The world came back in fragments.Not light first, but sound. A low, distant thrum like something enormous turning over in its sleep. Then pressure. Gravity reasserting itself in uneven pulls. Adrian felt the floor beneath him before he felt his body, rough concrete biting into his palms as sensation crawled back through his limbs.He pushed up onto one elbow.The chamber was gone.No white walls. No chair. No Custodians.They lay scattered across the interior of an underground transit terminal, ancient and half-collapsed, its ceiling split open by a wound that let in ash instead of light. Emergency lamps flickered along the walls, struggling to decide if they were still needed.Mara was already moving.She dragged Marco out from beneath a fallen beam with a grunt, teeth clenched, blood streaking one side of her face. Marco groaned but stayed conscious, swearing weakly as feeling returned to his legs.Lorenzo sat with his back against a pillar, staring at his hands as if they belonged

The world did not end when Protocol Origin was armed.That was the lie Cipher had taught everyone to expect. Explosions. Blackouts. Firestorms across continents. A visible apocalypse that could be tracked, feared, narrated.Instead, the world went quiet.Too quiet.Adrian felt it first in the way the air settled after the collapse of the Room That Remembers. Not calm. Not peace. Alignment. Like something vast had exhaled and decided where everything belonged.They came back in pieces.Not together.Not gently.Adrian hit the ground on his side, rolling instinctively, breath punching out of him as real gravity asserted itself. Stone scraped his shoulder. Cold bit through his jacket. His vision blurred, then sharpened.Night.Real night.No artificial glow. No data bleed. Just stars choked by cloud cover and the distant orange smear of a city that did not know it had nearly ended.He pushed up onto one knee.“Irena.”His voice carried farther than he expected.Movement answered to his r

The city did not explode when Protocol Origin was armed.It breathed.Lights dimmed across districts that had burned for weeks, not snapping off but lowering themselves like eyelids finally closing after too long awake. Sirens died mid wail. Drones stalled in the air, rotors stuttering as if unsure who they belonged to now, before drifting down and settling against rooftops and streets with soft, almost embarrassed thuds.Adrian felt it before he understood it.A pressure behind his eyes. Not pain. Alignment.The world slid a fraction of an inch to the left, and suddenly everything fit differently.He was on his knees when the shaking stopped.Concrete dust drifted around him like gray snow. Irena crouched beside him, one hand braced on the floor, the other gripping his shoulder hard enough to bruise. Her breathing was steady but her eyes were wide, reflecting a glow that no longer came from Cipher.“Talk to me,” she said. “Tell me you’re still here.”Adrian swallowed. His throat felt

The first sound Adrian heard was a heartbeat.Not his.It was too slow. Too steady. Mechanical in its patience.He opened his eyes to darkness that wasn’t empty but layered, like something watching from behind it. His body lay suspended, not restrained, not free, held in a field that hummed softly against his skin. Every nerve felt awake, alert, but calm in a way that unsettled him more than pain ever had.This place felt old.Older than Cipher. Older than the Custodians. Older than the Lumen architecture that had pretended to be god.The voice came without warning.“You remember the fire.”Adrian didn’t move. He didn’t answer.The darkness shifted, and light bled in—not bright, not white, but amber, like memory filtered through smoke.A house.Small. Ordinary. Wallpaper peeling at the corners. A clock ticking too loud in the kitchen.He was young again.Too young.“You remember running,” the voice continued. “You remember smoke. Heat. Hands slipping apart.”Adrian swallowed. His ches

The room was not a room anymore.It was an idea collapsing.Adrian felt it before he understood it. The pressure behind his eyes. The familiar hum beneath reality, the same vibration he had lived with since the beginning, since the first night he woke up knowing too much and trusting too little.Protocol Origin was awake.Not running.Listening.The world around them reassembled in fragments. Concrete bled into glass. Firelight flickered against surfaces that refused to settle into one shape. Mara was shouting somewhere to his left, her voice cutting through the distortion like a blade. Marco’s hand caught his arm, steady and real, anchoring him as gravity stuttered.Irena did not let go.Her fingers were tight around his wrist, not pulling, not pushing. Just a present.“Adrian,” she said. Not loud. Certain. “Stay with us.”Us.That word hit harder than any command Cipher had ever issued.The Custodians were gone. Not destroyed. Disconnected. Their silhouette had torn itself apart und