Command Chains
The sterile corridors of Command Node-7 echoed with clipped orders and the hum of neural servers.
Lysa stood before the high tribunal—a hollow formality.
"You allowed an unauthorized belief cluster to proliferate," one director accused.
"You hesitated to deploy lethal countermeasures," another added.
Hesitation.
Insubordination.
Treason.
Words stripped of nuance.
They handed her a file—a sealed kill order labeled:
"Operation Final Silence: Node-17 Reclamation."
And at the bottom, in cold digital ink:
Target prioritization: Elior.
The Weight of Names
Lysa took the file.
Her hands didn't shake.
But inside, something cracked.
Not because she feared killing Elior.
Not because she doubted the tribunal's authority.
But because as she touched the file, a flicker of glyphic resonance bled into her mind:
Images of people helping each other without surveillance.
Children laughing under glitching skies.
A world imperfect, but alive.
Not controlled.
Not sterile.
Alive.
Mirror Conversations
Later, alone in the surveillance archive, Lysa found her sister's old file.
Medical notes.
Behavioral reports.
Glyph resistance metrics.
Subject displays signs of "compassion fixation," detrimental to cognitive compliance.
That was how they had framed her sister's kindness.
As a defect.
The glyphs weren't spreading madness.
They were exposing humanity.
Mira's Message
At midnight, Lysa received an encrypted, unauthorized transmission.
It was Mira's voice, shaky but fierce:
"They're coming for us. We don't blame you.
Just remember… belief isn't something you can burn away.
It grows in the ashes."
No threats.
No demands.
Just truth.
The Choice
By dawn, Lysa stood at the transport bay, dressed in civilian garb.
No badges.
No weapons.
No chains.
The tribunal's kill order burned quietly in a trash incinerator behind her.
She didn't know where Elior's sanctuary was.
She didn't need to.
Because belief leaves footprints in the soul.
And for the first time in years, she wasn't following a protocol.
She was following a path.
Her own.