“Is this how you thought I would sound, Papa?”
Dr. Trivi pressed his palm against the console, searching for balance as the sound faded, leaving only the hum of machines.
The laboratory lay buried in the high Himalayas, carved into stone where once pilgrims had come seeking moksha. Now it belonged to him alone, a sanctum disguised from every satellite, raised for no god, no ritual, only for a man who believed absolution could be engineered. The walls pulsed with light, mandalas drawn from the Rigveda shifting in luminous circles, their symmetry a fragile order that trembled with the storm outside. Snow and stone groaned against the mountain’s skin, as if the world itself warned him that his time was almost gone.
He moved with restless hands, each motion clipped, as though the mountain itself was counting against him. The message hovered above the table, its light a fragile weave of blue and white, encrypted so tightly that only Savi would ever unlock it. He had spoken into it for hours, until his throat grew raw, until his own voice felt like a stranger’s, until he realized that if he will speak any further, he will conjure her fully into the room.
The system marked the file: Himalayan Observatory — December 7, 2178 — 03:48 AM. A simple timestamp, nothing more, yet Savi would know why he had chosen to record it from here, on this night, when the mountain itself seemed to tighten its grip around him.
The mandalas along the hidden Himalayan laboratory walls trembled. Their symmetry broke, lines bending inward until circles became funnels, funnels collapsing toward a center that burned darker than the room could hold.
His vision blurred. He blinked hard, willing the patterns back into order, but the afterimage lingered: the horizon of something vast, a mouth that pulled at every line, a promise of annihilation disguised as design. His pulse stumbled. He turned away, focusing on what was left to finish.
With a gesture, NANDI unfolded in the air.
Pale arcs rose, skeletal but luminous, every strut and curve bearing the obsession of years. It looked incomplete even now, yet to him it throbbed with its own inevitability, a vessel born from equal parts science and penance. His hands shook as he archived it, embedding the projection into the observatory’s hidden core. Code closed over it like stone. Firewalls lit one by one, each lock echoing his genetic pattern.
Only he would be able to summon it again, or so he thought.
The chamber fell into stillness. For a heartbeat he stood there, chest heaving, sweat cooling against his back. Then the hatch released with a slow exhale, and the night rushed in.
Cold struck him first—sharp, immediate, as though the mountain had waited to punish him. Snow glittered along the ledge, the ridges stretching into darkness, their silence fractured only by the low groan of shifting stone. Somewhere above, the wind carried grit down the slope, the promise of a landslide if he lingered. He tightened his coat and stepped out, boots crunching into ice.
At the edge of the outcrop, his vehicle stirred awake, a low hum cutting through the wind. Panels of frost slid from its surface as the automated car lifted its doors in quiet welcome, lights adjusting to trace his path. An attendant AI greeted him with a measured tone:
“Ready for departure, Dr. Trivi. Route clear. External stability declining.”
He walked into the dark with a vow pressed against his teeth. He would return. He would finish what he began. And perhaps when NANDI took form, the universe would remember mercy.
The wind rose, curling around him like a whisper. Her voice returned, softer than breath, breaking him open once more.
“I am waiting for you to be with me, Papa.”
