And he’d wonder if she was still drifting, still smiling that terrible smile, still keeping the door closed with her own quiet, impossible weight.
She smiled. It was a terrible thing to see. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
In the end, Kael made a choice. He jettisoned the reactor core—with Seven still pressed against it. As the core tumbled into the void, the shape hesitated. It turned, almost curious, and followed her down. juc-877
The Mourning Star was not a prison. It was a garbage scow that limped between dead stars, hauling toxic slag from mining colonies to incinerators. The inmates were the dregs of seven systems—murderers, cannibalistic cultists, broken androids. JUC-877, soon known simply as “Seven,” was assigned to the sludge filters. She worked in silence for three weeks.
“Back from where?”
She didn’t move. “Do you know why they exiled me, Kael? Not because I drifted through time. Because I came back.”
“JUC-877. Convicted: Unauthorized temporal drift. Sentence: Permanent exile aboard the Mourning Star . Additional notes: Extremely dangerous. Do not engage in conversation.” And he’d wonder if she was still drifting,
Seven turned to Kael. Her flint-chip eyes were wet now. “JUC-877 isn’t my prisoner number. It’s a frequency. A key. They branded me with it so the thing I unleashed would know where to find its door.”