Chapter 1
Year 2183.
The Wasteland had a way of killing people without making a sound.
Sometimes it was the heat.
Sometimes it was the poisonous dust.
Sometimes it was the creatures that crawled beneath the cracked earth.
And sometimes, it was the sky.
Zeraphine Kestrel knew all four.
She pulled the respirator tighter around her face as another violent gust of dust swept across the abandoned highway.
Her wrist device flickered.
ATMOSPHERIC TOXICITY: 71%
She frowned.
“Too high.”
The number climbed.
72%.
73%.
Zeraphine immediately increased the filtration setting on her respirator and lowered her head.
The storm was arriving earlier than predicted.
That was bad.
She had been searching the remains of an old energy station for nearly two hours, hoping to find a functioning power cell she could sell.
She needed money.
Not much.
Just enough to buy food for the week.
Her scholarship covered almost everything at Asterion Institute of Advanced Sciences, but it did not cover every expense. Transportation, personal equipment, nutritional supplements and laboratory materials still cost money.
And Zeraphine had very little of it.
She had never complained.
Complaining did not put food on the table.
She stepped over a rusted metal beam and entered the ruined station.
Her scanner immediately activated.
“Power signature detected.”
Zeraphine’s eyes brightened.
“Finally.”
She crouched beside the broken machinery and opened her tool case.
For the next twenty minutes, the approaching storm disappeared from her mind.
This was where she was different.
Machines made sense to her.
People did not.
Give her a damaged reactor, and she could understand its structure.
Give her a malfunctioning artificial intelligence, and she could find the error.
Give her an experimental energy system, and she could probably improve it.
But give her a group of wealthy students at Asterion Institute and ask her to understand their behaviour?
Impossible.
She smiled faintly as the old power cell came back to life.
“Got you.”
She pulled it free.
Then the entire Wasteland lit up.
Zeraphine froze.
A brilliant white object tore through the clouds.
It was moving far too fast.
She slowly stood.
The object twisted violently through the atmosphere, trailing blue fire behind it.
“What the…”
It wasn’t a transport ship.
It wasn’t a military craft.
It wasn’t any aircraft registered in the planetary database.
Zeraphine had spent years studying advanced technology.
She had never seen anything like it.
The craft suddenly lost control.
It plunged toward the ground.
Zeraphine watched in disbelief.
The spacecraft disappeared beyond the distant ridge.
Three seconds later, the earth exploded.
BOOM!
The shockwave threw Zeraphine backward.
She slammed against the side of the ruined building.
Her ears rang.
Dust filled the air.
For several seconds, she couldn’t hear anything.
Then her wrist device screamed.
UNKNOWN ENERGY SIGNATURE DETECTED.
Zeraphine slowly lifted her head.
Her heart began beating faster.
The crash had happened less than two kilometres away.
She knew exactly what the intelligent thing to do was.
Leave.
Return to the settlement.
Report the crash to the authorities.
Let the military investigate.
That was the intelligent decision.
Unfortunately, Zeraphine had never been very good at following intelligent decisions when curiosity was involved.
She grabbed her equipment.
Then she ran toward the crash site.
The closer she got, the stranger the readings became.
Her scanner couldn’t identify the material.
The radiation levels were fluctuating.
There was an energy signature unlike anything recorded on Earth.
Then she saw it.
The spacecraft was enormous.
Its surface was smooth and silver, with strange glowing symbols running across its body.
It had no visible wings.
No conventional engines.
No windows.
It looked less like a machine and more like something that had been grown.
Zeraphine approached cautiously.
A section of the craft opened.
She raised her scanner.
Nothing.
“Interesting.”
She stepped inside.
The interior was unlike anything she had ever seen.
There were no wires.
No screens.
No mechanical switches.
Everything seemed connected through light.
Blue energy flowed through transparent structures along the walls.
Then she saw a liquid.
Silver.
Zeraphine stopped.
Something was lying against the far wall.
At first, she thought it was a person wearing some kind of advanced protective suit.
Then it moved.
Zeraphine’s breath caught.
The creature slowly lifted its head.
It was humanoid.
But it wasn’t human.
Its skin was pale silver, and glowing veins ran beneath it.
Long strands of white hair clung to its face.
Its eyes opened.
Violet.
Bright violet.
The creature tried to stand.
It collapsed.
Zeraphine was scared at first, looking at the creature. Then she immediately rushed forward.
“Don’t move.”
The creature stared at her.
“You…”
Its voice was weak.
“You are human.”
“Yes.”
Zeraphine dropped beside it.
“What happened to you?”
The creature looked toward the open entrance.
“Your atmosphere.”
Zeraphine glanced at its body.
She understood immediately.
The skin around its arm was beginning to crack, and a silver liquid was dropping from its skin, which means the creature has a silver blood.
Tiny sections of its flesh were literally breaking apart.
Her scientific instincts took over.
She pulled out her scanner.
“Your cellular structure is destabilising.”
The alien stared at her.
“You understand?”
