While negotiations with the President rage in the control deck, a far more intimate battle unfolds in one of the narrow, soundless cabins of the tugship Skif.
No weapons fire here. No armies move.
Only souls fracture.
The metallic walls catch every whisper—every breath, every stifled surge of anger—as if the prison itself is listening, absorbing the weight of choices not its own. The air is dense, like the moment before lightning strikes.
Pietro stands with his arms crossed. His eyes are sharp, and his voice cuts like a drill, each word turned like a screw into flesh.
"So, the two gods give different commandments?" he squints, a hunter watching the brush for the slightest movement. "Hanaris gives freedom. Cairus demands obedience. And you're telling me that's not slavery?"
Alex says nothing. Too long.
His shoulders hang low, his gaze flat. He shakes his head—not in disagreement, but like a man doubting even his own ears.
"It's not slavery. It's... choice. It's our path."
Yulia stares straight at Pietro, unblinking.
Her eyes burn with fanatical resolve—the kind that outlives betrayal, that needs no logic to survive.
"I chose Cairus. And I'd choose him again. Even if it's the last mistake I ever make."
Maria circles them slowly, like a predator measuring prey.
Her steps echo—measured, deliberate. Her voice carries a kind of stunned disbelief.
"Free, are you?" she stops, pressing her palm to the wall. Her nails drag against the metal—like a sentence being carved in steel.
"And yet you blew up Aspid—the station that protected the androids of Mercury. Was that your choice?"
Yulia tenses. Her jaw locks. Her body trembles, but her eyes stay dry.
Words jam in her throat. But Maria presses on.
"For what?" Her voice lashes, bare as a whip. "What did you fight for? What did you gain?
You're not human. Even the Martians won't take you in.
Who did you betray, Yulia? Yourself?"
Alex suddenly lifts his head. His voice bursts like a rupture:
"We betrayed no one! This is Cairus' will! We are his weapon!"
Maria narrows her eyes.
Her smile is the shadow of a blade on a throat.
"Just now, you said you had a choice..." she leans in, her whisper cold enough to raise gooseflesh. "Do you even hear yourself?"
Silence.
Loud as an explosion in an empty hangar.
Alex drops his gaze. Yulia looks lost.
Guilt and dread surge toward the surface.
Pietro can't hold it back anymore. His voice cuts through the silence:
"Enough." He turns to the panel where neural signals pulse in cold rhythm. "The god Hanaris gives us connection. No chips. No machines. Just will.
Can your god do that?"
Alex and Yulia exchange glances.
Their eyes are like twin mirrors—reflecting nothing.
"We... don't know," Alex says softly, as if stepping barefoot along a cliff's edge.
Maria challenges them.
"Then let's find out. If your faith is real..."
Yulia closes her eyes. Alex follows.
Overhead, the lights begin to flicker—like a faltering heartbeat.
The air tilts. Reality bends under the weight of their minds.
Virtual Space
They shift into whiteness.
A sterile lab surrounds them—white walls, sourceless light, and a silence that feels like a vacuum of the soul.
"Alex!" Yulia cries out, rushing toward him. Their embrace is a gasp of air after acid rain.
"We're home."
But Alex doesn't answer. There's no relief in his eyes—only shadow.
"Do you remember..." he whispers, "this is where you removed my chip."
"I do," Yulia nods. But her smile dies almost instantly.
He says nothing. And silence, now, is just fear disguised as control.
"We're back under control," he says quietly. "Only now... Cairus is the one pulling the strings."
Tears rise. Yulia lets them fall.
And then it all collapses: the words, the faith, the memory.
"We betrayed ourselves," she says, voice cracking. "And we didn't even notice."
The whiteness around them feels dead.
The lab—no longer a temple, but a tomb.
The place where freedom began… now a graveyard of choice.
Outside
In the cabin, Pietro and Maria watch from the monitors.
Their faces are still. Focused.
It's a moment teetering between collapse and rebirth.
Maria clenches her fists. Her voice is low, strangled:
"Why can't we go in there? Why can't we reach them?"
Pietro doesn't look away from the screens. His pupils are narrowed, his voice a reverent whisper:
"It seems... Cairus is blocking the link. He won't let his followers see those who chose Hanaris."
The silence deepens.
Every breath feels like the last. Every second—a step into the abyss.
And somewhere deep inside them—inside Alex and Yulia—
invisible chains begin to crack.
The ones they forged themselves.