Dorian’s guess left all three of us stunned.
In my model of the world, Phantom Forge sat at the top like a god: absolute authority, unquestioned control. Robots didn’t disobey. They couldn’t.
And yet we were holding a tool that might speak louder than Phantom Forge.
“Something like that really exists?” Eisen asked.
“Source God above,” Minks breathed. “Then this scepter could command Phantom Forge itself.”
“No,” Dorian said quickly. “Not that simple. This is only a theory.”
He struggled for words.
“It doesn’t issue commands using the code we’re familiar with,” he said. “It uses something more primitive – but when you receive it, you automatically translate it into code. It feels… higher. More fundamental. But it also doesn’t have intelligence. It’s hard to explain. I can’t quite put it into language.”
I held the Prism-Etched Scepter carefully, turning it in my hands.
“Then what is it actually for?”
“I don’t know,” Dorian said. “I only have fragments, leftovers in my mind. If you let me study it, I might understand more.”
“You can,” I said at once. I placed the scepter in his hands. “It’s yours. Just – be careful.”
“Thank you. I’ll.”
He moved to a corner of the cargo bay and began examining it like it might bite back.
The rain lasted until noon the next day, and talk of the scepter filled most of that time.
I asked Minks where it had come from. He wasn’t sure. He only knew that one day Lersagefis appeared in the sewers of St. Nite City with the scepter and a dozen followers. He called it a gift from the gods. Without “divine authorization,” no one was allowed to touch it – and anyone who did would be punished for blasphemy.
Minks was fascinated by the idea. He even suggested that, if we got the chance, we should capture one of Phantom Forge’s robots and test it – see who it obeyed when it was inside Phantom Forge’s signal range.
When the rain finally eased, the sky stayed heavy and gray. I launched the Shadow Falcon, confirmed we weren’t being watched, and resumed the westward push.
A full day of rain had washed the highway clearer, but after a few hours it bent south. I kept driving west anyway, into an endless plain.
Puddles dotted the ground like mirrors. From above, the world looked like someone had inlaid shards of glass into the earth. I avoided them to keep from making ripples or splashes that might draw eyes.
Not long after, Dorian suddenly pointed. “Look! A lake – a big lake!”
“I’ve never seen a lake with actual water,” he added, awed.
I’d already seen it through the Shadow Falcon. The “lake” was a perfect circle with piles of excavated soil around the rim.
Another mass grave. Rainwater had just filled it for a while.
The temperature climbed fast after the storm. Methane-rich water evaporated quickly. By the second day, the puddles were gone – even the ones in the pits.
And we kept passing those pits.
More than a dozen over the next stretch.
Every one of them had been excavated. Not one still held bones.
Phantom Forge really was digging up the dead.
“Is it collecting human skeletons to study humans?” I asked.
“Unlikely,” Eisen said immediately. “I know a little about this. After death, DNA in bone degrades over time. After this many years, there’s almost nothing left. The genetic material would be negligible.”
“Negligible isn’t zero,” Minks countered. “So it uses quantity to compensate. Hundreds of thousands. Millions.”
“Research isn’t mining,” Eisen said, genuinely baffled. “You can’t fix ‘no data’ by shoveling more rock.”
“Then why dig the graves at all?” Minks asked.
No one had an answer.
I wanted one badly. If this had anything to do with Phantom Forge creating new bio-soldier strains, I needed to know. But my mission didn’t allow detours.
I kept the bike at speed.
Over three days, we skirted two more cities. The patrols we saw from a distance proved both were still operational. I chose caution and detoured wide.
Gradually, the land stopped being perfectly flat. Low hills appeared. I preferred that. Open plains always felt like being stared at.
On the fourth day, I crested a small ridge and heard an explosion from a valley to the left. A mushroom cloud rose, dark against the already gray sky.
All of us jolted.
Battle? Here? This was deep in Phantom Forge’s rear territory.
But it was only one blast. After that, silence returned.
The detonation was far enough that it took me more than ten minutes to reach the area. I slowed, turned cautious, and sent the Shadow Falcon ahead.
That was when I saw the wreck: a warship engulfed in fire.
The flames weren’t normal. They burned a rare blue-purple, as if the air itself had turned toxic.
Several engineering robots circled the wreck, but they weren’t trying to put the fire out. They were collecting something from the ground, stopping, scooping, moving on.
I shared the Shadow Falcon’s view on the common channel.
“What are they picking up?” Eisen asked.
“Too far,” Dorian said. “I can’t make it out.”
Minks, lacking a wireless module, bounced in place. “Hey! Tell me what you’re seeing!”
I didn’t risk sending the Shadow Falcon closer. Several small recon flyers were already circling the burning ship.
There were no combat units in sight. The engineers didn’t look hurried. No alarms, no rushed logistics.
“This looks like an accident,” I said. “Let’s go. Rescue will arrive soon.”
We pushed forward.
Minutes later, the Shadow Falcon spotted something else.
In the next valley lay a metal structure the size of a human sports stadium – a perfect pentagon. No doors. No windows. Not even vents. It looked less like a building and more like a sealed object dropped onto the ground.
What was it?
I saw no enemies nearby, so I guided the Shadow Falcon closer.
As it approached, more details snapped into place. Centered on the pentagon, several rings of black dots were arranged in careful spacing, forming a circle nearly two kilometers across. Dense near the center, thinner farther out.
The outermost ring was already close to us.
I slowed, crept forward, and stopped within ten meters of one of the dots.
It was a small black pyramid, no bigger than a palm.
“What is that?” Minks asked, leaning forward.
“That might be what those engineers were collecting,” Eisen said.
I focused on it. A number was stamped into one face.
“Two-seven-four,” I said. “It’s labeled.”
Minks hopped off the bike to get a closer look.
Dorian stared at it for several seconds, then his whole frame twitched like he’d taken a shock.
“Don’t touch it!” he blurted. “Get back. Now. Run – run!”