Qian Wei kept her expression calm while reading the system warning.
[Level One temporal object detected.]
[Unauthorized System fragment is active inside Project Dawn.]
She looked at the image of the damaged Black Box. It was larger than she first assumed, almost the size of a small suitcase, with partially melted sides and thin blue light visible through the cracks.
"What do you mean by an unauthorized System fragment?" she asked inwardly.
[The object contains incomplete architecture derived from Zombie System technology.]
"Could it control or interfere with you?"
[Current information is insufficient.]
"Would bringing me near it be dangerous?"
[Potential risk exists.]
That was not enough information to accuse Project Dawn of hiding a threat. Qian Wei decided to learn everything she could before revealing the warning.
She turned toward Shen Luo. "How much information have you recovered from the Black Box?"
"Less than eleven percent," he answered. "The first researchers could not even identify the structure of its data. Every generation improved the decoding process, but progress remained slow because the technology was centuries ahead of anything we possessed."
Professor Song adjusted the holographic display. "We have preserved the object for almost three hundred years, yet some of its materials remain impossible to reproduce. Whenever we attempt to examine its internal structure too closely, the active sections rearrange themselves."
"Does it respond to people?"
"Not in any way we can control. There have been brief periods of activity, usually connected to temporal disturbances, but it never communicated clearly."
Qian Wei looked at the slowly moving symbols visible through the damaged casing. "Has its activity changed since I awakened?"
Several people around the table became still.
Shen Luo did not attempt to hide the answer. "It activated at the same moment you collapsed inside the police station. That was why Project Dawn began monitoring you more closely."
The system’s warning suddenly carried greater weight.
"What happened when it activated?"
"It projected your name and altered the classification attached to your file. Before that day, Project Dawn knew only that someone named Qian Wei would become connected to the anomaly."
"What classification did it assign?"
"Variable One."
Qian Wei leaned back.
The system called her humanity’s final variable, while the Black Box had used the same designation before she mentioned it.
Both had originated from approximately the same future.
They were connected.
Shen Luo changed the display again. "The Black Box contained damaged records from the end of humanity. Some files could not be recovered, but the visual data survived more clearly than written information."
The first image showed the ruins of a city.
Buildings had collapsed across wide streets, abandoned vehicles blocked intersections and bodies lay where people had fallen. Grey-skinned zombies moved between them, while others crouched over struggling humans.
Qian Wei’s stomach tightened.
She had expected zombies because of the creature inside Apartment 3-17. What she had not expected were the other beings visible in the distance.
One enormous creature crawled along the side of a skyscraper using elongated limbs. Its body bent at angles no living animal should have possessed.
Another appeared to be a mass of flesh covered in black growths. It moved through the street while smaller creatures followed behind it.
"Were those originally human?" Qian Wei asked.
"We cannot determine that from the available images," Professor Song replied. "Some might have developed from animals, plants or multiple organisms. The biological records connected to them remain corrupted."
The image changed.
A wall rose around another city, tall enough to resemble a mountain of reinforced metal. Soldiers stood along the top and fired into an endless mass below.
The darkness surrounding the wall was not a shadow.
It was an army of zombies.
Another record showed an underground settlement. Thin children lay beneath blankets while wearing respirators, and exhausted adults carried water through narrow tunnels.
The images continued.
Flooded cities.
Dry land split by enormous cracks.
Forests filled with unfamiliar plants.
Soldiers fighting creatures that ignored ordinary weapons.
Qian Wei had read many apocalypse novels, but none of them captured the scale of what she saw.
This was not a temporary collapse where a small group could hide until the danger passed. Humanity had fought for centuries while the world continued changing around them.
"Those records contain dates," one of the military officers explained. "Some images were taken approximately ten years after the predicted beginning. Others came from a century later, and the final recoverable records were created more than two hundred years after the first outbreak."
Qian Wei closed her eyes briefly.
Her private warehouse and stored meals suddenly felt insignificant.
If she had continued preparing alone, she might have survived the beginning, but no amount of personal stockpiling could withstand two centuries of war.
