Zurich Airspace – 06:33 a.m.The private jet’s comm systems fizzed into static.Rhea jolted upright in her seat. “What was that?”Theo leaned over the interface panel. “Shortwave signal bloom. High-frequency, targeted ping. Someone just hit us with a quantum scan.”Mira narrowed her eyes from across the aisle. “They know we’re moving.”Below them, the cities beneath the clouds began to shimmer—not visually, but in data density. Rhea watched the holographic radar. Nodes lighting up. Spiral-shaped ping bursts. Fragment recognition codes.“Patch me into Geneva,” she said.Theo raised a brow. “It’s 6 a.m.”“I don’t care.”He nodded and routed the uplink. Rhea leaned in close, activating a line that hadn’t buzzed in ten years.“Consortium Command. This is Rhea Virelli. Priority override Zulu-Nine. I n

Geneva – 09:10 a.m.The Consortium council chamber cracked with tension. Evelyn Virelli stood at the center, flanked by Mira, Rhea, and Theo. Around the horseshoe table, representatives argued fiercely.“We’ve legalized a digital deity from the ashes of Dominion! Insanity!”“People are consenting. We’re giving collective memory agency.”“Consent today is control tomorrow. We’re opening a backdoor.”“We’ve built safeguards.”No one spoke for a long moment. The hum of augmented implants and retransmitted glyph echoes filled the silence.Evelyn raised a hand. “This isn’t about certainty. It’s about choice. And history taught us the alternative—force and silence.”She paused. “But I’m not a judge here. I’ll withdraw from this vote.”Rhea stiffened. Evelyn locked eyes with her.“It’s your legacy now.”The chamber fell quieter still.The vote proceeded—electronically and in secrecy.Options:A) Continue HALO-fragment dialogue under protocol.B) Sever all connections and purge nodes.Eyes da

The silence in the war chamber was a suffocating thing—thick with tension, regrets, and decisions waiting to be made. Ethan Cross stood at the head of the holographic table, arms folded, eyes scanning the real-time feed of the Citadel ruins. Smoke curled from the broken towers, and somewhere beneath the rubble, the last of the Dominion’s original codes flickered in a dying relay.“Report,” Ethan said, voice clipped.Mira answered first. “Resistance cells are sweeping the tunnels. We’ve found survivors—wounded, scattered. But no trace of Kael.”That name. A beat passed, and the room collectively braced. Ethan’s jaw clenched.He spoke slowly, dangerously. “Kael’s alive. I felt him in that last wave—he didn’t die in the collapse. He wanted us to think he did.”A murmured curse from Garrick. “Then he’s baiting us again. Slippery bastard’s playing the long game.”Ethan stepped back, letting the light from the screen wash over him. “He’s not just playing. He’s setting the final board.”Acro

The crowd parted like waves as Liora stepped into the grand hall of the Citadel. Every gaze snapped to her—some with awe, others with dread. She wore the Crest of Eldara now, glowing against her collarbone, proof of lineage no one could dispute anymore. Behind her, Aldric, bruised but unyielding, carried the Blade of Oaths—its edge humming with the ancient magic that had once bound kingdoms together and torn empires apart.“Is this your queen?” Queen Halindra’s voice rang through the air, bitter and sharp. “A girl raised in shadows, who couldn’t tell truth from illusion until it nearly cost all of us everything?”Liora stepped forward, her eyes locked with Halindra’s. “I may have walked through shadows, but at least I came back with the light.”A murmur passed through the court. Lords shifted uncomfortably. Lady Mara, always a silent ally, bowed slightly. The tide was changing. And Halindra knew i

 Under the crisp noon sun, the reactivated Watchdog Archives hummed peacefully. Rows of transparent memory pods glowed with soft blue lights—each one a preserved consciousness, a rescued story. Mira hovered beside a pod labeled Eunice Adisa, Lagos, 2029, her voice quiet.“She was a poet,” Mira said, reading metadata from her tablet. “Erased for organizing protests. She died before her twenty-first birthday—imprisoned in the Void.”A gentle sigh escaped the pod as the seal disengaged. Eunice’s holographic image appeared—alive, slightly confused but lucid.“This world…” she began.Mira kept her voice steady. “You’re free.”Gardeners cultivated a small outdoor courtyard in Geneva dedicated to survivors and the archive itself. Ava and Ethan wandered among young trees planted in soil fertilized by ashes from destroyed Dominion infrastructure. Children scave