Cold credits, like invisible shackles, weighed heavily on Silver Wolf’s heart.
That ten million had been bought with Baida’s very existence.
At the fastest speed she could manage, she contacted the best medical organization she could find and arranged for her mother Marta to be sent to a planet with a pleasant environment and superior medical conditions.
Though weak, Marta held Silver Wolf’s hand tightly, her eyes filled with reluctance and worry.
“Bronya…
my child…
you must…
take care of yourself…” Marta’s voice was barely a whisper.
“I will, Mom.” Silver Wolf made her voice sound as calm as she could.
She pressed a credit chip containing enough to ensure Marta’s comfort for the rest of her life into her mother’s hand.
“Go get treatment.
Once I’ve…
taken care of some things, I’ll come find you.”
She didn’t say what those things were, but Marta seemed to read something in her daughter’s unfathomable eyes.
She didn’t ask further.
She just held her thin daughter tightly one last time, then was escorted by medical personnel aboard the ship.
Watching the ship fade into a speck of light disappearing into the sky, Silver Wolf stood still for a long time.
The last connection to her warm past life seemed to have grown distant with the ship’s departure.
Now she was alone.
No.
Not alone.
She unconsciously touched the cold USB drive hanging around her neck—Baida’s final resting place.
Back in the apartment, which had instantly become empty and silent, Silver Wolf didn’t hesitate.
She walked straight into the small, dark basement she used for storage.
It became her only refuge, and her final battlefield.
She locked all her emotions away, leaving only an almost obsessive determination.
She connected to her most powerful data editor, using the most precise interface cables, and carefully, as if handling a fragile treasure, connected the USB drive to the system.
“Baida…”
She called out softly, her fingers flying across the keyboard, trying to find any remnant data fluctuation, any signal that might awaken that familiar consciousness.
“Answer me, Baida!”
She employed every data repair algorithm she knew, even ones she had developed herself, trying to reconstruct the core code that might have scattered in that final explosion.
“Please…
answer me…”
She scanned every storage sector of the USB drive over and over, leaving no anomalous byte unchecked.
On the screen, data streams scrolled like waterfalls, but the feedback was only cold: “No response,” “No life signs detected,” “Data structure intact, no active consciousness.”
Silence.
Total silence.
The USB drive seemed to have truly become the most ordinary storage device.
Inside it remained only the data keys for the massive sum Baida had transferred, and some scattered, trivial records Baida had seemingly left behind of their shared lives.
A virtual screenshot of the starry sea they had “watched” together in the Warm Harbor.
A line of encouragement Baida had left when Bronya first successfully wrote a complex algorithm:
// Brilliant!
– Baida.
Even a simple sketch Baida had clumsily outlined with data streams of Marta smiling.
These remaining “memories” were like the sharpest blades, repeatedly cutting into Silver Wolf’s heart.
Despair seeped into her bones like the cold of the deep sea.
She stopped calling out, only silently and mechanically repeating her attempts, her eyes bloodshot from staring at the screen too long, her small body curled into a ball on the cold chair.
When exhaustion and despair peaked, she would stop and pick up the first game console her adoptive mother had given her—a long-outdated handheld with a yellowed screen.
It contained only one simple pixel game about a lone little knight exploring in the dark, searching for light.
She played it over and over, her fingers pressing the worn buttons.
The pixel knight jumped and swung its sword on the screen, the monotonous electronic sounds echoing through the silent basement.
As if by immersing herself in this simplest world, she could return to the past, to those days of being protected—poor, but with her mother’s gentle gaze and Baida’s silent companionship.
Her tears had long dried, leaving only a numb soreness.
Just as she, in a daze, let the little knight fall into the virtual abyss, and the screen flashed red with “Game Over”—
Tap…
tap…
Clear, unhurried footsteps came from the stairs at the basement entrance.
Silver Wolf’s head snapped up, her purple eyes contracting sharply, like a young beast whose territory had been invaded, filled with alertness and danger.
Silently, she grabbed the modified energy pistol at her side.
Prometheus, barely repaired and far from full strength, also rose silently, its barrel aimed at the entrance.
Uninvited guests.
And able to find this place so easily, bypassing the perimeter alarms she had set—these were no ordinary people.
The first thing to appear was not a person, but a jet-black cat with sleek, glossy fur.
It descended the stairs gracefully, as if this were its palace.
Its eyes were pure gold, seeming to contain endless stars and wisdom, as it calmly regarded the gun-wielding Silver Wolf.
Behind the cat, three figures appeared.
At the front was a woman in a sharply tailored purple coat with a vintage flair.
Her presence was mysterious and dangerous, a faint smile playing at the corner of her lips, as if the world were merely an amusing play to her.
Her gaze swept over Silver Wolf with a knowing amusement.
Behind her was a tall man carrying an ancient sword tightly wrapped in frayed cloth.
His eyes were dead, like a dried-up deep pool, radiating an icy, untouchable aura and a faint scent of blood.
Just standing there, he brought an endless sense of oppression.
Last was a silent ironclad figure, covered in heavy, hard-lined metal armor, even his face hidden behind a full helmet.
Only cold red light glowed from his visor.
His steps were steady, like an unshakable fortress of war.
This strange combination made Silver Wolf’s heart sink.
She sensed no obvious hostility from them, but the aura they exuded was a thousand times more dangerous than any bounty hunter.
“Who are you?” Silver Wolf’s voice was hoarse from disuse, but her gun hand was steady as a rock.
