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Underground Court

Author: Tim

2025-09-21 21:53:38

KIRA’S POV

Cigarette ash drifts like gray snow. People press into one another—families who have worn grief into the lines of their faces, fighters whose camo is stained with sweat and old blood, old hands that still reach for a Bible out of habit.

I sit behind a folding table that someone long ago decided could pass for a judge’s bench and pretend the microphone makes me official. My fingers fumble with the recorder until the red light holds steady.

“This isn’t a kangaroo court,” I say, loud enough that whispering stops like the snap of a trap. “We do this right, or we don’t do it at all.”

Across from me the prisoner looks like a bad piece of theater—a thrift-store orange jumpsuit a size too big, sleeves fraying at the cuffs. Dr. Samuel Greene, reads his contractor badge. Mid-forty, hair thinning, the sort of face that settles into the background of a crowd until it suddenly doesn’t.

He keeps staring at the camera as if it could bite.

“State your name for the record,” I say, and the

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The Bridge Network
ZARA’S POVThe relay zone looks nothing like a battlefield, though that’s what it is. Not guns and armor… ritual and memory. A circle of canvas pitched in the middle of no man’s land, lanterns throwing warm light across low tables stacked with tea sets and worn manuscripts. The air smells of bergamot, paper ink, and bodies too tired to pretend they’re not desperate. Just beyond the fabric walls, the relay tower hums… patient, mechanical, listening. Always listening.Elder Okafor speaks first, her hands drawing invisible shapes in the air. “Every true promise requires three witnesses, seven rounds of deliberation, and a song to carry the choice into memory. Without that, the words drift. They have no anchor.”Dr. Tanaka, still gaunt from the riots in Tokyo, folds his hands over the rim of a porcelain cup. “In my country, we have tea ceremonies that last for days. Every motion counts. Every silence counts. Consent isn’t something you rush. It breathes.”I’m the one tasked with turning
Sifting
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The Seal
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Safe Governance
MITCHELL’S POVThe summit smells like failure: stale coffee, suit laundry, the metallic tang of ozone from too many phones. The room has no windows, just a long table and forty-seven tired faces arranged like a jury waiting for bad news. Nobody slept. Nobody could have; since the primer leak, sleep had become an act of faith.I look at them—ambassadors with trembling hands, ministers whose smiles have been chewed down to practicality, a few military men whose eyes are haunted by metrics instead of nightmares. They’re all wearing the same thing now: the fatigue of people who’ve watched the rules that used to hold the world together get shredded in front of them.“We need a neutral governance framework,” I say. The language is precise because there’s no time for poetry. “An oversight board—scientists, ethicists, military observers. Binding protocols for preservation activities. If we don’t do this, private contractors will harvest humanity the way they harvest data: by contract and coll
Public Unrest
SORA’S POVFrom the roof of an abandoned hotel, I watch Times Square detonate with light. Screens flicker like nervous eyes, broadcasting the primer leak across every feed, every surface that still hums with power. The words crawl through the air like a sickness nobody can contain.“Preservation protocols ensure cultural continuity,” the leaked voice drones from every speaker, syrupy calm over the sound of breaking glass. “Subjects should be grateful for the opportunity to contribute to species survival through digitization.”The crowd’s answer is a roar that shakes the streetlamps.Thousands press through the avenues, some clutching signs with NO HARVEST slashed in blood-red paint, others holding candles for children they claim are “safe” in digital heaven. The two sides scream past each other, grief and fury bouncing off the towers like ricochet fire.My comm sputters in my ear.“Sora, we’ve got medical in sectors four and seven. Can you reroute?”“Copy,” I mutter, slinging my rifle
Echoes
AVELINE’S POVThe archive lab is a cave of humming racks and cold light… no windows, no sun, no clock but the little pulse of cooling fans and the slow blink of status LEDs. Data crystals sit like fossilized memories in racks, film reels in crates, everything stacked so tightly you can hear the past breathing. I’ve been here eighteen hours, one bloodshot eye pressed to afterimages of code, tearing apart scraps salvaged from the platform for something that’ll make sense of the harvest. Anything.The coffee at my elbow is a lukewarm apology in a thermos. I sip and try to convince myself the bitter helps me focus. Mostly it just tastes like the exact shade of dread I’ve been cataloging.This fragment is different. Older… buried in lower substrate layers, tagged with a header that reads Ethical Implementation Primer. The phrase should comfort; instead it crawls under my skin. I boot the playback and a voice, calm and almost lullaby–patient, fills the room.“Species-preservation protocols

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