The final door stood before them, sleek, seamless, reinforced beyond anything they had encountered so far. No external locks, no keypads. Whatever was inside, the Time Loop Bank had buried it deep. Ethan glanced at Lyra. "Can you crack it?"
Lyra was already scanning, her fingers moving over the wrist console. "Not like a normal system. This thing isn't just locked—it's sealed with an internal time protocol." She exhaled. "If I force it, we could trip a failsafe. And I don't need to tell you what happens if that goes off."
Ethan didn't need the warning. A failsafe in a place like this wouldn't just sound an alarm. It would erase whatever was inside.
Lyra continued working, her brow furrowed. "There's a pattern here. Some kind of recognition key. But it's not biometric… It's behavioral."
Ethan frowned. "Meaning?"
Lyra's voice was tense. "Meaning it's not looking for a fingerprint or a code. It's looking for an action. A sequence that only someone with the right knowledge would perform."
Ethan stepped closer, staring at the panel. If Cassandra had left something behind, she must have known the only way to retrieve it was through a specific interaction. A movement. A command. Something only she—or someone who understood her—would know.
His mind raced. Think. If Cassandra was an anomaly, she knew the system. She knew how they thought. If she wanted to hide something, she wouldn't just lock it away. She'd bury it inside their own protocols.
His gaze flickered to the side. A small interface screen blinked to life as he moved closer. It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but it was waiting for something. Not a code. A response.
Lyra tensed. "Ethan… it's waiting for you."
His pulse slowed. This wasn't just Cassandra's lock. It was meant for him.
He inhaled, steadying himself, then reached out. His fingers hovered over the panel before instinct took over. Three taps. Pause. Two more. A sequence he didn't recognize, but his hands did.
The system processed for a moment. Then the vault door clicked open.
Lyra's breath was sharp. "What the hell was that?"
Ethan stared at his own hand, his fingers still hovering over the panel. He didn't have an answer. He had never seen this sequence before. Never learned it. But his body had remembered something his mind didn't.
He pushed the thought aside and stepped inside.
The vault was small, lined with data stacks and reinforced containment units. Most were inactive, but at the center of the room, one light blinked steadily. Ethan moved toward it, eyes scanning the interface. A single encrypted file remained.
Cassandra's last message.
Lyra was already linking her console, decrypting the data. The file unraveled, revealing a short, direct communication log. A voice transmission. Lyra tapped the audio feed.
Cassandra's voice came through, steady but urgent.
"If you're hearing this, you already know you don't belong here."
Ethan's breath stilled.
"They tried to erase me. They tried to erase you. And if you're alive, then they failed. But that means one thing—you're not just an anomaly. You're the reason the system is breaking."
Lyra's eyes widened. "What does she mean?"
Ethan didn't answer. He was still listening.
"I don't know how many times they've reset you. But I know this—if you don't stop them now, they'll keep rewriting the past until they get it right. Until you're gone for good."
A pause.
"Find me. Before they do."
The message cut out.
The room was silent.
Lyra's voice was barely above a whisper. "She's still alive."
Ethan exhaled, his pulse steady. He had come here for answers. What he had found was a war that hadn't ended.
And now, he had a choice.
He could run. Disappear. Let the system reset itself.
Or he could do what Cassandra had failed to do.
Break it for good.
He turned to Lyra. "We find her."
Lyra didn't hesitate. "Where do we start?"
Ethan looked down at the console. Cassandra had left one more thing behind. A single set of coordinates.
His lips curled slightly. "Right here."
The hunt had just begun.