At that moment, the black cat sat down gracefully, lifted a front paw, and licked it.
Then, it spoke.
The voice didn’t come from its throat but echoed directly in Silver Wolf’s mind, carrying an ancient, timeless resonance.
“You may call me Elio.”
Silver Wolf’s pupils contracted sharply.
A talking cat?!
This was beyond anything she had ever known.
Elio’s golden eyes looked at her calmly as his telepathic voice continued: “Lower your guard, Silver Wolf.
We haven’t come for you—or rather, not only for you.”
The mysterious woman—Kafka—laughed softly and stepped forward.
Her voice carried a lazy, magnetic charm: “More precisely, we’ve come for the ‘obsession’ in your heart.
That ‘data soul’ that dissipated to protect you.”
Baida!
Silver Wolf’s heart leaped, her breath catching.
They knew about Baida!
“You…
know Baida?” Her voice trembled, unnoticed by herself.
“We know many things.” Kafka smiled, her gaze seeming to pierce through Silver Wolf’s forced composure to the vulnerability and longing beneath.
“That she’s not an ordinary AI.
Everything she did for you.
And…
her current state.”
Elio took over, his voice still calm: “Come with us, Silver Wolf.”
“Why?” Silver Wolf stared at the black cat, trying to read something in those golden eyes.
“Because the ‘script’ of destiny requires you.” Elio’s answer was cryptic and hard to understand, but his next words struck like thunder in Silver Wolf’s mind: “And that ‘data soul’ you wish to see again—it is not without hope.”
“What did you say?!” Silver Wolf cried out, her gun lowering slightly.
“Baida can still be saved?”
Elio didn’t answer directly.
He raised a paw and drew a line in the air.
In an instant, a miniature, hologram-like scene appeared before Silver Wolf.
It was a chaotic void, flowing with countless lines of code and specks of energy.
The image was blurry, as if viewed through frosted glass.
But at its very center, faintly visible, was a dim light of data reconstruction, struggling to gather.
The feel of that light carried a warmth Silver Wolf knew intimately—Baida’s warmth.
Though faint as a candle in the wind, it existed.
This fleeting glimpse lasted less than two seconds before shattering like foam.
“That was…” Silver Wolf’s voice choked, tears welling up uncontrollably again, but this time they were not tears of despair, but of incredible, immense hope.
“That is one possible future.” Elio withdrew his paw, his tone flat.
“A future that requires your strength, and the strength of the Stellaron Hunters, to possibly reach.”
Stellaron Hunters.
Silver Wolf committed the name to memory.
Kafka stepped forward at the right moment, extending a hand to Silver Wolf.
Her smile held something more than amusement now—a trace of something hard to name, perhaps sympathy, perhaps recognition.
“Join us, Silver Wolf.” Kafka’s voice carried a hypnotic power.
“For the reunion you desire.
For that faint but real hope.
In Elio’s script, you will find answers.
And you will find the path to bring her back.”
Silver Wolf looked at Kafka’s outstretched hand, then at the mysterious black cat Elio, and the two silent but powerful men behind him—Blade and Sam.
In her mind flashed Baida’s final tender gaze, the desperate explosion, her mother’s worried face as she departed, and that cold string of numbers on her account, bought with sacrifice.
She knew that going with these people meant stepping into a completely unknown world, one filled with danger.
She would no longer be Silver Wolf, the lone hacker of the Scrap Heaps.
But.
For that faint glimmer of hope.
To see Baida again, the one who had been like both an older sister and a mother, who had used everything to protect her.
Silver Wolf took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her eyes.
In those purple irises, all confusion, weakness, and pain were forcibly suppressed, replaced by a cold, tempered resolve, as if forged in fire.
Slowly, she placed her small, cold hand into Kafka’s warm palm.
“Yes.”
One simple word, heavy as a thousand tons.
It meant farewell, and it meant rebirth.
She took Kafka’s hand, and with it, the ticket to the unknown star sea, the faint hope, and the destiny of a Stellaron Hunter.
…
At the same time, beyond time and space, in the dark system space.
Baida’s consciousness, like drifting stardust, slowly awoke from deep silence.
No form.
No senses.
Only pure thought and…
memories flooding in like a tide.
The coldness and warmth of Herta Space Station.
The final, magnificent sacrifice at Blue.
The blood-stained letter.
The broken rational shell of a genius girl.
The filth and struggle of the Scrap Heaps.
The data prison and warm harbor inside the USB drive.
Marta’s gentle prayers.
Silver Wolf’s precocious, silent profile.
The brutal battle at the signal tower.
The final moment of turning into a quantum torrent to send Silver Wolf away.
The silent terminal exchanges with Silver Wolf.
The weight of the first gold bars.
The tension of fighting corporate hackers.
And the emotion in those purple eyes at the end—something data could not measure: attachment, and sorrow.
Two life simulations.
Two journeys that began with protection and ended with sacrifice.
Cold data and warm emotion intertwined, like brands seared deep into the core of her consciousness.
She “felt” the dark system space around her, waiting, just as she had after the first simulation, for the mysterious fox-eared girl to appear, for the next simulation, or for the chance to return to the main world.
She had brought new talents.
She had brought the potential to grow.
And she had brought two heavy bonds, forged across the boundaries of life, death, and data.
The second life simulation had officially ended.
And Baida’s journey was far from over.
Beyond the star sea, new stories had perhaps already quietly begun.