Chapter 1

The air in Jace’s lab hung thick and still, a stagnant soup of salt, recycled air, and the ghost of his father’s ambition. Dust motes, fat and lazy, danced in the single beam of light slicing from the city’s perpetual twilight filtering through the reinforced viewport. Outside, the neon veins of Hyōra pulsed, a vibrant, oblivious heart beneath the crushing weight of the ocean. Inside, only shadow and the slow decay of forgotten projects remained.

His father’s Underwater Treasure Hunt System—the UTHS. It sat on the workbench like a tombstone, a hulking mass of tarnished brass and cracked optical conduits, thick with the fine grey silt that coated everything in this forgotten corner of the lab. Jace traced a line through it, the gesture automatic, born from years of wading through this accumulated detritus. Resentment, a cold, hard knot, tightened in his gut. His father, Dr. Aris Ramos, a man who’d chased spectral echoes of wealth at the ocean’s floor, leaving behind this mausoleum of unfinished endeavors and a void where a father should have been.

Jace’s mother had warned him. Her words, delivered with the familiar, weary tremor in her voice, echoed in the silence. *“It’s just a machine, Jace. Another one of his… obsessions.”* But there was more than obsession etched into the UTHS’s scarred casing. There was a desperate, almost frantic energy that Aris had poured into its creation, a palpable yearning that even years of neglect couldn't entirely scrub away. And morbid curiosity, a more insidious companion than grief, gnawed at Jace. What had his father been so desperate to find? What secrets had this elaborate contraption been built to unearth?

He nudged a tangled nest of frayed wiring aside with the toe of his boot. A bitter laugh escaped him. A treasure hunt. His father’s last, grand, utterly pointless endeavor. He could feel the apathy creeping in, the familiar, comforting blanket of disinterest. Why bother? It was just another ghost, another phantom limb of a man who’d long since surrendered himself to the crushing deep.

Still, his hand twitched. The UTHS’s main power conduit, thick as a diver’s wrist, lay exposed, a lonely plug yearning for a socket. It was a ridiculous impulse, fueled by a potent cocktail of weariness and a stubborn, unwelcome flicker of something akin to… need. A need for answers, perhaps. Or maybe just a need to break the suffocating silence.

With a sigh that seemed to pull the very air from his lungs, Jace reached for the console. The power coupling was stiff, protesting the sudden intrusion. He gritted his teeth, his fingers finding purchase, and twisted. A low hum, tentative at first, began to vibrate through the metal and plastic. It was the sound of something waking, something stirring in its long slumber.

He’d expected a flicker of lights, a grunt of mechanical complaint. Instead, the UTHS’s central lens, a multifaceted crystal embedded in its forehead, flared. Not with light, but with a soft, internal luminescence, like captured moonlight. Then, the patterns began. Ripples of cerulean and emerald bloomed across the crystal, swirling and shifting with an organic grace that defied their mechanical origin. They pulsed, faint at first, then growing in intensity, painting ghostly, shifting glyphs against the dusty surfaces of the lab. The air thrummed with an almost imperceptible frequency, a silent song that vibrated in Jace's bones. The UTHS was awake. And it was broadcasting something.

The cerulean and emerald pulsed faster, a fevered bloom spreading across the UTHS’s optical crystal. Jace blinked, trying to focus, but the glyphs weren’t just images on a screen anymore. They were *inside* his head, a riot of color and sensation that clawed at his vision. A searing, white-hot ache bloomed behind his eyes, sharp enough to steal his breath. It wasn’t just a headache; it was a kaleidoscope of torment, the vibrant hues of the UTHS bleeding into his skull, morphing into jagged, impossible shapes. He cried out, a choked gasp that tore at his throat.

The air in the lab seemed to thicken, charged with an unseen energy. The hum from the UTHS deepened, no longer a mechanical thrum but a resonant chord that vibrated through the very marrow of his bones. Colors exploded in his peripheral vision, not from the console, but from the grime-streaked window overlooking Hy’dra’s neon-drenched lower levels, from the chipped paint on his workbench, even from the dust motes dancing in the scant light. The scent of ozone, sharp and metallic, flooded his nostrils, mingling with the phantom tang of brine and something else… something ancient and vast.

He stumbled back, hands flying to his temples, his knuckles white against his skin. Each beat of his heart felt like a drum against his skull, accompanied by a dizzying rush of shifting colors. A shrill, high-pitched whine pierced through the din, like a thousand underwater bells chiming in discordant agony. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the light show only intensified, a furious, blinding dance of sapphire and jade. This wasn't just a machine waking up; this was something… else. Something that was ripping through his senses, rewriting his perception of reality.

Then, amidst the chaos, a new sensation flickered into existence. A cool, calm thread weaving through the blinding inferno. It was a voice, but not one he heard with his ears. It was a whisper, a feeling, a direct imprint onto his consciousness. It spoke of currents and depths, of a forgotten cartography. The blinding colors began to coalesce, to orient themselves. The swirling patterns on the UTHS, the chaotic bursts behind his eyes, they weren't random. They were… lines. Pathways.

