TRASH TO TITAN

Chapter 9: Project Delphi

Vallion Safehouse – Geneva Sector, 6:42 A.M. Rain bled down the reinforced glass walls as Aiden stared at the Codex display. Every channel, every platform, every screen around the world now bore the same headline: "Global Betrayal: Vallion Heir Exposed as Mastermind Behind Collapse Plot."

The fabricated footage was damning. Aiden’s face. His voice. A confession he never gave. Maera switched off the screen. “We underestimated them. Again.” “No,” Aiden said quietly. “I underestimated her.” Lucienne. His childhood protector. His father’s secret weapon. The one person who knew both his weaknesses and how to weaponize them.

Now a pawn of the Circle. Or worse... not a pawn at all. Across the room, Silas was already digging through the decrypted contents of Erebus’s remaining memory files. He looked different now. Sharper. Like a caged beast back in its natural element. “These aren’t just war schematics,” Silas muttered. “They're blueprints. Civilization redesigns. Political overhauls. Currency resets.”

Maera frowned. “Delphi?” Silas nodded grimly. “Yes. It’s the Circle’s endgame.” Project Delphi, Defined:  multi-phase plan spanning 36 years. Engineered by the Obsidian Circle. Its core principle: replace all global governments with a technocratic regime run by AI-advised councils subtle at first, total by Phase IV. The puppetmasters would rule silently, behind a digital veil.

Democracy wouldn’t be destroyed. It would willingly step aside. “They don’t want to win by force,” Aiden murmured. “They want the world to surrender out of exhaustion.” Silas turned the screen to show a map: Nodes of Influence blinking across key cities New York, Dubai, Paris, São Paulo. “Each node is led by a sleeper agent. We call them the Delphi Seers. The final activation begins in seven days, during the Helios Summit in Monaco.”

“That summit’s where all the major economic ministers meet,” Maera said, pale. “If they seize that moment... they’ll get legitimacy.” “They won’t need it,” Silas added. “By then, they’ll control every major digital ledger, AI traffic system, and global news outlet. They’ll write history in real-time.” Aiden stood, fury coiled tight in his spine. “Then we hit them before the summit. Take down a node, expose the Seers, leak Delphi to the world.”

Silas’s eyes narrowed. “That would mean war.” “It’s already a war,” Aiden growled. “They just started it with silence.” Maera walked to the digital wall and pulled up an encrypted file Silas had flagged. There it was: a name. "Node Zero – Geneva" Followed by a photo. Julian Vallion.

For a moment, the room froze. Julian. Dead to the world for over a decade. Disappeared after a private jet crash in the Andes. But the Codex showed biometric logs that didn’t lie. His heartbeat. His retinal code. He was alive. Silas looked to Aiden. “He disappeared for a reason. He built Delphi, Aiden. Long before the Circle ever did.” Aiden felt his stomach drop.

“My father built this…?” Silas’s voice turned razor-sharp. “Delphi was his contingency. His dream. He thought he could use it to reset the world make it better. He just didn’t realize it would outgrow him.” “And now?” “He’s Node Zero,” Silas said. “He’s still trying to control it from the inside or he's been consumed by it.”

Midnight. En route to the Alps. Aiden, Maera, and Silas boarded a stealth heli-jet, following the coordinates from Delphi’s core logs. Their destination: Vallion Sanctum — a classified retreat hidden inside a mountain near Montreux, long rumored to be Julian’s final bastion. The world believed it was destroyed in the crash. But as the snow-covered peak parted and revealed a black vault buried in ice, Aiden knew the truth had just begun to surface.

They entered silently, weapons drawn. Inside was a vast hall, lit only by humming servers and digital projections of old world maps. And in the center alone stood Julian Vallion. Older. Colder. Still regal. He turned without surprise. “So,” he said calmly. “My heir finally comes home.” Aiden leveled his gun.

Julian raised a hand not in defense, but as a gesture of welcome. “You’re angry. I would be too.” “You faked your death. Let the world burn. And you want to talk?” Aiden snapped. Julian walked forward slowly. “I started Delphi to protect the world from collapse. But the Circle... they turned it into a weapon. I tried to stop them. But even I... was outmaneuvered.”

Maera hissed. “Then why help them?” “I’m not,” Julian said. “I’m containing them. They believe they have control. But Delphi isn’t finished. There's still a failsafe coded only to your DNA.” Aiden blinked. “What?” “You’re the last override key,” Julian said. “And the Circle knows it. That’s why they’re framing you. If the world believes you’re the enemy, the override becomes invalidated by consensus.”

Silas stepped forward, incredulous. “You're saying the perception of guilt would neutralize the failsafe?” Julian nodded. “Delphi’s final protocol isn’t logic-based. It’s belief-based. Social consensus triggers command authority.” Aiden absorbed that. He wasn’t just the heir to the Vallion fortune. He was the keystone of the future.

Julian opened a palm-sized vault embedded in the center of the Sanctum. Inside was a glowing, diamond-shaped device pulsing in rhythm with Aiden’s own heartbeat. “The world doesn’t need a tyrant,” Julian said. “It needs a choice.” He stepped aside. “Take it. Use it. Rewrite what comes next.” Aiden reached for the core. But just as his fingers brushed it

Boom. The chamber exploded into chaos. An impact rocked the mountain. Alarms screamed. Maera shouted: “They found us!” Julian turned toward the far wall just as it detonated inward. From the smoke, armored shadows emerged. Lucienne. Alive. Burning with vengeance. And this time, she didn’t come alone.