He touched the locket under his shirt. Inside was a photo of his sister, Lena. She had been a scientist for the Collective. He had been a soldier for the Command. The last time he saw her, she was standing on the opposite side of this very fissure, screaming something the wind stole away.
What are you waiting for?
For a second, nothing happened. Then the machine stuttered. The locket contained a memory the Collective's algorithm couldn't process: a quiet afternoon, a shared ice cream, a laugh at a stupid joke. It wasn't a strategic data point. It was a single, irrational, human moment.
Instead, he tore the locket from his neck and threw it into the stream of blue light.
Tonight, however, the air was wrong. A low thrumming vibration, like a subwoofer playing a single, angry note, pulsed from the chasm’s depths. Kael adjusted his visor—an old piece of scavenged tech that let him see heat, energy, and the strange ghost-signals the Collective used.