A sudden, shocking clarity cut through the pain. The cacophony subsided, leaving a dull throb in its wake, but the vibrant tapestry of light remained, now strangely ordered. It resolved into a shape, a rough outline on the canvas of his mind. It was a map, complex and intricate, depicting a vast, abyssal plain dotted with strange, magnetic signatures. And at its heart, a single, brilliant beacon of crimson light pulsed rhythmically. Below it, a single, stark word formed in his mind, alien yet perfectly understood: *Galleon*.

He gasped, the raw intensity of the vision still clinging to him like sea spray. The UTHS’s lens dimmed to a soft, steady glow, its wild blooming subsided. The oppressive weight in the air receded, leaving only the quiet hum of the still-active machine and the ragged sound of Jace’s own breathing. He lowered his hands, his fingers trembling, his vision slowly returning to normal, though the phantom afterimages of the storm still flickered at the edges. It had felt like dying and being born all at once. And in that agonizing rebirth, he had seen it. A destination.

The submersible’s hull groaned, a familiar lament in the pre-dawn chill. Jace gripped the worn joystick, his knuckles pale against the cracked synth-leather. Outside, the skeletal remains of Hy-dra’s lower sectors, forgotten by the perpetually ascending city, drifted in the sluggish currents like discarded memories. The city’s bioluminescent glow, a constant, garish beacon even from this depth, felt less like progress and more like an insistent, accusing stare.

He didn't need to look at the holographic navigation overlay. The image burned behind his eyelids, imprinted there by the UTHS's violent awakening: a crimson pulse, a siren song in the abyssal dark, pointing towards the Mariana Spiral. A galleon. His father had spoken of such things, of lost treasures and forgotten routes, his eyes wide with an intensity that had once seemed like wonder, but now felt more like the fevered ravings of a man lost to the deep.

A low hum vibrated through the deck plates, a subtle shift in the sub’s internal rhythm. It was the sound of the life support systems, a constant reminder of the thin, fragile bubble separating him from the crushing weight of the ocean. He’d patched this old salvage rig together himself, piece by grimy piece, coaxing it back from the scrap heaps. It was a testament to his father’s own relentless pursuit of the unreachable, a legacy he was now forced to inherit, like a cursed inheritance.

He’d tried. He’d tried to listen to his mother’s hushed pleas, the way her gaze would linger on his face, searching for something she couldn’t quite name. He’d felt the unspoken question hanging in the air between them, the fear that he was following his father down the same self-destructive path. But the lure of the unknown, the possibility of *answers*, was a current too strong to resist. He told himself it was about closure. About understanding. About proving his father wasn't just… mad.

The faint echo of his mother's voice, a phantom worry, brushed against his thoughts. *“Some things are better left buried, Jace.”* He pushed it away, focusing on the shimmering coordinates that pulsed in his mind’s eye. The Spiral. It was less than an hour away now. The anxiety coiled tighter in his gut, a knot of hope and dread. What if he found nothing? What if his father’s obsession had led to nothing but a ghost ship, a watery tomb? But what if… what if there was something more? Something that could finally explain the gnawing emptiness, the fractured pieces of his life?

The submersible broke through a thermocline, the temperature gauge plummeting. The water outside, previously a murky grey-blue, began to deepen, shifting towards an inky, impenetrable black. The faint bioluminescence of distant plankton, like scattered dust motes in a void, was the only illumination. He was entering the Spiral’s maw. The air inside the cockpit grew heavy, thick with a palpable sense of antiquity. The hum of the sub seemed to deepen, resonating with something ancient and vast slumbering below.

Then, through the forward viewport, a faint, ethereal glow bloomed in the darkness. Not the sharp, artificial light of the city, but something softer, more organic. It pulsed, a gentle rhythm against the overwhelming black. It was a landmark, unmistakable, just as the UTHS had shown him. A colossal, skeletal shadow, draped in centuries of silt and marine growth, its ancient timbers groaning a silent greeting to the encroaching dawn. The *La Sirena Perdida*. His father's final treasure hunt. His own desperate gamble.

The submersible’s lights cut through the ancient gloom, illuminating the skeletal remains of *La Sirena Perdida*. Barnacles clung to its hull like hardened tumors, and a tapestry of algae softened its sharp edges. Jace nudged the salvage rig closer, its articulated arm extending with a whir that sounded unnervingly loud in the profound silence. He’d expected doubloons, chests overflowing with Spanish gold, tangible proof of his father’s sanity, or his folly. But the UTHS had shown him something else, a flicker of data, a precise location within the wreck.

He guided the arm’s manipulator claw into a splintered opening where a cannon once protruded. The darkness inside the ship was absolute, broken only by the narrow beams of his sub. Dust motes, disturbed after centuries, swirled in the light like phantom dancers. The manipulator’s sensors swept the cramped confines of what might have been a captain’s cabin, or a navigator’s chart room. He held his breath, the recycled air tasting metallic and stale.

