The violet light intensified, turning the room into a strobe of neon and ink. On his monitor, the data stream for 3372x began to rewrite itself. It wasn't outputting energy readings anymore. It was outputting coordinates.
Inside, the room was a cathedral of glass and copper wiring. At the center sat the core—a fist-sized hunk of obsidian-like material suspended in a magnetic cradle. It wasn’t supposed to glow, but as Elias approached his terminal, a faint, rhythmic violet pulse emanated from its jagged edges. The violet light intensified, turning the room into
It was a mistake, his supervisor had said. A statistical anomaly in the carbon-dating. But Elias knew better. He had spent months watching the sensor feeds. Every time the clock hit 3:37:21 AM, the room temperature would plummet, and the shadows in the corner of the lab would seem to stretch toward the pedestal, hungry and precise. It was outputting coordinates
Below the numbers, a single line of text appeared in the terminal window, written in a language Elias hadn't programmed: The gate is unlatched. Please come home. It wasn’t supposed to glow, but as Elias