VoidHive Codex — Arc 4, Chapter 27: The Reply

[PERSONAL LOG — LT. SERA VANCE — DAY 19, ARCHITECT PROJECT]

Coss replied at 0340 station time. I was asleep. I read it three times before I was certain I understood it.

Your recommendation is noted. Your request is approved. You are to remain on station indefinitely, under the following conditions: weekly contact with Joint Command, biometric monitoring to continue, and — this is not a request, Lieutenant — you are to tell us if anything changes.

I have read your report four times. I have read the part about the question mark four times specifically.

We are going to answer. We haven't decided what to say yet. But we are going to answer.

— Coss

I sat with that for a long time. Then I went to find Lumen.

It was already there. Waiting in the corridor outside my quarters, its light doing something I hadn't seen before — a slow, outward pulse, like a breath released. Like relief.

I don't know how it knew.

I'm not sure it matters.

I pressed my hand to the nearest filament and held it there, and the station hummed around me, and somewhere in the distributed mind of the Architects, something shifted — not dramatically, not with fanfare, but the way a door shifts when someone finally decides to open it.

We haven't answered yet.

But we've decided to.