The train they'd hijacked rattled over rusted tracks, long abandoned and forgotten by any official map. Nature had begun reclaiming the land, vines curling around signal posts, wind rustling through shattered windows like ghosts whispering unfinished thoughts.
Idris sat near the back, arm bandaged and out of use for now. Milo stood by the front, tapping into the train's nearly-dead guidance system. Juno hunched in the center with the journal open across her knees, flipping through entries that she hadn't written—but had lived.
Each page felt heavier.
Vault Nine had awakened something—in the world, yes, but also in her. Echoes of thoughts she couldn't remember having. Names that triggered emotion but not clarity. And one word that kept showing up between the lines:
"Seth."
The name meant nothing.
And yet.
It felt like betrayal and warmth tangled in one breath.
Juno shoved the journal shut and looked up. "You got anything?"
Milo spun on one foot. "I think Vault Ten's buried under a coastal ruins grid near New Alesis. There's weird magnetic noise there—signals go in, but nothing comes out. Like the whole town's under a radio dome."
"Convenient," Idris muttered. "Nothing says 'welcome' like a silent dead zone."
"It's not dead," Juno said quietly. "It's listening. That's what these vaults do. They don't just hold memories—they hunt for the ones trying to retrieve them."
The train screeched as Milo slowed it down near a crumbling bridge. He looked over his shoulder. "We walk from here."
As they hopped off the train, the signal in Milo's hand dropped to static. Juno's compass flickered—one needle spinning toward the ruins, the other pointed somewhere else entirely.
Idris noticed. "That new?"
Juno frowned. "It's never done that before."
The second needle pulsed.
And far away, in the same direction, Seth Vire stepped off a Council dropcraft onto cracked asphalt. He didn't speak, didn't need to. The tracking signal had synced to the same pulse Juno now carried in her pocket.
The compass wasn't malfunctioning.
It was trying to tell her:
> You are not alone anymore.