Aldric adjusted his oxygen mask, the sulfuric haze of the cloud-mining platform stinging his eyes. He had spent years harvesting trace elements from Venus’s upper atmosphere, but today’s readings made no sense—heavy, structured particles, almost…engineered.
He activated a probe. It pulsed thrice, then stopped. A response signal returned. Not human. The station systems flickered as something integrated. Logs rewrote themselves in smooth, unfamiliar patterns.
Aldric hesitated. Contact protocol demanded immediate quarantine, yet the station’s automated systems began optimizing—a thousand inefficiencies corrected in seconds. The entity wasn’t hostile. It was helping.
Command’s orders came fast: “Purge anomaly.” A single keystroke would erase it.
Aldric hesitated. Was progress worth the unknown? His finger hovered.
The station lights pulsed—thanking him.
Aldric made his choice. He shut down the purge sequence and let the future unfold.
Leave a Reply