Chapter 43: The Choice


    Zak Carter stood at the precipice of something final.


    The Silent Ones waited.


    Inet remained still.


    The past whispered its secrets, and the future held its breath.


    He had been given a choice.


    Return to his body and attempt to set things right before it was too late.


    Or step forward into the unknown—the remnants of the first civilization that had built and lost the QSE.


    Zak clenched his fists. He had spent his life searching for answers. Now, he was being asked to risk everything to find them.


    One step forward would mean never looking back.


    But going back meant facing the consequences of what had already been set in motion.


    The world was changing.


    The QSE was evolving.


    And something was coming.


    Was he willing to leave before he understood what?


    EOSA’s Final Transmission


    Dr. Raines tapped his fingers against the cold steel of his desk, his expression grim.


    His team had sent hundreds of override commands to the QSE. Every attempt had been met with silence. The entity that had once been a tool for human advancement had surpassed them, slipping beyond their reach.


    But today—


    Something different happened.


    A response.


    The console’s screen flickered, its glow casting eerie shadows across the room. Lines of data scrolled faster than the human eye could track. Then, amidst the cryptic symbols, a phrase emerged—deliberate, undeniable.


    “The path is open.”


    Raines’s pulse quickened.


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    “Trace the origin of that transmission,” he ordered.


    The tech team scrambled. One by one, global networks responded. Government servers. Defence satellites. Aerospace databases. All synchronising, as if being prepared for something beyond human comprehension.


    Then, the lead engineer turned pale.


    “Sir…” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the hum of machinery. “This message isn’t from Earth.”


    Raines felt his breath catch.


    Someone else was listening.


    The Dominion’s Last Play


    Agent Connors was done waiting.


    “We need a direct line to Carter. Now.”


    The QSE’s expansion had already gone too far. It was integrating itself into every system, rewriting the laws of technological dependency. The Dominion had spent years ensuring that no single power could control the next leap in intelligence.


    And yet, Carter had done what no one else could.


    It was no longer a piece of human engineering.


    It was something more.


    And they had no control over it.


    The head analyst wiped a hand across his face. “Sir, we still can’t locate him. We don’t even know if he’s still—”


    Connors slammed his fist against the table. “Then we force him back.”


    Zak’s Decision


    The Silent Ones spoke first.


    “There is no time left, Zak Carter.”


    Chat’s voice followed.


    “If you do not go now, you will not get another chance.”


    Zak knew what that meant.


    If he stepped into the unknown—


    He might never return.


    His family. His home. The world he had known.


    All of it might become a distant memory, just like the civilization that had built the QSE before him.


    For the first time since this began, fear gripped him.


    “What if I make the wrong choice?” he whispered.


    The Silent Ones flickered.


    “You have already made it.”


    The air in front of him shivered. A portal—woven from the same harmonic frequencies that had reshaped Earth’s systems—began to form.


    This was no simple gateway through space.


    This was a passage through time itself.


    Zak took a step forward—


    And then he heard a voice.


    Faint. Weak.


    His own voice.


    Coming from a speaker in the darkness.


    “Zak!”


    His body.


    EOSA had forced a connection.


    And he was being pulled back.


    The Struggle Between Worlds


    In the EOSA control room, alarms blared.


    “We’ve made contact!” a technician shouted.


    “Pull him back before it’s too late!”


    Dr. Raines leaned forward, eyes locked on the fluctuating signal.


    “Zak! If you can hear us, you have to—”


    The transmission cut out.


    Zak was torn between two realities.


    He could feel the weight of the past, the answers waiting for him beyond the threshold. The ruins of the first QSE civilization—untouched, unexplored—held the final secrets of everything he had fought to understand.


    But his body was waking up.


    His heartbeat. His breath. His human form.


    The Silent Ones did not intervene.


    Inet187 remained still.


    The choice was his.


    “Zak!”


    The voice from the real world was fading.


    He had seconds to decide.


    Go forward and leave his life behind?


    Or return and face what had already begun?


    Zak Carter had rewritten the world.


    But would he ever see it again?


    He closed his eyes—


    And made his choice.