The screen went black. Then, slowly, pixel by pixel, a single coordinate appeared.
"Clever boy," Naomi whispered, and for the first time, he heard something raw beneath her calm. Loneliness. Twelve years of it. "Now come find me. Before the other me's find you first." Bsu NAOMIX PLS MORE OF HER -she Is Already In ...
A soft hum filled the cabin. Not the ship's usual thrum—this was melodic, almost vocal. A fragment of a song he’d once hummed to her during a long-haul jump through the Cygnus Void. His throat tightened. The screen went black
"I did what I had to," he said, his voice cracking. "They would have traced you. Used you." Loneliness
"She Is Already In the Nexus," he repeated, reading the old message again. "That's not a warning, is it? It's a location."