Taboo Online

By the time the masked woman’s archive reached North Basin, the silver-gray opening beneath Route Nine had appeared five more times.

The first test had lasted a little over three seconds. The latest had remained open for nearly seven seconds, and each attempt brought the response on the other side closer.

Bureau analysts projected the recovered model above a reinforced table beyond the Heartroot’s nearest root. Twelve empty sockets formed a ring around the steel depot’s underground chamber. Black conduits led inward from each one, though none carried power now that every Ashline unit was in Bureau custody.

Only the structure at the center remained active.

It resembled a narrow organic core suspended inside a cage of black metal. The archive had removed most surface details, leaving little more than a human-shaped outline surrounded by brands and internal channels.

Aelira studied the model from her medical cot with one hand resting against the Heartroot.

Turn the image toward me.

Lauren repeated the request, and the lead analyst rotated the projection.

From the new angle, the shape became unmistakable. A head, shoulders, and two arms emerged inside the surrounding frame. One arm reached toward the machinery while dark lines entered the chest, spine, and marked palm.

Luke leaned forward in his field chair.

"There’s a person inside it."

The analyst opened a second window and overlaid the final recording recovered from the masked woman’s archive. It showed the branded leader standing inside the same circular chamber with one hand against the central frame and the unstable passage trembling behind him.

Measurements appeared beside both figures. Their height, shoulder width, arm length, and posture aligned within a narrow margin.

"The branded leader is serving as the primary anchor," the analyst said.

Lauren carried the conclusion through the Heartroot.

Aelira remained quiet for several seconds before answering.

In Lethariel, his brands entered living roots and forced them to carry his will. Here, he has reversed the flow. The machinery enters him.

The Thornmender beside her studied the pathways on the projection and spoke softly to the Queen. Aelira listened before sending the rest.

The channels converge on his heart, spine, and marked arm. He has made his body the living center of the frame.

Red Hound examined the overlay. "What were the twelve resonance units supposed to do?"

"Stabilize the passage," the analyst said. "The primary anchor can begin a connection, but it cannot hold the edges in place. Every test collapses before the opening becomes wide enough to support a crossing."

She brought up a sequence of sensor readings from the latest attempts. The passage had opened a fraction wider each time, but the strain around the leader’s heart and spine had climbed with it. Temperature spikes traveled through the braces attached to his ribs, and several channels briefly lost their pattern before the feed corrected them.

"With the Ashline units installed, the outer ring would have absorbed the strain, corrected the alignment, and kept the aperture from folding inward," the analyst continued. "Without them, the pressure falls back onto the anchor and the chamber surrounding him."

"How long until his body fails?" Luke asked.

"We can’t calculate that from these readings. The damage is increasing, but he may be adjusting the frame between attempts."

Rhea stood near the back of the medical shelter with her injured shoulder secured beneath a compression brace. No panel hovered beside her. The manifestation at the central exchange had strained it again, and the medical team had not approved another ordinary use.

"So every test is hurting him," she said. "That won’t stop him if he believes the next one will work."

No one disagreed.

A second model appeared beside the steel-depot frame, reconstructing the Warden’s Forge from the task group’s reports and recovered scans.

The structures were not identical.

The native Forge had been built around silver control channels, a purge system, and a passage into Lethariel. The Ruinborn had buried those systems beneath a hostile seal, branded cables, extraction tanks, and foreign machinery.

What repeated at the steel depot was the conversion they had imposed on the Forge. Corrupted channels surrounded a prepared passage and forced energy toward it while suppressing the original safeguards.

The East Harbor safehouse machinery and the pumping-station receiver appeared next. Both had been smaller and less complete, but each combined Earth-built equipment with black plating and corrupted channels.

Red Hound studied the shared sections. "They kept rebuilding the same system in different forms. Their conversion of the Forge was the largest version we’ve confirmed."

Lauren translated for Aelira.

The Forge was meant to maintain its native passage and purge corruption from its channels, the Queen sent. They sealed that authority and forced its pathways into their extraction system.

The analyst highlighted the structures that appeared across the different sites.

"The Forge may have given them extraction data from Lethariel. Their Earth-side sites and relay network may also have recorded the Heartroot transplantation from Earth. We still can’t tell which source produced the bridge model, but together they learned enough to imitate its structure."

Luke’s jaw tightened. "We finished their experiment for them."

Lauren turned toward him, but Aelira responded first.

You saved my people. Do not turn that choice into their victory.

Luke met the Queen’s gaze across the table.

They learned from what we were forced to do, Aelira continued. That does not make the choice or its result theirs.

Luke looked back at the model. He still hated knowing that the Ruinborn had learned anything from the bridge he and Lauren created, but Aelira was right. Refusing to move the Heartroot would have left her people to die in Lethariel.

Red Hound closed the earlier models, leaving only the steel depot above the table. "They know the bridge pattern, but they don’t have the stabilizers. We make sure they never get another chance to install them."

The analyst expanded the final recording and described the repeated movement for Lauren. A cluster of energy had traveled toward the passage from the far side. It vanished when the opening collapsed, but each new attempt brought the response closer.

Lauren’s wrapped fingers tightened around the armrest of her chair.

"Then the same presence is following the opening. Every time he holds it longer, it reaches him faster."

Luke watched the faint shape moving between the pale towers. "Then it probably isn’t a random reaction."

Red Hound turned toward Aelira. "Can his frame reach the Heartroot from the depot?"

Lauren translated the question.

The Queen placed both hands against the silver bark and closed her eyes. A deep pulse passed through the ground beneath North Basin.

Lauren felt the transplanted network open around Aelira. The roots remained settled around the artificial lake, with no foreign current entering them and none of the severed source paths reopening.

The Heartroot is not connected to his frame, Aelira sent. He copied the shape of our bridge, but he does not possess the living path we used.

The lead analyst checked the depot schematic. "The hardwired line beneath Route Nine remains outside the North Basin root network."

Lauren released the breath she had been holding. "There’s no active route between his frame and the Heartroot."

"That tells us the tree is not part of his current system," Red Hound said. "Now we find out what is."