CHAPTER 42: RE SIGNAL

The dust hadn’t settled—but the tension had.

Silken Fang had vanished like smoke, slipping through one of the ruined corridors without a sound. Only the faint echo of his last words remained in the air, curving like ghost-spun silk:

"Don’t disappoint me."

Fade stood unmoving.

His blade was sheathed.

Not because the fight had ended—but because something more dangerous had begun.

Kaela was the first to speak. "That wasn’t just posturing."

Zeyna crossed her arms tightly, jaw clenched. "You think?"

"No," Kaela said flatly. "I know."

They all turned to Fade, expecting something—a nod, a word, a command. But he didn’t speak. His gaze lingered on the corridor Fang had taken, unreadable as ever.

"Was that one of the six?" Darin asked quietly.

Fade blinked once.

"Yes."

No elaboration.

Just that single word.

Arven cracked his knuckles, the sound too loud in the aftermath. "I don’t like him."

"You’re not supposed to," Zeyna muttered. "He’s the kind of guy who kills you while you’re still trying to figure out if he’s serious."

Kaela adjusted her lens interface. "And yet, he didn’t. Why?"

Fade finally looked away from the dark corridor and toward them.

"Because he wanted to learn something first."

Darin frowned. "And did he?"

"I’m not sure," Fade answered. "But he thinks he did."

There was a moment of shared unease—like they had just walked out of a room rigged with explosives, unsure if any had been triggered.

The outpost groaned faintly. Metal beams settling. Wind slipping through the half-broken walls.

Zeyna gestured around. "So... what now? We were sent here for something, remember?"

Kaela checked her device. "Primary objective still active: ’Determine cause of communication loss at Outpost C-12.’"

"Then let’s finish the job," Arven grunted.

But Fade didn’t move yet. His eyes were still far away, locked on something none of them could see.

He whispered, more to himself than to them:

"The system doesn’t send shadows to broken places... unless it’s afraid of what’s still hiding in the cracks."

The corridor split into three sections—each branching into the husk of what once might’ve been a control station, a comms hub, and a storage unit. All of it now... abandoned.

Kaela knelt near a shattered console, her fingers brushing over scorched wiring.

"This wasn’t a failure," she muttered. "It was a surgical burn."

Zeyna paced nearby, boots crunching on broken glass and blackened circuitry. "Someone didn’t want the comms to ever come back online."

"And they were thorough," Kaela added. "Feedback loops fried. Relay dishes sabotaged from the inside."

Fade remained by the entry, silent, but watching. Always watching.

Darin stood before a flickering wall panel. It hissed, spat static... then briefly displayed a corrupted image: a silhouette—thin, humanoid, limbs too long—standing over a technician who wasn’t moving.

He tapped the display. "You’re gonna want to see this."

Kaela synced her lens.

"Frame freeze... enhance contrast..."

The figure’s shape sharpened—not clearly, but enough.

A coat. Slim. The curve of something spiked behind the back.

Legs that weren’t quite human.

Kaela’s voice went cold. "That’s not a system malfunction."

Zeyna narrowed her eyes. "Is that who I think it is?"

Kaela didn’t answer.

Neither did Fade.

Instead, he turned and walked deeper into the station. A corridor led into what remained of the operations center. The lights were low—almost reverent. Everything had been quietly erased.

Except one thing.

On the back wall, written in something that wasn’t paint, a single phrase stretched across the paneling—scrawled in sharp, broken lines:

"We were never what they are."

Beneath it, a cluster of broken tags—ID chips, scorched. Names unreadable.

Fade touched the edge of the phrase. The wall was cold.

Behind him, Kaela’s voice rose from the comms room. "There are no logs past the last transmission. Nothing. It’s like the entire outpost just... stopped."

Fade didn’t respond immediately.

Then:

"Not stopped. Silenced."

Darin approached slowly. "But by who?"

Fade turned.

"No system mark. No hack pattern. Just... disappearance."

He looked back to the writing.

"They weren’t deleted. They were warned."

The room fell into a brief, heavy silence—one not of confusion, but of realization.

Zeyna stared at the wall, eyes narrowed. "That phrase... and the footage... it’s him, isn’t it?"

No one corrected her.

Kaela straightened, her voice low but sure. "The build. The coat. Those... legs. Spidery. Deliberate. It matches."

Darin rubbed his chin, visibly unsettled. "And that writing? That wasn’t graffiti. That was a message. A statement."

Fade remained near the wall, his fingers trailing just beside the scrawled text—

"We were never what they are."

"It’s not a warning," he said quietly. "It’s a line in the sand. A declaration."

Zeyna tilted her head. "So that guy, Silken Fang, and whoever he’s with... they did this?"

Fade turned to them, no longer distant.

"He did it."

Kaela crossed her arms.

"You’re sure?"

"I don’t need to be sure. He left this like a signature." Fade paused. "He wanted us to find it."

Arven let out a sharp breath, his voice more growl than tone. "Why not just kill the outpost and move on? Why leave a calling card?"

"Because he wasn’t just eliminating communication," Kaela replied. "He was eliminating evidence—but not all of it."

Darin blinked. "So... bait?"

"No," Fade said. "Proof. For those who can recognize it."

Zeyna looked around the charred walls, the broken devices, the silent air.

"Then we’re done here."

Fade didn’t nod. He simply moved toward the main relay panel near the operations desk. The terminal was still powered—flickering weakly, like it had been left on life support.

Kaela followed. "You’re going to contact Aeron?"