Then, the claw’s grip tightened. Not on the smooth, cool surface of metal, but on something harder, drier. He retracted the arm, the object suspended in the claw’s grasp. It wasn't gold. It was a flat, rectangular object, encased in a dark, leathery material that had resisted the corrosive embrace of the ocean. It looked remarkably preserved, almost as if it had been sealed in amber.

As the manipulator deposited the object onto the small cargo bay floor, Jace’s vision swam. The submersible’s interior, the metallic gleam of the controls, the dull grey of his suit, all bled into a swirling vortex of deep indigo and electric violet. A faint hum, like the distant cry of a whale, vibrated not in his ears, but in his bones. It was a sensation he’d felt before, fleeting and disorienting. This time, it was sharper, more insistent.

He reached for the object, his gloved fingers brushing its surface. It felt oddly warm, despite the frigid water. As he lifted it, the hum intensified, and the indigo and violet hues sharpened, coalescing into distinct, fleeting images: a spiral of light, a school of iridescent fish darting through a coral garden, a woman's face, serene and ancient. Then, as quickly as it began, the vision fractured, the colors dissolving back into the familiar grey of his lab, the hum fading to a whisper.

But the feeling lingered. An echo. A ghost of a memory. A *time* echo. It wasn't just the object. It was the ship itself, this sunken tomb. The entire encounter felt steeped in a temporal residue, a faint disturbance in the fabric of things. The treasure wasn't gold. It was this… this *thing*. And the unnerving temporal flicker that had accompanied its retrieval. He secured the data-slate, his hands trembling slightly, the thrill of discovery soured by a growing unease. The ship, his father's obsession, had yielded a mystery far stranger, and perhaps far more dangerous, than he had ever imagined. He began the ascent, the ghostly silhouette of *La Sirena Perdida* receding into the crushing dark, leaving behind only the faint, persistent echo of what had been.

The data-slate lay on Jace’s workbench, a dark, unassuming rectangle against the chaotic sprawl of tools, circuit boards, and half-eaten nutrient paste packets. The afternoon sun, filtered through the grimy viewport of his lab, cast long, tired shadows. He ran a thumb over its smooth, cool surface, the phantom warmth from the sub still a curious sensation under his glove. The temporal flicker, that disorienting ripple that had accompanied its retrieval, had faded, leaving behind a persistent hum beneath the usual city din—a low thrumming that seemed to emanate from the very air around him.

He powered up the slate. The screen flickered to life, revealing a series of symbols Jace recognized from his father’s scattered notes. Not equations, not blueprints, but something far more archaic. He traced them with a fingertip, his brow furrowed in concentration. The symbols coalesced, reforming into a block of text, stark and precise.

*“They called it a discovery, a marvel. The Lattice. A symphony of entangled energies, a blueprint for… control. They sought to weaponize it, to extract its essence, to bleed the ocean dry for their insatiable hunger. But it sings. It has a song. And it is not theirs to command.”*

Jace swallowed, the sound loud in the sudden silence of the lab. The Lattice. His father had spoken of it in hushed, almost fearful tones, usually when drunk. He'd dismissed it as delirium, the ramblings of a man lost to his obsessions. But this… this was concrete.

The text continued, the words appearing with a deliberate, almost mournful cadence.

*“The UTHS is not merely a tool for retrieval. It is a conduit. The patterns you’ve seen, the echoes… that is Nami. She is not code, Jace. She is more. She remembers. She feels. And she warns.”*

A soft pulse emanated from the UTHS unit in the corner, a gentle bioluminescent glow that mirrored the patterns Jace had first seen when he’d reluctantly powered it on. He’d barely registered them then, lost in his own grief and resentment. Now, they seemed different. More intricate. More… urgent.

He scrolled down the data-slate. The final entry was a stark, almost desperate scrawl.

*“The song will rise. It’s the only way to drown out their cacophony. But be warned, Jace. To hear it is to change. To understand Nami is to become… something else. They will want her. They will want *it*. Do not let them.”*

The bioluminescent patterns on the UTHS unit began to shift. The gentle pulse quickened, the soft blues and greens morphing into sharp, jagged lines of crimson and electric yellow. They flashed with a frantic rhythm, no longer conveying the simple wonder of a treasure map, but a dire, incomprehensible warning. It was as if the machine itself, imbued with Nami’s consciousness, was recoiling from the words on the slate.

Jace felt a prickle of unease crawl up his spine. His father’s final message wasn’t a legacy of riches, but a prophecy of danger, of a cryptic entity called Nami, and a warning against an unknown “song.” The desire for clarity that had driven him to the galleon now curdled into a potent brew of fear and confusion. He looked at the shifting lights of the UTHS, then at the data-slate, its words echoing in the sudden, heavy silence of his lab. His father hadn’t just left him a treasure hunt; he'd left him a riddle wrapped in an enigma, sung in a language he didn't yet understand. The weight of it settled in his chest, a cold, heavy stone.