“I understand enough.”
She scanned him again.
His biological structure was astonishing.
His cells were repairing themselves, but Earth’s atmosphere was damaging them faster than they could recover.
“Oxygen is toxic to you,” Zeraphine whispered.
“Not oxygen alone.”
He struggled to breathe.
“Your atmosphere contains particles my body cannot tolerate.”
Zeraphine looked at the spacecraft.
“Can your ship repair you?”
“Without the central core…”
He closed his eyes.
“I cannot leave.”
“Do you have alternative?”
His eyes opened again.
“Yes.”
Zeraphine smiled.
“Where is the core, lemme repair it, but i don’t know the number of days it will take me.”
“You can not repair it.”
“People do say that to me a lot.”
She stood.
“Where is it?”
The alien pointed weakly toward the centre of the ship.
Zeraphine followed the direction.
The core was destroyed.
She stared at it for several seconds.
Then she opened her tool case.
The alien watched her.
“What are you doing?”
“Fixing it.”
“You are human. How can you repair my craft.”
“Yes i’m human, but i am not the regular kind of human.”
“You cannot understand Vaelori technology.”
Zeraphine looked over her shoulder.
“I don’t need to understand all of it.”
She picked up a damaged component.
“I only need to understand the part that’s broken.”
For the first time, the alien looked genuinely surprised.
Zeraphine worked.
Minutes became an hour.
The storm outside grew louder.
Lightning flashed across the sky.
The ship shook.
Zeraphine ignored it.
She rewired one section.
Then another.
She replaced a damaged energy conductor with a component from her own equipment.
It wasn’t a perfect solution.
But it worked.
The core flickered.
The alien suddenly inhaled sharply.
The silver cracks across his skin stopped spreading.
Zeraphine stared.
“I did it.”
The spacecraft came alive.
Blue light flooded the chamber.
And the spacecraft door which was opened when the spacecraft fell on earth, began to close back.
The alien slowly stood.
He looked stronger.
But he still wasn’t well.
Zeraphine turned toward him.
“You need to leave Earth.”
“I know.”
“Can you fly?”
“Yes.”
“Then go.”
The alien didn’t move.
Instead, he stared at her.
“What is your name?”
“Zeraphine.”
“Zeraphine…”
He repeated the name quietly.
Then he stepped closer.
She frowned.
“What are you doing?”
“You saved my life.”
“It was just a repair.”
“No.”
His violet eyes became brighter.
“You have no idea what you have done.”
Zeraphine took a step backward.
“Wait.”
The alien raised one hand.
His fingers touched her forehead.
The world disappeared.
Zeraphine gasped.
A tremendous wave of energy exploded through her body.
Her knees gave way.
She fell.
Then a voice spoke inside her mind.
[Foreign energy detected.]
[Biological compatibility confirmed.]
[Searching for host.]
Zeraphine’s eyes widened.
“What…”
The alien’s voice sounded distant.
“Do not resist.”
[Host identified.]
[System installation beginning.]
[Warning.]
[Human evolutionary structure abnormal.]
[Warning.]
[Potential cannot be calculated.]
Zeraphine’s entire body began glowing.
The pain was unbearable.
She screamed.
Then everything stopped.
Silence.
The alien slowly lowered his hand.
Zeraphine opened her eyes.
A transparent blue screen appeared before her.
No device was projecting it.
It was floating in front of her eyes.
She stared at it.
SYSTEM INITIALISATION COMPLETE.
HOST: ZERAPHINE KESTREL
CURRENT POWER: D
PHYSICAL CONDITION: WEAK
NUTRITION LEVEL: CRITICAL
COMBAT POTENTIAL: LOW
TECHNOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE: EXCEPTIONAL
Then another line appeared.
Zeraphine swallowed.
EVOLUTIONARY POTENTIAL: UNKNOWN
She stared at the word.
“Unknown?”
The alien looked at the screen.
His expression changed.
For the first time since she had met him, he looked afraid.
“Impossible.”
Zeraphine turned toward him.
“What?”
He didn’t answer.
Outside, thunder shook the Wasteland.
The alien looked at Zeraphine, he told her that he will leave the spacecraft with her, he will go back to Andromeda Galaxy his world with the Orbs.
Zeraphine was surprised, “really, thank you.”
The alien nodded, enter inside the Orbs and then looked at Zeraphine with one final look.
“Do not trust the High Cities.”
Then the Orbs rose.
Zeraphine watched it disappear into the storm.
She stood alone inside the spaceship.
The blue System screen remained before her.
A new notification appeared.
[Tutorial mission unlocked.]
[Mission: Survive.]
[Reward: Unknown.]
Zeraphine stared at the final line.
Then another notification appeared.
[Hidden mission detected.]
[Mission condition: Discover why the Wasteland remembers you.]
Her smile disappeared.
“What does that mean?”
The System gave no answer.
Instead, far beneath the Wasteland, something ancient woke up.
And for the first time in two hundred years…
the dead city lights began turning on.
