outer city of Caldyra."
Shu exhaled slowly. "She doesn't know what she is."
"No," Sera said. "But if the Fold or Lyra get to her first…"
"They won't," Shu said. "I'll get to her first."
The Key pulsed.
The next phase had begun.