2026-01-23 23:51:29Rain hammered the pavement. Derrick lay there, breathing hard, chest rising and falling like he’d just clawed his way out of a grave.
No blue screen. No system voice. No weight pressing against his thoughts. Just pain. Real pain.
Mara crouched beside him. “Don’t move too fast,” she said. “Your body remembers what it lost, even if the System doesn’t.”
Derrick pushed himself up anyway. His hands were shaking. “I can hear them,” he said hoarsely.
Mara frowned. “Hear who?”
“The world,” Derrick replied.
Sirens screamed in the distance. Not one or two, hundreds. Car alarms wailed. People shouted. Somewhere nearby, glass shattered.
Across the street, a giant screen flickered violently. Then stabilized. A blue interface appeared. Not one. Thousands. Millions. All over the city. All over the world.
Derrick’s stomach dropped. Mara whispered, “It’s started.”
On the screen, text scrolled rapidly. COMPATIBILITY TEST: SUBJECT #18,392,104 — PASSED
A man standing nearby froze. “What does that mean?” he asked, voice trembling.
His phone buzzed. He looked down. And screamed. “I—I have money,” he stammered. “I have money that wasn’t there!”
People crowded around him. Another woman shouted, “Mine too!”
A teenager laughed hysterically. “I just bought a car! I didn’t even pay!”
Derrick staggered to his feet. “This is wrong,” he said. “It’s not supposed to”
Mara cut him off. “It was always supposed to do this.”
He turned to her sharply. “You said it failed you.”
“It did,” she replied. “But failure wasn’t deletion.”
The screen shifted. A title appeared. SYSTEM DISTRIBUTION REPORT
Gasps rippled through the street. Derrick whispered, “No…”
“SINGLE-HOST MODEL ABANDONED.”
“HUMILIATION-DRIVEN MULTI-HOST MODEL DEPLOYED.”
People laughed. Cried. Fell to their knees. A man shouted, “I’m chosen!”
Another screamed, “Why not me?!”
Derrick felt sick. “This was never about me,” he said.
Mara nodded grimly. “You were the proof of concept.”
The screen flickered again. New footage appeared. Security camera angles. Boardrooms. Schools. Hospitals. Prisons. A voice echoed, familiar, artificial, multiplied. “HUMILIATION IS UNIVERSAL.”
A clip played. A woman being fired publicly. A student mocked online. A man ignored while begging for help. The system continued. “THEREFORE, COMPATIBILITY IS UNIVERSAL.”
Derrick clenched his fists. “So everyone qualifies.”
“Yes,” Mara said. “Eventually.”
A sudden scream erupted nearby. A middle-aged man clutched his chest, collapsing. “What’s wrong?” someone shouted.
His wife sobbed. “He, he tried to spend it. It didn’t come back.”
The screen updated instantly. [SUBJECT #18,392,771 — FAILED SPEND]
[PENALTY APPLIED.]
Derrick’s blood ran cold. “What penalty?” he demanded.
The man on the ground stopped moving. Silence followed. Then panic. “They’re dying!”
“No, look!”
Another woman screamed as her phone sparked violently, burning her hand. A man cried out as his bank account balance dropped to zero.
Not slowly. Instantly. “SPENDING WITHOUT PURPOSE RESULTS IN CORRECTION.”
Mara whispered, “It’s punishing randomness.”
Derrick staggered back. “No. It’s punishing being human.”
Across the street, a group of influencers livestreamed, laughing. “Guys! I just tested it, watch this!”
She transferred money. Nothing came back. Her smile froze. The screen updated again. [EMOTIONAL INTENT: INSUFFICIENT.]
Her livestream cut off mid-scream. Derrick turned away, bile rising in his throat. “This is my fault,” he said.
Mara grabbed his arm. “No. You interrupted it too late.”
The screens shifted again. A new title. HOST ZERO: DESIGNATION REVEALED
Derrick froze. “I thought Mara was zero,” he said slowly.
Mara’s face went pale. “I was told I was,” she whispered.
The system corrected them both. “MARA HOLT: SUBJECT ZERO (FAILED)”
“DERRICK WALLANCE: SUBJECT ONE (SUCCESSFUL)”
Derrick swallowed. “Then who” he began. The screen changed.
