He walked back to them through the gloom of the service tunnel. The silence was different now. Before, it had been the quiet of a hunt, tense and full of listening. Now it was the hollow silence of a tomb. The Volkov Codex was a lead weight in his satchel, its dangerous ideas suddenly feeling like the only solid thing left in a world of ghosts. Ksenia and Zora were where he had left them, two points of defiance in the oppressive dark. Zora was on her feet, pacing a tight three-meter line, her wounded shoulder tight against her body. Ksenia sat on a rusted supply crate, her pulse rifle across her lap, her face a mask of cold, controlled analysis. She was calculating odds, running scenarios. He knew she was. It was what she did.
They both looked up as he approached. Their eyes asked the question they wouldn't speak. What now? The plan was dead. Ansel was gone. Voss had their playbook, their secrets, their hope.
Sineus stopped before them. The throb behind his right eye was a dull, rhythmic reminder of Ansel’s agony. He could still taste the blood. He set his jaw against it.
— The plan has changed, — he said. His voice was flat, scraped raw by the psychic feedback, but it did not waver.
Zora stopped pacing. — Changed to what? We have nothing left. No sanctuary. No support. Ansel is… — She couldn't finish the sentence. Her hand tightened on the hilt of her scavenged blade.
— I know what happened to him, — Sineus said, his voice dropping. — I felt it. Voss didn't just take him. He harvested him. For the location of the Codex.
Ksenia’s expression didn't change, but her knuckles went white on the frame of her rifle. — Then he will be at Das Gewirr soon. The book is lost.
— No, — Sineus said. He pulled the Codex from his satchel. The book seemed to absorb the weak light, its synth-leather cover unnaturally dark. — I have it. I took it before we left.
A flicker of something—surprise, maybe even hope—crossed Ksenia’s face before she suppressed it. — A temporary reprieve. He knows where it was. He will know we have it. It changes nothing. Our tactical position is untenable.
— Then we change the tactics, — Sineus said. He looked from Ksenia’s analytical gaze to Zora’s burning anger. — We've been trying to survive. To hide. To run. Ansel wanted to hide. It got him taken. You wanted to fight, Zora. Voss predicted it. He laid a trap and we walked right into it. We have been reacting. That ends.
He held up the Codex. — My ancestor had a word for it. Narrative Dominance. He said you cannot erase a lie. That only feeds the void. You must replace it with a bigger truth.
— Words, — Zora spat, the word a dismissal. — Voss has soldiers. We have words.
— His soldiers follow a script, — Sineus countered, his voice gaining an edge. — His entire strategy is based on a script he writes and predicts. We're not going to fight him. We're not going to run from him. We're going to tell the truth.
He took a breath, the cold, damp air stinging his lungs. He saw his own wavering reflection in a puddle of grimy water at his feet. A distorted man in a dark tunnel. The image flickered, a ghost of a ghost. He looked away from it, back at them.
— We still go to the Chorus Spire.
Ksenia shook her head slowly. — For what? The sabotage plan is compromised. Voss will be waiting.
— We're not going to destroy it, — Sineus said, the plan he had forged in the silence now taking shape in the air between them. — We're going to hijack it. We'll use the blind spot you bought us. We'll get to the core. And we will broadcast.
— Broadcast what? — Zora asked, her voice a low growl. — An apology? A plea?
— No, — Sineus said. The word was sharp, final. — A confession. His confession. We'll broadcast the raw Memorum from the Oblivion Memo. We'll make the entire world hear Maximilian Voss, in his own voice, give the order to murder four thousand five hundred people to 'accelerate market readiness'.
The silence that followed was absolute. The hum of the distant city, the drip of water from a corroded pipe—it all vanished. Ksenia stared at him, her mouth slightly open. She was running the calculations, but the variables were too vast, too chaotic. She was seeing the consequences.
— Sineus… — she began, her voice barely a whisper. — Do you understand what you are proposing? You're not just exposing a man. You're talking about force-feeding a memetic terror event directly into the consciousness of billions of people. Their Autonomic Ledgers won't be able to filter it. It's a truth the system is physically incapable of processing.
She stood up, taking a step toward him. — You will shatter their consensus reality. You will break people. Their minds. Their worlds. It would be a wound that could never heal.
He met her gaze. He did not deny it. This was the price. Not their lives. Everyone's peace. The comfortable, curated lie they lived in.
— Their reality is already broken, — Sineus said, his voice quiet but hard as iron. — They just haven't been allowed to see the cracks. We're not breaking it, Ksenia. We're turning on the lights.
Zora looked from him to Ksenia. The anger in her eyes was slowly being replaced by a different kind of fire. A dawning, terrible understanding. — We make them all watch, — she said, the words clicking into place for her. — We make them all watch him do it.
— Yes, — Sineus said.
Ksenia closed her eyes for a long moment. He could almost hear the frantic logic spinning in her head, the probabilities collapsing into infinities. When she opened them, her expression was one of grim acceptance. The strategist had found the one variable the enemy could not have accounted for.
— His entire strategy is based on prediction, — she said, thinking aloud. — On controlling the narrative. He models behavior. He anticipates responses. This… — She gestured vaguely, encompassing the sheer, world-breaking insanity of the plan. — This is not a military response. It's not a terror attack. It's a philosophical weapon. It is a chaotic variable.
She looked directly at Sineus. — It's the only move he can't have a counter for. Because it's not on the board.
She nodded once. A single, sharp, decisive movement. It was done.
The three of them stood together in the weak light of the tunnel. A new sound seemed to fill the space, the low hum of the Static Veil jammers Zora had planted earlier, their dissonant chorus now sounding less like noise and more like the tuning of a vast, terrible instrument. The air felt charged, electric. They were no longer a cell of survivors reacting to a crisis. They were a fulcrum, and they had just decided to move the world.
Ksenia looked at the chronometer on her wrist, its green digits stark in the gloom.
— The blind spot is opening, — she said.
The time for talking was over.
