2025-08-02 22:37:45The command hub buzzes with white noise and bad coffee.
I follow Devon and Kira past banks of monitors, each one showing the same thing, empty space where the Devourers used to be. Still out there. Just waiting. Dr. Aveline stands hunched over the central console, her fingers dancing across holographic displays. “Signal’s been cycling for over an hour,” she says without turning. “Same frequency. Same coordinates. No response.” The beacon pulses red against the black screen. Hypnotic. Urgent. Kira folds her arms. “What’s the source?” “That’s the problem.” Aveline enlarges a data stream. “The signal’s broadcasting from Los Angeles… but the encryption signature…” She hesitates. Her jaw tightens. “It matches our simulation protocols.” The room stills. The only sound is the soft whir of the hub’s ventilation. Our protocols. From inside the pod. Devon shifts beside me. “Could be an echo,” he mutters. “Residual bleed from the neural systems.” I watch his reflection in the monitor glass. The way his jaw tightens when he mentions the simulation. The twelve students who didn’t make it out. He must be thinking about that. “Or,” Kira steps closer to the screen, “someone else was in there with us and is alive.” The beacon flashes faster. Hope, or bait. “We need to investigate,” I say. Devon’s head snaps toward me. “Are you insane? After what just happened?” “What just happened proves we’re stronger than we thought.” “What just happened is twelve kids died while we played heroes.” His voice cracks on the last word. There it is. The guilt he’s been swallowing since the debriefing. “This is different,” I say. “This could be a survivor. Someone is trying to reach us.” “Or someone trying to lure us out.” His voice rises. “We don’t even know what this is. How many more people have to die before you’re satisfied, Ezren?” The slap is invisible but lands all the same. I flinch. Kira steps between us, palm up. “Enough. Both of you!” The room breathes again. Devon thinks I’m being reckless. Maybe I am. Maybe that’s what’s needed. Dr. Aveline clears her throat. “The signal isn’t stationary. It’s moving. Whoever’s sending this is on foot, street-level, heading east through downtown.” “Moving how?” I ask. “On foot. The transmission range keeps shifting, but it’s following surface streets.” Someone is walking through LA with our encryption codes. Someone who was in the simulation. “We can triangulate,” Kira says. “Send a drone. Keep it safe.” “Or we could ignore it,” Devon says. “Focus on the real threat. The Devourers are still out there. We’re just in the eye of the storm and we have no idea when…” “When they’re coming back.” I finish his sentence. “Which is exactly why we need to investigate this signal. What if it’s connected?” Devon stares at me like I’ve grown a second head. “Connected how?” I don’t have an answer. Only a gut-deep certainty that sitting here means missing something critical. “I’ll go,” I say. “Like hell you will.” Kira’s voice goes sharp. “You just spent three days wired to an alien mainframe. Your nervous system’s still recalibrating.” “I’m fine.” “You could barely walk an hour ago.” She’s right. The ache in my limbs confirms it. But this isn’t about being ready. It’s about being the one who has to do it. “Someone has to check it out. And I’m the only one here who’s been through the full simulation sequence.” Devon laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Right. Because that worked out so well for Marcus.” The name hangs in the air like smoke. I feel my hands start to shake again. Marcus would’ve volunteered too. Marcus would’ve said it was worth the risk. “I’m going,” I repeat. Dr. Aveline inputs commands into the console. “Coordinates are locked. Signal source is currently at the intersection of Wilshire and…” She stops. The beacon vanishes. For a moment, the entire console goes dark. Then new numbers cascade down the display. Different coordinates. Much different. Kira leans in. “That’s not Los Angeles.” I read the altitude. Once. Twice. The numbers don’t change. My voice comes out low. “It’s in orbit.” A breathless silence follows. Devon shakes his head. “What the hell does that even mean?” I don’t answer. I can’t. Dr. Aveline checks her telemetry. Her lips go pale. “We’ve got nothing in that zone. No satellites. No probes. That coordinate… It’s in free space.” Kira steps back. “Between us and…” “Neptune,” I whisper. “Between us and the last known Devourer position.” The screen pulses once. Then again. Then nothing. Stillness. We stare, waiting for it to return. Whatever was walking through L.A. just launched itself into the void. And we have no idea if it was running from something, or toward it.
