126424 ✦

According to the map, the location wasn't on the surface of the planet. It was three hundred miles directly below the tectonic plate they called home. Elias leaned back, his heart hammering against his ribs. There was nothing down there but magma and pressurized silence.

On the screen, a single string of digits pulsed in the center of the void: . 126424

The digits weren't a time. They were coordinates, refined to a microscopic degree. 126.42.4. According to the map, the location wasn't on

From deep beneath the floorboards, miles under the crust of the earth, something immense groaned in response. The "Lazarus" wasn't an archive. It was a doorbell. There was nothing down there but magma and

The lights in the lab flickered and died. In the sudden darkness, the numbers began to glow with a faint, bioluminescent blue, lifting off the screen like a hologram. They began to rotate, shifting from numbers into a geometric shape—a keyhole.