Presenting herself to the government had been the correct decision.
She opened her eyes. "Did the Black Box contain any population records?"
Shen Luo’s expression became grave. "The final readable entry listed eighty-seven living humans. We found no later record showing that any of them survived."
The number matched the system’s report exactly.
Whatever future Project Dawn had uncovered was the same one the future host had tried to change.
"What else did the Black Box reveal?" Qian Wei asked. "Did it identify the cause of the apocalypse or explain how the first outbreak began?"
"We found references to an Origin Event, but the relevant files remain inaccessible," Professor Song replied. "The records mention infection, mutation and environmental collapse, although we cannot determine whether they began together."
Qian Wei looked at the damaged object. "Do you have physical access to it, or is that image the only thing you can show me?"
"The original Black Box is secured elsewhere in this facility," Shen Luo said. "No one approaches it without authorization."
The system panel flickered.
[Distance to unauthorized fragment: 1.4 kilometers.]
Project Dawn’s facility was enormous if the object remained more than a kilometer away.
Shen Luo watched her carefully. "You already knew humanity became extinct."
It was not a question.
Qian Wei nodded. "The final population record I received also listed eighty-seven people."
Professor Song leaned forward. "Where did you obtain information that matches a classified record preserved for almost three centuries?"
"You have shown me part of Project Dawn’s secret, so I will show you part of mine."
Qian Wei raised one hand before reconsidering the phrasing. Lin Mei’s posture had tightened behind her, and one of the military officers was already watching the movement.
"There is something connected to my consciousness," she explained. "Before anyone reaches for a weapon, I should clarify that it is not an explosive device or a foreign organism waiting to escape."
Lin Mei did not completely relax. "What exactly is connected to you?"
"It calls itself the Zombie System."
Blank expressions appeared around the table.
Professor Song frowned. "The word system can describe thousands of things. You will need to explain what this one is and how it entered your body."
"I don’t know whether it possesses a physical form. I can hear its voice inside my mind and see a transparent interface that no one else appears able to detect."
Shen Luo glanced toward Professor Song. "Could that be a neural implant?"
"The hospital found no implant, but Officer Qian has already said the system concealed her mutation from our scanner," Professor Song replied. "It might also conceal itself."
Qian Wei continued, "The system gives me missions. When I complete them, it provides rewards such as storage space, improved control over the mutation and an Analysis Module capable of examining physical materials."
One of the military officers looked doubtful. "Are you describing technology, or some type of supernatural ability?"
"I don’t know. Three hundred years ago, an intelligent program connected to someone’s consciousness would have sounded supernatural to me. In this era, your technology can recognize my identity before I enter a bank, so I am no longer willing to decide that something is impossible merely because I cannot explain it."
Professor Song seemed satisfied by the answer. "What information has the system given you about the apocalypse?"
"It told me the apocalypse will begin in three months. In the original future, humanity fought for more than two centuries before the population fell to eighty-seven and eventually disappeared."
The room became silent.
Qian Wei looked toward Shen Luo. "The system claims it was sent back to help me prevent that extinction. Its core database originated approximately five hundred years after my original time, which appears to be the same period as the Black Box."
Shen Luo’s attention sharpened. "Does your system recognize the Black Box?"
Qian Wei hesitated.
Revealing everything would establish trust, but the system had warned that the fragment was unauthorized. Project Dawn might not know what it had preserved beneath the facility.
"Yes," she answered. "It recognized the Black Box as a temporal object containing an unauthorized fragment of Zombie System technology."
Professor Song pushed herself upright. "Are you certain?"
"The warning appeared as soon as you showed me the object."
Shen Luo exchanged a grave look with Professor Song. "The Black Box activated again when you entered the facility."
Qian Wei’s skin became colder.
"What did it do?"
Shen Luo opened another display.
A message had appeared across every secure terminal surrounding the Black Box.
[HOST DETECTED.]
[REUNIFICATION PROTOCOL INITIATED.]
Qian Wei stared at the words.
The Black Box was not waiting to communicate with her.
It was trying to reunite with the system inside her.