In the "Great Exile Epoch" on the galactic fringes, physical constants are no longer abstract equations-they are tangible shackles crushing all life. Ma Feili, a wanderer drifting between star ruins and high-dimensional rifts, chronicler of the Carb...
The lead-gray sky had been dyed an unsettling rust-red by the dying afterglow of the star.
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Ma Feili tightened the lead-lined collar of his protective suit. His boots crunched across the gravel of the "Nuclear Scorched Fault," each step producing a grating metallic scrape. Radiation levels here were high enough to dissolve unprotected carbon-based cells in seconds. Ada walked at his side, her mechanical joints emitting faint whirs in the dry air, optical sensors sweeping the surroundings. A few mechanized rodents—mutated freaks long fused with scrap parts—huddled in blackened fissures, their infrared compound eyes watching the two intruders.
"Entropy increase is irreversible," Ada's voice came through the radio, cold and metallic in texture. "Yet this land appears to be attempting to defy the second law of thermodynamics. Ma Feili, anomalous energy fluctuations detected ahead at the supply outpost."
They reached the mining outpost called "Foothold," the only shelter on the edge of the Erebus asteroid belt. Old Val, a retired miner with skin like shriveled leather, ushered them into the airlock.
"There's only the experimental bay left," Old Val avoided Ma Feili's gaze, pointing deeper inside. "My daughter-in-law is in there... she just 'left.' If you don't mind sharing space with a body awaiting retrieval, there's oxygen and power."
Inside the experimental bay, the oxygen scrubber wheezed heavily and slowly. Ma Feili leaned against the cryopod, staring at the figure opposite, wrapped in a nano-shroud beside the cryotank. It was Old Val's daughter-in-law, dead from "neural fiber crystallization"—an extremely rare silicon-based virus.
"Ada, scan the body," Ma Feili ordered in a low voice.
"Weak electromagnetic pulses detected," Ada's pupils dilated into high-precision mode. "Logical error. Ma Feili, per archive reference 186-F, this silicon virus reorganizes neural chains after host brain death. It is not resurrection... it is hardware reconstruction."
Before the words finished, the dim sensor lights flickered.
Beneath the nano-shroud, the corpse rose in a posture that defied anatomy. Her skin took on a strange pale gold hue, the monitoring patch on her forehead glowing faint green in the dark.
"She" stepped down from the cryotank. Movements stiff at first, but growing precise with each step. Ma Feili held his breath as "she" leaned over a sleeping scavenger's faceplate interface.
It was not a kiss.
A faint arc of electricity hissed. The scavenger's life monitor flatlined instantly. He was drained of all bioelectricity in his sleep.
"It is a negentropy feeder," Ada stepped in front of Ma Feili, her arm-mounted micro-shield generator charging. "She sustains her crystalline disintegration by consuming bioelectric current. Ma Feili—evacuate!"
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