The war had a new rhythm. Sarah Blake was an ever-present, nagging hum in the halls of Aegis Haven. She was a spirit in a lens, her sharp eyes seeing everything. She captured the frenzied planning in the command center, the weary optimism in the recovery wards, the unobtrusive resolve of the engineering teams installing water purifiers. She asked a few questions, but her watch was a question in itself, leading Reuben to see his own operation from the outside. It was uncomfortable, but he could not ignore that her professionalism was impeccable. She was building her case, brick by piece of evidence.It was while reviewing security recordings of the Haven perimeter late one evening, as a matter of routine Sarah had insisted, stating that Crane's vanity would lead him to monitor his arch-enemy, that Reuben saw it.A flicker of movement near the western service gate, two days ago. He might not have given it a second thought, just a technician taking an after-hours smoke break, but the Sys

The throbbing pain behind his left eye had become a familiar companion, a metronome ticking out the cost of his victories. He worked now in the light-diminished radiance of his office, the tinted lenses of his glasses a shield against the photophobia the System had sold him. Sarah Blake was part of the Haven ecosystem now, a reserved, observant figure who had earned a measure of trust through sheer, gritty ability. She asked nothing of his poor health; she simply documented the fruits of his work and the scars of Crane's war.It was she who had requested the meeting behind closed doors, her usual aplomb giving way to a tightly coiled sense of urgency. She entered his office, slipping the door shut quietly behind her. In her hand was not her tablet, but a sealed, non-electronic evidence case, the kind used to transport sensitive physical evidence.“I’ve hit the motherlode,” she said, her voice low, devoid of any triumph. She placed the case on his desk. “And it’s a poison pill.”Reuben

The war against the Ghost Fever had been a stealthy, killing siege upon an enemy lineless and faceless. Reuben had been a channel for the System's cold mathematics for weeks, his own humanity dwarfed by the stern requirement to ration, validate test results, and coordinate the silent, global recall of blood-stained death. The migraine was a smoldering flame that burnt in his head, a Sacrifice Point purchase that had branded itself on him as irremovably as his own heartbeat. He moved through the antiseptic halls of Aegis Haven an automaton, his interactions reducing to curt commands and hard facts. The Creator of Life had become a tool for postponing death.It was in this dazed exhaustion that Liam found him, standing before the vast strategic map, watching the last of the Ghost Fever hotspots fade and die, surrounded by the desperate, concentrated efforts his work had enabled. The cost had been vast—in DP, in political capital, and in yet another chunk of his own life span, lost in a

The global outrage over Crane's "False Prophet" performance should have been a victory. It was their strongest punch, turning the world's sympathy into global revulsion. But in Aegis Haven's quiet command center, the victory had the bitter taste of ash. The Santuario district figures were not figures; they were ghosts. They were Anna's children whose lives were cut short for a television feature story. Reuben's chronic migraine, the constant reminder of the deals of the System, appeared to pulse in time with his guilt.He'd become the Oracle, a global strategist, war player. He'd built a fortress and guided a network from a distance. And in the process, he'd lost everything that really mattered: his family, his normalcy, the instant, flesh-and-blood contact with the people he was to serve.Miriam’s letter was a quiet fire in his pocket. “I hope you’re saving people.” Was this saving? Orchestrating the downfall of a monster from a distance, while the innocent died in the crossfire? It

The image was seared into the world's consciousness: the Oracle on his knees, the boot of the masked mercenary descending, the screen going dark over the flames of the burning medicine. It was a silent movie with a screaming message. In the internet age, where attention was calibrated in seconds, this horror show held court over the world's attention for days.The reaction was not the belated, bureaucratic condemnation of governments or the measured speculation of pundits. It was a raw, human tsunami.It started in Harbor City. The day after the attack, a crowd began to gather outside the blackened husk of the old HON headquarters in the Mudflat. It wasn't a protest, at least not at first. It was a vigil. They arrived with flowers, candles, bearing hand-scrawled placards that said, "WE ARE THE MEDICINE" and "THEY CAN'T BURN US ALL." They were Reuben's patients—the mothers whose children had survived dysentery, the old men whose persistent coughs had been quieted, the young volunteers