You can't anchor yourself if the world is shifting tides beneath your feet.The network tower stands at Blackwood Institute's heart like a steel spine, its surface a lattice of antenna arrays and fiber-optic veins that pulse with data-light. Swan has passed it a thousand times—background architecture, as mundane as streetlights. Now it feels like the only solid thing in a world that's decided he's negotiable.He stops at the tower's base, hand pressed against cold metal that hums with the vibration of a million simultaneous transmissions. The sensation grounds him. Real. Tangible. He exists here, in this moment, even if every database says otherwise.The quad behind him is emptying. Students filter back to dorms now that the containment team has erected their barrier—a shimmering dome of hardlight and compressed EM fields that wraps around the administrative building like a translucent cage. The Daemon rift flickers within, still visible as a wound in space, but contained. Neutralized

Movement catches Swan's attention. Three figures approaching across the quad. Even in code-vision, he recognizes their patterns. Marcus Chen, Trey Williams, and Jake Something-or-other. Campus social hierarchy's middle tier—not quite popular enough to be untouchable, not quite invisible enough to be ignored.He remembers them. Specifically, he remembers them from sophomore year, when they decided his face looked punchable and his responses to their provocations sounded entertaining. Nothing serious. Just casual cruelty, the kind that happens in the gaps between classes when teachers aren't looking and everyone pretends not to notice.They haven't bothered him in months. Found easier targets, probably.But they're walking toward him now, and their body language reads as familiar. Like they know him.Like they remember him.Swan lets the code-vision slip away. Returns to normal perception as they close the distance."Well, well," Marcus says. His smile is sharp, predatory. "Look who's s

Elara finds Swan twenty minutes later, sitting on a bench in the campus gardens where holographic cherry blossoms bloom year-round. She's carrying her usual arsenal: the blood-stained notebook, a digital camera that looks vintage even though it's brand new, and a portable audio recorder that dangles from her wrist on a strap."You're still here," she says, and Swan can't tell if it's relief or surprise in her voice."Where else would I go?""Nowhere. Everywhere. The system is getting aggressive with erasures." She sits beside him, close enough that their shoulders touch. Swan feels her presence like an anchor, gravity pulling him back toward reality. "I lost you for three hours this morning. Couldn't remember your face. Checked my notebook and saw the entry from yesterday, but the words... they kept shifting. Changing. Like the system was trying to overwrite my external memories too."She holds up the camera. "That's why I brought this. Physical media. Harder to corrupt than digital f

Swan stands frozen for a full minute, processing. His cheek still tingles where Lilith touched him. The data pad remains on the bench, screen dark, that lipstick mark like a brand.He shouldn't touch it. Knows he shouldn't. But his hand moves anyway, picks it up. The screen activates at his touch, displaying a single line of text:When you're ready to learn, find me in the spaces between authorized and forbidden. —LBelow it, a location marker. Not coordinates, but a conceptual address—a place that exists in the Institute's architecture but not on any map. Swan's code-sight activates briefly, and he sees the pathway, the route, the method of access.Then the text deletes itself. The data pad's screen goes dark permanently, its systems shutting down in a cascade of controlled failure. Within seconds, it's nothing but an inert brick of plastic and dead circuits.Swan sets it back on the bench. Backs away like it might explode.His mind races. Everything Lilith said felt true and false s

"One more test," Swan says. "Then we're done for today.""What kind?""I want to try editing a memory that already exists. Not creating a new one, but changing an old one."Elara's expression goes cautious. "Whose memory?"Swan pulls out his phone. Opens the campus social network. Finds a random student's profile—someone he's never met, someone who has no connection to him. A girl named Sarah Chen, second-year engineering student, profile full of pictures and posts documenting a thoroughly normal college life."Her," Swan says. "I want to edit one of her memories. Something small. See if I can do it remotely, through digital connection alone.""That's..." Elara's voice trails off. "That's advanced. And ethically questionable.""Everything about this is ethically questionable. I'm already a walking paradox who edits reality by thinking about it. Might as well understand the full scope."Elara doesn't argue. Just watches, pen ready, as Swan stares at Sarah Chen's profile picture.He let