"We have what we need," Fade said. "They’ll want the area cleared before they send recovery teams."

"Won’t he ask for a full report?" Darin said.

Fade tapped into the console. "He’ll get one."

The system flickered, then pulsed blue. A direct channel request to Commander Aeron – Layer Two Base was established.

[Priority Line: Clearance Verified]

Fade’s voice was steady as he began the transmission.

"Commander Aeron. This is Fade, reporting from Outpost C-12. Cause of communication blackout confirmed—external interference by hostile entity, non-systemic. No lingering threats remain. Outpost is clear. Recommend dispatch of reclamation unit to resume full operation."

He paused, then added:

"Transmission ends."

The line went quiet. A few seconds later, the interface blinked with a reply:

[Message Received – Standby for Forward Orders]

Zeyna leaned against the console. "Well... now what?"

Fade looked back toward the corridor where Silken Fang had vanished.

"Now we wait for someone to pick up the pieces."

Kaela spoke softly, almost to herself. "And we prepare for when they come looking for the rest."

The outpost had fallen into a stillness too heavy to be called peace. It was the kind of silence that lingered after something had ended—but before anything had begun.

The group dispersed slightly. Arven moved to check the perimeter. Zeyna found a spot near a crumbled support beam and sat, arms loosely draped over her knees. Darin stood near the console, aimlessly scanning the inactive logs, eyes unfocused.

Only Fade remained by the wall.

His eyes weren’t on the text anymore, nor on the shadows. They were lost somewhere else—beyond the outpost, beyond the cold structure, beyond the walls of Last Hope itself.

For a moment, everything around him faded.

He was walking again. Not through corridors, but through memory.

That voice.Still lingering.

"You are not a function. You are the fracture."

He didn’t shiver, but it was close.

A wind passed through the open ventilation shaft—dry, metallic. It hissed over his shoulder like a whisper that didn’t want to be heard.

You’re being watched.

Fade exhaled slowly. Not fear—focus.

Then the console near him blinked.

[Incoming Data Packet – Auth: Commander Aeron]

He moved closer. The screen displayed no message, only an icon: a sealed file, labeled with a code he didn’t recognize.

[Open File: Y/N]

He tapped ’Y’.

The file decrypted slowly. A low chime followed.

Inside were two components:

[1. Audio Clip – Extracted from Layer One Logs][2. Image Snapshot – Uplink Residue / Node C Transmission]

Zeyna approached behind him. "More footage?"

"Maybe," Fade murmured.

He played the audio first.

Static. Then a voice.

Male. Tense.

"—don’t understand, it’s not just them. It’s something else. Something watching through them. If they’re the blades—this thing is the hand."

Another voice, panicked.

"It knew our names. I didn’t even say anything, and it—"

End clip.

Zeyna froze.

"The Enforcers?" she asked.

"No," Fade said slowly. "The one behind them."

He tapped the image file next. The screen revealed a blurry still: the Core Tower, but not from their current angle. A dark figure stood on one of its observation decks.

Slick hair. Black coat. A posture like arrogance incarnate.

And eight faint shadows curling from his back like poised limbs.

Zeyna hissed. "Silken Fang..."

But Fade didn’t blink.

He just stared.

And the image on the screen... seemed to stare back.

The silence after the footage wasn’t hollow—it was loaded.

Kaela leaned closer to the console. "Timestamp confirms it. That image wasn’t live. At least a few days old."

Zeyna muttered, "So we’re dealing with ghosts. But the kind that still bite."

Darin frowned. "Then that means... the comms blackout wasn’t a glitch. It was deliberate. Enforced silence."

"Enforcer silence," Arven added. "Fits."

Fade didn’t respond immediately. He stared at the frozen frame of Silken Fang on the screen—posture regal, presence commanding. Not just an enemy. A message.

He turned to the others. "We’ve seen enough."

Kaela nodded. "The console’s still got low-tier uplink. I can piggyback a signal to Layer 2 if we aim it right."

Zeyna was already moving. "I’ll help boost the relay dish. There’s still some integrity left in the roof panels."

Within minutes, the group had split into silent efficiency—Zeyna and Darin rerouting the surface dish, Kaela working on the system protocols, Arven standing guard by the shattered entrance.

Fade remained near the center of the operations bay, eyes fixed on a cracked display that still showed mission designations from a time before the fall.

Everything had shifted now.

The pieces were still in motion—but the board was becoming clear.

Kaela’s voice cut through. "Uplink secured. It’s not pretty, but it’ll hold long enough."

"Ready the transmission," Fade said quietly.

A flicker of light pulsed across the console.

[Comm Signal Prepared: Layer 2 Command – Commander Aeron]

[Attach Report Summary? Y/N]

He nodded once. "Y."

Kaela’s hands moved swiftly. "Sending now."

The message went out in pulses, encoded fragments climbing up the frequencies.

[TO: Commander Aeron][Node C Outpost secured. Primary threat vacated.][Source of disruption identified: Enforcer activity. Presence confirmed.][Current status: Cleared for reclamation. Team awaiting further instruction.]

Silence fell again—but this time it wasn’t uncertain.

It was complete.

Fade stepped back from the console. Zeyna and Darin descended from the upper levels. Arven relaxed his stance slightly. Kaela closed the interface with a short hiss of static.

Outside, the wind had settled.

The outpost no longer felt like a ruin.

It felt... recovered.

Not just physically.

Claimed.

Fade looked once more at the fading screen.

Whatever was watching them before—whatever had tried to silence this place—

They had spoken back.