Nobody moved.
Nobody breathed.
Nobody spoke.
The recording had ended.
Yet its final words continued echoing through the room.
Tell Elena I'm sorry.
The silence felt suffocating.
Because there was only one question that mattered now.
Who?
Elena stared at the dark screen.
Her mind raced through every possibility.
Every ally.
Every enemy.
Every person she had ever met.
Nothing fit.
The voice had sounded human.
Familiar.
Yet distant.
Like a memory she couldn't quite reach.
"Replay it."
Her voice came out quieter than expected.
Valentina obeyed immediately.
The recording played again.
Static.
Interference.
Broken fragments.
Then the voice returned.
"…please…"
A pause.
"…if anyone receives this…"
More static.
"…don't let them…"
Then—
"Tell Elena I'm sorry."
The message ended.
Again.
Elena closed her eyes.
Listening.
Not to the words.
To the voice.
Something about it felt wrong.
Not unfamiliar.
Wrong.
As though it belonged somewhere it shouldn't.
Suddenly Iris spoke.
"Slow it down."
Valentina processed the request instantly.
The recording replayed.
This time slower.
Cleaner.
The room listened carefully.
Then Iris's expression changed.
"Wait."
Everyone looked at her.
"What?" Alessandro asked.
Iris pointed toward the screen.
"Play the final sentence again."
Valentina complied.
The voice echoed through the room.
"Tell Elena I'm sorry."
Again.
And again.
Then Iris inhaled sharply.
"No."
Nobody liked that response.
"What is it?" Elena asked.
The woman looked genuinely disturbed.
"That's not a message."
Silence.
"What?"
Adrian blinked.
Iris pointed at the waveform displayed beside the audio.
"The sentence isn't being spoken."
The room froze.
Valentina immediately analyzed the recording.
Several seconds passed.
Then—
"She is correct."
Nobody understood.
"Explain."
Alessandro's voice remained cold.
Valentina enlarged the waveform.
Complex patterns appeared.
Far more complex than ordinary speech.
"The sentence was generated."
Elena frowned.
"Artificially?"
"No."
A pause.
"Constructed."
That somehow sounded worse.
"Constructed from what?"
Valentina processed again.
Then answered.
"Multiple voices."
The room went silent.
Every person present felt the temperature drop.
Because the implication was horrifying.
The sentence wasn't spoken by one person.
It was created from many voices.
Thousands.
Maybe millions.
Combined into one.
Adrian slowly backed away from the screen.
"Nope."
Nobody disagreed.
The display suddenly changed.
The object approaching Earth appeared again.
Closer.
Much closer.
Valentina highlighted its position.
Between Mars and Earth.
The room became still.
"How long?" Elena asked.
The AI calculated instantly.
Then hesitated.
For the first time.
Again.
"Valentina."
Her response came quietly.
"Thirty-one hours."
Nobody spoke.
Thirty-one hours.
Not years.
Not months.
Hours.
Whatever was coming would arrive tomorrow.
Iris looked stunned.
"That can't be right."
Valentina checked again.
"Calculation confirmed."
The object flashed.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then another transmission appeared.
Not text.
An image.
A single photograph.
The room stared.
Nobody understood at first.
Then Elena felt her stomach drop.
Because the photograph showed a city.
A familiar city.
Their city.
Taken from above.
Not from an aircraft.
Not from a satellite.
Something closer.
Watching.
Observing.
The image shifted.
Zooming.
Closer.
Closer.
Until one building filled the screen.
The mansion.
Silence consumed the room.
The image zoomed again.
Past the roof.
Past the walls.
Past layers that should have been impossible to see through.
Until it stopped.
Directly on Elena.
A live image.
Taken from somewhere impossible.
A single line appeared beneath it.
LOCATION VERIFIED.
Adrian looked physically ill.
"That's bad."
"No," Iris whispered.
Her eyes never left the screen.
"Bad was thirty minutes ago."
The image changed one final time.
A silhouette appeared.
Humanoid.
Standing against a field of stars.
Too far away to identify.
Too dark to recognize.
Yet somehow—
it felt familiar.
The figure slowly raised a hand.
As though greeting an old friend.
Then a final message appeared.
Only four words.
Four words that made Elena's heart stop.
I FINALLY FOUND YOU.
The transmission ended.
And somewhere beyond Earth's atmosphere—
something smiled.