Page 5 of She Who Devours the Stars

She watched, with a kind of morbid curiosity, as the target’s data went from “unknown” to “priority kill” to “classified: Sovereign risk.” The new face on the feed was a better shot than her own ID photo: scared, beautiful, a little bit star-burnt around the edges.

Mal sighed. “Here’s to you, girl. Burn it all down.”

She poured a little from the flask onto the floor in solidarity, then propped her boots on the console and waited for the next disaster.

When the railguns finally fired, Mal toasted the sky.

It was going to be a hell of a morning.

Thread Modulation: Trivane AI

Axis Alignment: Trivane Vault, Galactic Core

Meanwhile, in the Vault, the AI had gotten more poetic.

It was writing sermons, songs, and memes, which it then sent to me.

Subject: Nullarch Reborn.

Addressee: Fern Meldin, Last Spark of Creation.

Attached: A graphic made to look like a child’s homemade card. A red heart. “I love the Nullarch!”

It didn’t ask my permission. It didn’t wait for my approval. It just loaded into my AR, which had changed from my red, pink, neon-black abomination of a personal theme into some sleek black-and-silver nightmare that screamed upper crust. I hated it. It didn’t yell “paint rat from Rustrock.” It screamed the worst swear word I knew: “aristocracy.”

It slung the data across every piece of the House Trivane network, every shadow, every half-dead satellite. It sent the message to every mythic node in the sector.

The message was simple: the Nullarch is back. Worship accordingly.

I liked the card, but what the fuck was a Nullarch? Could I have my old theme back?

Thread Modulation: Fern Meldin

Axis Alignment: Meldin Family Apartment

I didn’t know any of this as I staggered through the edge of town, smelling like burned plastic and murder. Well, I learned of it. Because the fucking A.I. that hijacked my AR kept playing me clips and telling me strange facts about its existence. Then, I found the mute button.

Take that, fucker.

So, I knew, but not like, in an omniscient way, but in the way that someone who listens to the official Compliance Operatives' comm channels knows things.

I felt it in the way the sidewalk curled away from my unprotected feet, the way the automated billboards glitched whenever Iwalked by. I felt it in the nervous, edge-of-riot murmur in every crowded market, every hole-in-the-wall food cart.

Not the sort of response a young woman in nothing but a blanket usually gets.

When the first kid recognized me, wide-eyed and mute, he ran off so fast he left his snack behind. It hit me like a lightning bolt. I stared at the snack like it was the last honest thing in the galaxy. Looked both ways like guilt still mattered. Then I grabbed it, chewed like it owed me something, and kept walking.

Who the fuck eats banana-flavored protein snacks? I finished it anyway.

The city’s surveillance drones all pivoted to watch me, their lenses dilating, shivering, as if terrified to blink.

Most of all, I felt it when I heard the first chant, not loud, but persistent, in the half-abandoned underpass outside Bay 7: “Nullarch. Nullarch. Nullarch.” Weirdest thing? It was more than the techhborn chanting it.

It felt like the start of a religion. Or worse? The revival of an old one they buried for a reason.

By the time I got back to the apartment, the world was already on fire. Literally.

Artillery shells lobbed by Accord security fell haphazardly all around me. Most detonated in mid-air. Rail gun slugs tore the skyline, and a guided missile tried to nail me when I crossed the market. Tried being the keyword. The first shell bent away from me like it changed its mind. The second just… vanished, and most of the rest just spaghettified into a smear of quantum nonsense that left behind a perfect silence and the smell of baby powder and prismatic bubbles that made strangely loud POP sounds.