Lena felt a chill. “You’re… alien?”
The voice faded, replaced by a cascade of images: a planet covered in crystalline forests, seas of liquid glass, cities of light that pulsed in unison with the stars. Then, an image of a dark event—an explosion that rippled through space, a wave that shredded the crystalline towers. The images flickered, like a memory being erased.
The file went on to describe a hidden network of similar spheres scattered across the planet: in the Sahara’s dunes, the Antarctic ice shelf, the Amazon canopy, and even in the ruins of an ancient city beneath the Giza plateau. All emitted the same tone, all opened only when touched by a sentient mind capable of recognizing them as more than data.