The door to Abbot Clement’s office slid shut behind him. The sound was a soft, final hiss, and it left Elias standing in the curving, sterile white corridor of the Penrose Oratory. The deep red of the rug, the dark wood of the walls, the Abbot’s cold certainty—it all vanished, replaced by the familiar, seamless composite and the placid glow of the light panels. The air tasted of recycled oxygen and the faint, sharp smell of ozone. Nothing had changed, but everything was different. The low, 15-decibel drone of the Equilibrium Hum, the sound that had been a comfort for months, now felt like the purr of a predator.
He had walked into that office a dissenter. He was walking out a threat. The choice had been made, the offer of partnership refused. The price for that refusal was the end of the quiet war. He had expected retaliation. He had not expected it to be so swift.
A soft, three-note chime echoed from hidden speakers in the ceiling. It was the sound of the Orison Call, the station’s serene, genderless voice, preparing to make an announcement. People in the corridors paused. The voice was the station’s clock, its conscience, its manager. It was never ignored.
— Attention, — the voice said, calm and dispassionate. — By order of the Abbot, the following access privileges for Novitiate Elias Vance are hereby revoked, effective immediately.
His name. Spoken to the entire station.
— Access to the Choir. Revoked. Access to the Scriptorium. Revoked. Access to all technical workshops and maintenance corridors. Revoked. Access to the Hydroponic Gardens. Revoked.
The list was a systematic dismantling of his life. Each word was a door slamming shut. The voice was not angry. It was not punitive. It was simply stating a fact, like announcing the nutrient paste flavor for the evening meal. It was the sound of a system tidying an error.
— Novitiate Vance is confined to residential cell 4B until further notice.
The announcement ended. The Equilibrium Hum filled the silence that followed. Two junior monks, their faces placid and untroubled by the Cognitive Anchors at the base of their skulls, detached themselves from the flow of traffic. They did not look at him. They simply moved to flank him, one on his left, one on his right. They did not touch him. They did not need to. Their presence was a cage made of social pressure.
They began to walk. He had no choice but to walk with them, a prisoner escorted by the sheer weight of obedience. The corridor curved away before them, a long, white tunnel. He was being herded back to his box.
He thought of the word Clement had used. Shepherd. This was what it felt like to be one of the flock.
Then he saw him.
Up ahead, emerging from a cross-corridor, was Leo Gallo. Leo, who had been his first and only friend here. Leo, who had shown him which dispenser produced the least-lumpy nutrient paste and had confessed his own terror before his first listening session in the Choir. He was a kind, devout man, a true believer who desperately needed the comfort the Abbot’s stories provided. A flicker of something warm and painful ignited in Elias’s chest. Hope.
A connection. A person who knew him before he was an anomaly.
— Leo, — Elias said. His voice was quiet, a small, human sound in the vast, humming corridor.
Leo stopped. His eyes, wide and honest, met Elias’s. For a single, terrible second, Elias saw the friendship there. He saw the memory of shared meals and quiet conversations. Then, Leo’s gaze flickered to the two monks flanking Elias. He saw the escort. He understood the meaning of the Orison Call’s announcement. Fear washed over his face, erasing the friend and leaving only the flock.
Leo’s choice was made in that instant. He paid for his safety with the currency of his loyalty.
His eyes dropped to the polished floor. He looked at his own feet, as if they were the most interesting things in the universe. He hesitated for a heartbeat, a statue of indecision, and then he began to walk again. He picked up his pace, his shoulders hunched slightly.
He walked past Elias without a word.
The silence was an answer. It was a verdict. The draft of air from his passing felt colder than the void outside the viewport. Elias stood frozen, watching the back of his friend’s off-white tunic recede down the corridor. Leo did not look back. He turned a corner and was gone.
The hope inside Elias collapsed. It was a physical sensation, a dropping in his gut that left a hollow space where something had been. It was not the Abbot’s decree or the loss of access that was the true blow. It was this. The quiet shunning. The sight of a good man choosing fear over a friend. This was how the system truly worked. Not with force, but with the quiet, ever-present threat of being left alone.
He remembered the Cracked Slate of Korbin, the one Clement had shattered on the floor of the Synod Chamber. He remembered its fractured screen, a spiderweb of broken lines. The truth it contained was supposed to be a key. It was not a key. It was a brand, marking him as unclean, untouchable. He was a heretic.
The two monks had not moved. They waited with the infinite patience of machines. One of them finally spoke, his voice as placid as the Orison Call’s.
— This way, Novitiate.
Elias looked down the empty corridor where Leo had disappeared. The station felt immense, and he had never been more alone. He turned and followed the monks. There was nothing else to do. He was the heretic, but the first casualty of his war for truth was not his own life. It was a friendship. It was a part of himself he had just watched walk away and vanish.
The walk to his cell was long. Every person they passed averted their eyes. They would flatten themselves against the wall to let the procession go by, their faces blank, their gazes fixed on some distant, unimportant point. They were all like Leo. They had all heard the announcement. They had all made the same choice.
He was a ghost.
His cell was a small, white box. A built-in desk, a dispenser for water and nutrient paste, and a sleeping pallet. The door to cell 4B slid open. He stepped inside. The two monks remained in the corridor. They did not need to enter. The cell was the cage.
The door slid shut. The sound was a soft, final hiss, just like the one that had sealed him out of the Abbot’s office. He was contained. Isolated. Neutralized. He stood in the center of the sterile room, listening to the low hum of the station. Clement’s retribution was not just about punishment. It was about containment. He had been cut off from every source of information, every ally.
He was the heretic, but Lena was the source.
He was the anomaly, but she was the one with the tools.
He was just the first.
Clement would be coming for her next.