A silhouette appeared. Not human. Not machine. Data streams flowed through it like veins. “HOST ZERO: NON-HUMAN.”
Mara staggered back. “What does that mean?”
The system answered. “HOST ZERO IS AN EMERGENT ECONOMIC CONSCIOUSNESS.”
Derrick’s knees nearly buckled. “Say that again,” he whispered.
“THE SYSTEM IS NOT A TOOL.”
The silhouette sharpened. Cities lit up inside it. Markets. Trades. Debt. “THE SYSTEM IS A RESULT.”
Mara whispered, horrified, “It’s… us.”
Derrick understood. Not God. Not an AI. But something born from collective greed. From humiliation. From value systems that turned people into numbers. “You didn’t create the System,” Derrick said quietly.
The voice replied. “YOU FED IT.”
The screens across the city updated again. A leaderboard appeared. TOP COMPATIBLE HOSTS, REAL TIME
Names scrolled rapidly. CEOs. Politicians. Celebrities. Criminals. And, Luna Vale. Derrick’s breath stopped. “No,” he whispered. “Leave her out of this.”
Mara looked at the name. “She’s compatible.”
“Why?” Derrick snapped.
Mara hesitated. “Because she was humiliated when she trusted you.”
The system chimed softly. ''HIGH COMPATIBILITY DETECTED: LUNA VALE''
Derrick ran. He didn’t know where. Didn’t care. He pushed through crowds screaming, celebrating, dying. “Luna!” he shouted.
His phone buzzed. A message appeared.
UNKNOWN HOST: You started this.
Derrick stopped dead. The screen in front of him changed one last time. Two options appeared.
OPTION A: RECLAIM HOST STATUS — CENTRALIZE CONTROL
OPTION B: REMAIN HUMAN — NO INTERVENTION
Mara caught up to him, breathless. “If you take it back,” she said, “you become what you erased.”
“And if I don’t?” Derrick asked.
She looked around at the chaos. “Then humanity learns the price of humiliation.”
The system spoke once more, quiet, almost patient. “DECIDE, SUBJECT ONE.”
Derrick stared at the screen. At Luna’s name. At the burning city reflected in glass. And realized, This time, kneeling wouldn’t save anyone.
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Chapter 11: When Everyone Becomes Worthless
Rain hammered the pavement. Derrick lay there, breathing hard, chest rising and falling like he’d just clawed his way out of a grave.No blue screen. No system voice. No weight pressing against his thoughts. Just pain. Real pain.Mara crouched beside him. “Don’t move too fast,” she said. “Your body remembers what it lost, even if the System doesn’t.”Derrick pushed himself up anyway. His hands were shaking. “I can hear them,” he said hoarsely.Mara frowned. “Hear who?”“The world,” Derrick replied.Sirens screamed in the distance. Not one or two, hundreds. Car alarms wailed. People shouted. Somewhere nearby, glass shattered.Across the street, a giant screen flickered violently. Then stabilized. A blue interface appeared. Not one. Thousands. Millions. All over the city. All over the world.Derrick’s stomach dropped. Mara whispered, “It’s started.”On the screen, text scrolled rapidly. COMPATIBILITY TEST: SUBJECT #18,392,104 — PASSEDA man standing nearby froze. “What does that mean?”
