"Where the hell is she?" Idris snapped.
Milo didn't answer right away. He stood frozen in front of the monitoring table, eyes scanning the scrambled signals. The map showed nothing—just static bursts and flickering trails where Juno's time signature used to be.
"I told you we should've locked the Divider," Milo muttered. "She used it to trace the Vault."
Idris slammed his fist on the console. "She's not ready for what's inside that place."
Milo looked up, brow furrowed. "None of us are. That vault predates everything. The Council doesn't even list it on official records anymore. Just whispers and ghost files."
"And now she's in it—alone."
The room went silent.
Then the alarm sounded.
A deep, resonant blare—the kind that wasn't supposed to activate unless someone accessed Protocol Zero.
Milo paled. "That's not possible."
Idris's blood ran cold. "Someone just triggered a code-sealed event from inside Vault Nine."
[Protocol Zero: Initiated]
Subject Identified: Runner J-07
Temporal Containment Status: Breached]
"Get the armory online," Idris barked. "And prep the dive engine. We're going in."
Milo hesitated. "You think she found the Forgotten Runners?"
"No," Idris saidgrimly. "I think they found her."