Page 49 of A Mate For Matrix
It wasn’t like the first. This one was massive. Geometrically perfect. Hexagonal shapes formed the flooring, ceiling, and the massive arching walls like some alien cathedral. The room was filled with metal, all matte gray and pulsing blue veins of energy.
Through the forward viewport, Matrix saw something that froze his blood.
A planet—or what might have once been one—entirely encased in titanium-black plating, like a corpse in armor. Orbiting it were thousands of ships in different stages of assembly. Unmarked. Unnamed. Beautiful in the way a predator’s teeth are beautiful.
A war machine. A factory of conquest.
His gaze moved down—and then he heard it.
A voice.
Female.
Soft.
Disjointed.
Wrong.
The cadence didn’t follow any known language. But as the sounds echoed around him, slicing through the cold air of that distant bridge, the meanings unfurled in his mind.
He understood her. He was being pulled forward, into the heart of the metallic planet. He jolted when his form hit an invisible barrier.
Disorientation swept over him, causing his stomach to churn. He turned slowly—reluctantly. He was on another bridge. This spaceship was… different. Massive. With a heartbeat.
He studied the figures moving on this bridge. They were tall. Angular. Their skin a muted gray-silver, their bodies lean and armored in living exoskeletons. Their faces were blank. Eyeless.
They didn’t turn to look at him.
They knew he was there.
So did she.
Her voice slid over his mind like oil on water.
It twisted around his bones, a whisper and a command all at once.
He looked down.
His hands were no longer his.
Sleek, gray. Laced with pulsing blue. The same as theirs.
A name struck him like a hammer.
Elaine Brim.
His vision pulsed. Her name shouldn’t have meant anything to them—to these creatures—but it did.
She was connected to this. To them.
The voice—still speaking—shifted.
Matrix looked up slowly.
The stars beyond the viewport seemed… different.
Colder.