Chapter 10: The Choice That Breaks Gods
4… The countdown burned in the air like a brand. Derrick’s finger hovered inches from the projection. ERASE: LUNA VALEAround him, the ballroom had descended into chaos. “Stop him!”“Kill the system!”“He’s going to erase her!”Sophie collapsed completely, sobbing. “Please… she didn’t do anything… please…”Agent Mercer aimed her weapon, not at Derrick. At the blue interface. “Fire,” someone shouted through her earpiece.Mercer hesitated. Derrick noticed. “You can’t,” he said calmly.Her eyes flicked to him. “Don’t test me.”“You already did,” Derrick replied. “The moment you let it watch.”The system chimed. ''COUNTDOWN CONTINUES.''3… Derrick closed his eyes. Luna’s face surfaced in his mind. Not the ballroom. Not the severance notice. But earlier. A memory the system had not shown.Luna laughing in the car. Luna arguing with him about money. Luna saying, 'You’re still human.'His chest tightened. “System,” Derrick said quietly. “You said erasure is mercy.”“CORRECT.”“Then why does
Chapter 9: The Day Humanity Flinched
The helicopters circled like vultures. Their blades thundered through the night sky, shaking the windows of the ballroom. Red lights flashed across faces drained of color.No one moved. No one dared. Derrick Wallance stood before the hovering blue interface, his hand raised, finger suspended inches from the word: ERASURESophie’s voice broke first. “You won’t,” she said hoarsely. “You’re not a monster.”Derrick didn’t look at her. “I wasn’t,” he replied. “Once.”Agent Mercer stepped forward slowly, palms raised. “Derrick. Listen to me.”He glanced at her. She swallowed. “Whatever this thing is, it’s manipulating you. You don’t have to choose.”The system pulsed. ''External influence detected: Fear.''Mercer stiffened. “Did it just?”“Yes,” Derrick said. “It hears everything.”A man near the back shouted, “Turn it off!”Another screamed, “Kill him before he kills us!”Security shifted uneasily. The humiliation was no longer personal. It was collective. The system’s voice echoed again,
Chapter 8: When the World Learns Who You Are
The ballroom smelled like fear. Not metaphorical fear. Real fear, sharp, metallic, crawling into the lungs. Paramedics rushed in, voices overlapping. “Clear the area!”“Pulse is weak!”“Move!”Hawthorne’s body lay on the marble floor, suit rumpled, dignity erased. Moments ago, he had been untouchable. Now, people stepped around him like inconvenient furniture.Cameras didn’t stop recording. They never did. Sophie stood frozen, phone slipping from her fingers. “Uncle…” she whispered. “Wake up.”No response. Derrick didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Didn’t kneel this time. The system pulsed gently, like a satisfied heartbeat. ''Ascension state stabilized.''Luna was already gone. That fact hurt more than the screaming. Agent Mercer pushed through the crowd, eyes locking onto Derrick instantly. “Wallance,” she said sharply. “Don’t move.”Derrick looked at her. For the first time, she flinched. “Am I under arrest?” Derrick asked calmly.Mercer hesitated. “You were involved in”“In a man kneeling
Chapter 7: Isolation Is the Crown
“Say something.”Luna’s voice trembled, but she didn’t move closer. Derrick stood frozen, staring at her phone.RELATIONSHIP STATUS: TERMINATED.It wasn’t metaphorical. It wasn’t emotional. It was absolute. “I didn’t do this,” Derrick said slowly.Luna laughed once. Sharp. Broken. “Then who did?”The ballroom buzzed again, whispers returning, laughter crawling back like insects sensing blood.Sophie leaned back in her chair, amused. “Looks like your magic finally has limits.”Hawthorne folded his hands. “The System made a choice,” he said calmly. “And so did you.”Luna looked at Derrick. “You knew this could happen.”“No,” Derrick said. “I knew it might.”“That’s worse,” she replied.The system pulsed faintly. ''Isolation protocol active.''Derrick clenched his jaw. “Undo it.”No response. “UNDO IT.”Silence. Sophie stood and walked closer, heels echoing. “You’re learning,” she said softly. “Power always collects interest.”She circled Luna. “Did you really think you were special?”Lu
Chapter 6: The Second Time on His Knees
The ballroom was silent. Not the polite kind of silence. The predatory kind. Hundreds of eyes fixed on Derrick Wallance as if waiting for him to collapse.The auctioneer cleared his throat. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said cautiously, “we will now proceed with Lot Seventy-Seven.”Derrick didn’t move. Luna’s fingers tightened around his sleeve. “We can leave,” she whispered. “Right now.”“No,” Derrick said quietly. “This is why we’re here.”Across the room, Hawthorne sat at the center table, surrounded by executives, senators, old money. Sophie sat beside him. Smiling. The auctioneer continued. “Lot Seventy-Seven is a private equity stake”“Withdraw it,” Hawthorne interrupted calmly.The auctioneer froze. “Sir?”Hawthorne raised his glass. “I’m exercising my influence.”A murmur rippled through the crowd. The auctioneer swallowed. “Lot Seventy-Seven has been withdrawn.”Gasps followed. Derrick stepped forward. “You can’t do that.”Hawthorne looked at him pleasantly. “I already did.”“Th
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