Legacy Protocol

REBORN IN THE WRONG HOUSE

“You must be uncomfortable,” she said. Her eyes were colder than the rest of her face; when they landed on Arin there was a flare of something almost like recognition — not of him personally, but of an expected performance. “You should rest. The family physician will speak to you later.”

Arin wanted to ask who she was beyond the picture frames — whether she had bought the life around her or been smothered by it. But each question invited an answer that might be a trap. The Protocol suggested caution. SOCIAL RECOMMEND: ACCEPT HOSPITALITY. OBSERVE.

He nodded. “Thank you.” The words were tiny concessions.

Later, in the study, Lucan set a glass of something dark on the table and regarded him across the gulf of carved rosewood. He chose his words like a man with a ledger.

“You will have heard the Protocol,” Lucan said. The single word landed like a coin. “You will also know, I think, that the Vosses run many things in this city. We have enemies who do not care about etiquette. You were lucky to be found by us rather than… less honorable hands.”

Arin had the sudden impression that being lucky had been a matter of political timing. The Protocol gave him nothing about luck. MISSION: ACCEPT VOSS HOSPITALITY — TRUST SCORE: 1/5.**

“What do you want from me?” Arin asked. It was blunt — the only currency that measured with equal parts honesty and risk.

Lucan smiled once, without warmth. “Assistance, if you can provide it. Or stability, if you cannot. Either way, you will be given the protection of the house. In return, you will—” He paused. “In return, you will integrate.”

Arin felt the word integrate like a slow pressure. The Protocol hummed in his head. INTEGRATION MODULE UNLOCKED: FAMILY STATUS — SON-IN-LAW CANDIDATE. The letters in his skull rearranged themselves until they made sense. Son-in-law. A role. A position with clothes and obligations and a public face. He tasted bile.

“You want me to marry into this?” Arin asked.

Lucan’s eyes sharpened. “We do not ‘want’ unnecessary risks. We secure alliances. You will be given a role, training, and access to a part of the archive you would never have otherwise. You will be useful — if you prove you can be. The Protocol will guide you.” He tapped the ring on his finger. “It is fortunate for you that the Protocol favors those who make sacrifices.”

Arin’s mouth went dry. The word sacrifice came soft and inevitable. He thought of the motel, of the taste of blood at the back of his mouth. He thought of the void before waking and the impossible, small mechanical voice that had chosen the word survival.

“What if I say no?” he asked, because somewhere in him the small human part still wanted the absurdity of choice.

Lucan leaned forward. For a moment the patriarch’s face was honest in a way that hadn’t been before. “Then you will leave,” he said. “And what you leave will attract attention you do not want. This is a dangerous city. People who wander from our shelter make interesting headlines.”

Arin looked at Evelyn. Her eyes said the thing Lucan didn’t say: the world will assume we belong together if you let them. That assumption would open doors. It would also lock others. The Protocol offered him its one clinical comfort.

REWARD PATH: COMPLY: ACCESS TO ARCHIVE + BLUEPRINT TOKENS (ADVANCEMENT).

REWARD PATH: REFUSE: REMOTE EXPOSURE / PROBABLE ASSASSINATION.

The choice, for the first time since he woke up, felt less like freedom and more like a ledger. Arin thought of survival. Of the dull, stubborn rust of the will to not be dead a second time.

He nodded. “I’ll play the role.”

Evelyn’s smile softened for a second — not a smile for him but an acknowledgment he had accepted the rules. The Protocol clicked, approving, and in the silence that followed, Arin heard it whisper one more thing that made the air go thin.

NEW SUB-MISSION UNLOCKED: DISCOVER WHO TRIED TO KILL YOU.

PRIORITY: HIGH.

The study door closed. Outside, somewhere in the vast house, an old grandfather clock counted seconds in a voice older than families. Arin had the sudden, tight certainty that he’d been handed a map with more traps than treasure. He also had the Protocol’s dry comfort: missions. Work. A path.

He rose from the chair and, for the first time since opening his eyes, felt something like purpose threading through the fog of pain.

If he was going to survive the Voss house, he would have to learn its secrets. And someone in the city had wanted him dead — and had failed.

Arin set the ring on the table between him and Lucan and met the patriarch’s eyes. “Then we begin,” he said.

The Protocol clicked, and somewhere in the house a lock turned that nobody else heard.

MISSION UPDATED: ACQUIRE MEMORY SHARD — CODE-TESSERA. LOCATION: DARO GALA, 7 DAYS.

FAILURE: MEMORY FRAGMENT LOSS / SANITY PENALTY.**

Arin tasted metal. Seven days. The clock inside the house kept time for other people’s schemes. He’d been given a calendar that had the power to rewrite him. He slid his fingers over the ring again and wondered which life it belonged to — the one he had lost, or the one that was waiting to bury him a second time.

The first bell chimed through the manor, and so did the doorbell beyond — the night was starting to move, and the city with it.