Aiden stood motionless in the alien chamber beneath the Nevada desert, the fragment still warm in his hand. He could feel it pulsing with something ancient and vast—more than technology, more than memory. It was knowledge. It was consciousness. It was waiting.
The moment he touched it, the fragment had shown him a flood of images: a civilization made of light and harmony, their thoughts a chorus, their cities like flowing crystal. They had no need for war, no need for dominance. They watched, they recorded, they preserved. And then, something changed.
The fracture. A sect had emerged—one that believed observation was no longer enough. That to preserve life, they had to interfere. That the destructive tendency of younger species, like humanity, warranted more than watching.
They called themselves the Shepherds. But they were anything but kind.
The next morning, Aiden returned to the Star Rest Inn, his shirt torn and dust clinging to his skin. The others were asleep, except Dr. Harrow, who had been watching the horizon from the rooftop, a rifle at her side. Not for people—for what might come.
"You were gone all night," she said, not turning. "What did you find?"
"I found proof," he said, holding out the fragment. "And a warning."
She turned, eyes widening. "What is that?"
"A key," Aiden replied. "Or a trigger."
With Mariah's help, they began decoding the information embedded in the fragment. She fashioned a makeshift interface using an old server tower, quantum-grade processors from a military surplus warehouse they'd broken into, and a spiderweb of alien circuit designs from Aiden's drawings.
As soon as the device powered on, the lights dimmed. A pulse emitted. Then the screens filled with alien script—alive and moving.
Sofia began to speak, her voice layered with echo and interference, her eyes glowing faintly. She translated in real time.
"Designation: Arbiter. System: Sol-3. Status: Unstable. Judgment Pending."
The fragment was part of a decision-making network. The Whisperers—at least, their original collective—used these nodes to assess if a species should be preserved, isolated… or eradicated.
But the Shepherds had altered the network. They had rewritten the criteria. Now, it wasn't about potential. It was about purity. Order. Control.
They had designated humanity as a 'corrupted construct.'
"Unless we change the code," Mariah said, fingers flying across the keyboard, "Earth is already marked for deletion."
In the days that followed, the Witnesses trained harder than ever before. Dr. Harrow pushed them to their limits, not just physically or mentally, but psychically. They developed their gifts in tandem.
Isaiah learned to channel his kinetic bursts with precision, launching himself across canyons in Nevada's ghost valleys.
Sofia could now translate alien signals from power lines and satellites, speaking the language of the stars fluently.
Felix discovered he could "paint" visions that would later come true—precognition through art. His murals became maps.
Tayo, once comatose, revealed his ability: he could hear thoughts—but only those not of this world. He became their early warning system.
And Aiden... Aiden's visions deepened. He stopped dreaming and began seeing at will. He could touch objects and reveal their past. He could step outside time, briefly, but each time cost him hours of blinding migraines.
The fragment's knowledge burned inside him. He wasn't just the trigger anymore. He was becoming something else.
One night, as a desert storm raged outside the motel, the ground shook. Thunder rolled—except it wasn't thunder.
Outside, lights split the sky. Not aircraft. Not flares.
Ships.
Three of them.
Massive, black as oil, humming with resonance. Not the full fleet—but scouts. Shepherd scouts.
"They're early," Aiden whispered.
The countdown had accelerated. The Whisperers were testing the surface. They had come to ensure there would be no resistance.
"We're out of time," Harrow said.
"No," Aiden replied. "We're just beginning."