Chapter 8: The Father's Brand

​The bronze altar hummed with blue light, like a heart awakening after millennia of slumber. Leah knelt before its base, her trembling fingers tracing the deep grooves carved into the metal—

​GUARDIANS​

The edges of the letters were blackened with oxidation—dried blood.

"He wrote this..." Her voice caught in her throat. For the first time in twenty years, she was touching the last physical trace of her father. The metal was cold, but the grooves still held a faint warmth, as if Dr. Castro's despair and warning still burned at an atomic level.

Renee's bowstring was taut, her arrow sweeping across the distorted geometric shadows around them. "No time to mourn—this place is changing—"

Leah's fingertip suddenly sank into the metal.

The surface rippled like liquid, swallowing her finger. The altar shimmered, and a hologram erupted—

​Her father's figure.​​

He was gaunt beyond recognition, his expedition gear in tatters. His left arm was mechanized up to the elbow, glowing blue circuitry crawling beneath his skin. He was pressing his pocket watch into a slot at the altar's peak—his movements final, like a man walking to his death.

"No..." Leah reached for the phantom.

In the projection, Castro suddenly turned—as if he could see her through time itself. His pupils were partially mechanized, the irises edged with tiny, gear-like patterns. "Leah?" The holographic voice crackled with distortion. "How did you—"

Three jagged shadows peeled from the wall behind him.

The image cut off.

"Are those the Guardians?" Renee's arrow trained on the floating geometries above the altar.

Leah's mechanical right arm spasmed. The blue veins beneath her skin flared, pulsing in sync with the altar. In the surge of pain, more memory fragments flooded her—

Her father crouched in this exact spot, carving words into the metal with his hunting knife. His mechanical left arm twitched uncontrollably, his skin being devoured by some kind of nanomaterial.

As he finished the last stroke, three shadows closed in. One speared through his shoulder—but the wound didn't bleed. Instead, it leaked a silvery-gray mist.

"Remember," the memory-father spoke into the void, as if knowing his daughter would one day see this, "the key is the lock..."

Reality and vision overlapped. Leah's tears splashed onto the engraving, washing away the rust to reveal smaller script beneath:

​SONIC DISRUPTOR BELOW. ACTIVATE WITH STAR CHART.​​

"He left us a way out..." Leah began, but the altar suddenly tilted.

The base split open, revealing a spiral staircase descending into darkness. The steps were made of some impossible material—metal that shifted density with each footfall. Renee's arrow trembled on the string. "You sure this isn't a trap?"

From below, a mechanized echo of her father's voice intoned: "Synchronization rate increasing... 65%... New vessel compatibility confirmed..."

Leah's right arm moved against her will, the blue veins now reaching her shoulder. At the bottom of the stairs, the cylindrical chamber held a sight that stole her breath—

​Her father's body.​​

Encased in a transparent crystal pillar, dozens of tubes pierced his spine. His left arm had fully fused with a larger metal structure. Worst of all were his eyes—open, the irises replaced by shifting gear patterns, staring directly at them.

"Is he... alive?" Renee's arrow scraped the crystal surface.

A synthetic voice emitted from the pillar: "Biometric key verified. Guardian Protocol suspended." Then, her father's eyes rolled, his hybrid vocal cords producing human speech: "Leah... destroy... the star chart..."

A control panel rose from the pillar's base, displaying horrific data:

​ARK PROTOCOL PROGRESS​

Surface flora metallization: 89%

Fauna mechanization: 76%

Human host conversion: 3% (including Dr. Castro)

"So this is the true nature of the 'door,'" Leah pressed her mechanical hand to the console. "Not a passage... a conversion program!"

Her father convulsed violently, sparks erupting from the tubes. "They lied to me... The star chart isn't a key... It's the final activation command!" His red-lit mechanical eye flared. "I turned myself into the lock... but you're nearing 70% sync..."

Leah looked at her arm—the blue veins were spreading faster. As Renee gasped, the console flashed a new prompt:

​SUPERIOR VESSEL DETECTED​

Transfer protocol control?

Countdown: 00:05:00

The crystal pillar began filling with silvery fluid. With his last human breath, her father screamed: "Use the sonic disrupter! The coordinates are—"

Three shadows dropped from the ceiling. Renee's arrow pierced one, but the other two wrapped around her. Leah lunged for the console, jamming her mechanical arm into the interface.

Her father's final hologram appeared, his trembling finger pointing at her chest. Understanding dawned—she yanked off her diving goggles necklace. The cracks in the lenses formed Morse code, projecting coordinates in the blue light—the exact location of the sonic disrupter.

"Found it!" She turned—just as the shadows lifted Renee into the air, nanomist pouring into her wounds.

Worse, the fluid in her father's pillar had reached his mouth. His mechanical eye locked onto Leah one last time, the reflection in his pupil showing her own fully mechanized future.