E4vx4.240.20.1016 99%

It wasn’t a name, not really. Just a designation stamped into cold alloy, etched beside a warning symbol that had long since faded to a ghost. The salvage team found it drifting in the debris field of the Kuiper relay — half a ship, all its logs scrubbed, its crew absent.

e4vX4.240.20.1016 — UNIT DESIGNATION: WITNESS. PROTOCOL: OBSERVE. DO NOT ASSIST. DO NOT INTERFERE. e4vX4.240.20.1016

It was counting up. Whatever it was, it wasn’t dead — it was waking. It wasn’t a name, not really

“Who are you?” she whispered.

Then, an hour later: