*Chapter 8: Nanjue’s Message*
The sky didn’t close.
It hung open above World-7B, a jagged wound of blue light. Through it, more Nulls could be seen waiting. Black shapes, perfectly still. Watching.
Inside the facility, no one breathed.
Elux stood in the center of the shattered training floor. The rod Director Lin gave him had turned to dust in his hand. His eyes were still faintly glowing.
His mom was behind him, flanked by two medics. She hadn’t let go of his arm.
“They stopped,” Seven said, voice low. “Why did they stop?”
Director Lin was typing fast. “They’re scanning. Measuring you. You just wiped a platoon with one pulse. The Null King wants data before it commits.”
As if in answer, every screen in the command room flickered.
Static.
Then a face.
Nanjue.
But not the Nanjue from Yunnan. This one was older. There was a bandage over his left eye. His black suit was torn at the shoulder.
The transmission was bad. His voice cut in and out.
“You’re alive,” Nanjue said. “Good. I wasn’t... sure.”
Elux stepped forward. “Where are you?”
“Yunnan,” Nanjue said. “What’s left of it. The Null King hit us first. Facility ARES-1 is gone.”
Silence.
Director Lin closed her eyes.
“All of them?” Seven asked.
“All of them,” Nanjue said. “The bridge is two-way now, just like I told you. That means they can come through. And it means you can go through.”
Elux felt it. The fractures. Like strings pulled tight across his chest. He could tug one and end up anywhere.
“What do you want me to do?” Elux asked.
Nanjue leaned forward. The camera shook.
“Don’t let them close it,” he said. “If they close all the bridges, they trap every version of you in one world. Then they erase it. All of you die at once.”
“So we keep them open,” Director Lin said.
“No,” Nanjue said. “You do the opposite. You open _all_ of them. At once.”
The room went cold.
“That would tear the multiverse apart,” Director Lin said.
“It would,” Nanjue agreed. “But if every Elux Smith is awake in every world at the same time... the Null King can’t erase you. There would be too many. It would have to fight all of reality.”
“And if it works?” Elux asked.
“Then you win,” Nanjue said. “And you become the thing holding the worlds together.”
The transmission glitched. For a second Nanjue’s face was replaced by white. The Null King’s blank mask.
Then Nanjue was back. Bleeding from his nose.
“One more thing, Subject 13,” he said. “The anchor. Your mother. She’s not just an anchor anymore. The Nulls marked her when you pulled her through. As long as she’s alive, they can track you. In any world.”
Elux’s grip tightened. The floor cracked again.
“Then we protect her,” Seven said.
“We can’t,” Director Lin said quietly. “Not forever. Not with what’s coming.”
Elux looked at his mom.
She was watching him. No fear. Just that same frown she used at the tomato stall.
“You’re going to do something stupid, aren’t you?” she said.
Elux nodded.
The screens went black. Nanjue’s signal was gone.
In its place, one line of text:
_THE KING IS COMING THROUGH. ALL BRIDGES. NOW._
The facility shook. The fracture in the sky widened.
Nulls began to pour through again. Hundreds. Thousands.
Seven raised his gun. “Orders?”
Elux took a step forward. The blue light under his skin flared.
Then another step.
With each step, the light got brighter.
He could feel them now. All twelve failed versions. Waiting.
He could feel the other worlds. Lagos-Prime. World-3. World-12. Hundreds more.
He could feel the Null King on the other side, smiling without a face.
“Open them,” Elux said.
Director Lin stared at him. “All of them? You’ll burn out.”
“I won’t,” Elux said. “Not anymore.”
He raised his hands.
The blue light shot out of him in twelve directions at once.
The ceiling blew off.
The sky split.
And across the multiverse, every fracture opened.
For the first time, every Elux Smith opened his eyes at the same time.
And they all said the same word.
“Come.”