Eight Million for a Scrap Battery

“Suspend module selection. Hostile unit activity detected ahead of projection.” The six-point ocean chart unfolded in Lin’s sight. Hunter One, which should have needed seventy-two days to awaken, now showed six hours. “Cause?” “The public drone route traced an obsolete *Far Tide* distress code across the ocean surface.” Su could not see the projection, but she saw Lin’s face change. “What happened?” He opened the twelve-hour flight path. Four hundred kilometers of wind-distorted curves had formed three nested spirals. In the deepest point of the Pacific, a mechanical eye dormant for eight years slowly opened. Lan-Zero delivered its final warning: “It believes we are calling it.”