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We Hold the Whole
MITCHELL’S POVThe Gatekeeper’s words refuse to fade.We hold the whole.They echo through every secure channel, every encrypted briefing, every hurried whisper between aides who were not supposed to panic… but did anyway.Mitchell stands before a wall of screens that curve like a broken horizon. World leaders flicker into place one by one, faces arranged like constellations: presidents, ministers, elders, chairs of councils that once thought themselves permanent. Some sit rigid. Some lean too close to their cameras. A few try to look calm and fail.A chime sounds. The channel seals.“Director Mitchell,” says the Secretary-General, voice low. “You asked for this emergency convening. You have the floor.”Mitchell exhales once. She does not raise her voice.“Thank you,” she says. “I will speak plainly. The Gatekeeper claims to possess a complete copy of the root library.”The reaction is immediate.“That’s impossible,” snaps a trade minister from the northern bloc.“We were assured…”“D
Root Library
EZREN’S POVThe message strikes the room like a dropped blade.A copy of the root library has been moved.No signature. No timestamp beyond the automated one. No pathway trace. Just that single, terrible sentence blinking at us on the archive console, the cursor pulsing like a heartbeat out of rhythm.Mitchell is the first to speak. “This is a breach.”Aveline whispers, “Or a rescue.”Devon makes a strangled sound. “Don’t sugarcoat it.”I don’t say anything at first. My body goes cold… not the panicked kind of cold, but the hollow, sinking kind. The kind that comes when you realise something sacred might have slipped through your fingers. Or worse… been taken.The root library isn’t just a directory. It’s the master index of all preserved cultural components… the map to everything we’ve sworn to protect. Whoever holds a copy doesn’t just keep records; they keep the record.They hold the architecture of memory.The Gatekeeper. Prism. Contractors. States are hungry for narrative control
Not All Save
AVELINE’S POVThe archive chamber is quieter than usual… more peaceful than any room has a right to be after the week we’ve had. The vault lights hover like pale moons above the aisles, soft and cool, steady in the way my pulse isn’t. After Devon’s exposé detonated across the networks, the world fractured again. Protest threads, counter-threads, emergency statements, legal fireworks… It’s all still unfolding, jittering, mutating.I came here to breathe.The temperature is always kept a few degrees lower than the main facility. Preserved media need the cold. So does my mind, apparently. I step into the central aisle, where the shelves rise higher than I can stretch, each row stacked with recorded lives… voices, memories, fragments saved from the noise. My fingertips hover near a sealed capsule, not touching, just feeling the gravity of what’s inside.“Not all preserve to save.”The phrase has been looping in my head since the message hit Devon’s relay. It’s a warning. Or a philosophy.
Prism
DEVON’S POVThe terminal room is too quiet for what I’m doing. Too still. The coffee on my elbow has cooled into a dead thing, and the screens in front of me gleam like constellations scattered across a moonless sky. Code blinks. Logs hum. And somewhere beneath my ribs, something crawls.Prism.The word keeps surfacing in contractor logs and donor ledgers, slippery and precise, like someone wanted it to be both hidden and found. I lean closer to the screen and scroll.PRISM CHARTER, REVISION 3: Managed Preservation for a Stable Tomorrow. Ethical Streamlining. Confidence in Continuity.My jaw locks.“Oh, that’s rich,” I mutter. “‘Ethical streamlining.’”Zara, standing beside the door with her arms crossed, raises an eyebrow. “Sounds like a euphemism for selective memory.”“It is,” I say. “Look… here. Their models use the same framework that the contractors used for packet filtering. They’ve just polished it and slapped a bow on top.”She steps closer, peering at the screen. “And they e
Order
MITCHELL’S POVThe briefing room smells of old coffee and sharpened pencils, a strange comfort against the cold steel of the folding chairs and the humming projector. A new map hangs on the wall … same regions, same fault lines, but now it’s threaded with red pins marking fresh flashpoints: data seizures, contractor raids, public demonstrations swelling into something hotter.Mitchell stands at the front, arms folded, her posture a blade barely sheathed. Her team filters in, murmuring, exchanging wary glances. The encrypted message sits on her tablet like a bruise: Reparations are noble. We prefer order. Aveline forwarded it immediately. And Mitchell recognised the phrasing with a cold certainty.The voice behind it belongs to a diplomat she’s argued with for years … the unofficial emissary of a faction obsessed with stability. They never call it authoritarianism. They call it stewardship. They cloak it in silk: preservation, continuity, rational governance. But the meaning is the sam
Paid For
AVELINE’S POVThe hospital ward hums with the subdued rhythm of convalescence… soft beeps, the hiss of a humidifier, the low murmur of nurses exchanging clipped instructions. I breathe in the antiseptic air and steady myself before pulling back the curtain around Bed 12.He’s thinner than when I last saw him. The wounded activist… Jalen… lies half-upright, a sling bracing his left arm, eyelids heavy but alert. He registers me with a faint smile.“Aveline,” he rasps. “If you’re here, it must be important.”“It is,” I say softly, taking the chair beside him. “But you’re more important. How’s the arm?”He snorts, then winces. “Feels like it was introduced to the concept of shrapnel the hard way.”“That’s because it was,” I say. “You shouldn’t joke with fractured ribs.”He closes his eyes briefly, then opens them again. “You came for more than wellness checks.”I hesitate. Jalen senses it.“Ask,” he says. “I’m tired of carrying the old lies.”The curtain rustles as a nurse passes, but we
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