The comms-relay junction was a forgotten closet deep in the guts of Float-Hab 7, smelling of burnt circuits and salt. Sineus sat in the dark, the green glow of his terminal painting his face. He was a ghost observing other ghosts, their holographic avatars flickering in the simulated grandeur of the Cross-Arcology Assembly. The virtual space was a perfect sphere of polished black obsidian, with thirty floating daises arranged in a tiered spiral. It was designed to project order, a lie contradicted by the barely-suppressed panic in the delegates’ voices. His objective was simple: monitor the political theatre while his handler, Mikhail Volkov, secured the authority Sineus needed to move.
Volkov’s avatar, a severe, broad-shouldered figure in a RosNova director’s uniform, stood firm on his dais. Beside him, Dr. Aris Vance, RosNova’s head neuro-archaeologist, presented data on a floating screen.
— The asset’s trajectory is confirmed, — Volkov’s voice was gravel, a sound of grinding rock against the assembly’s smooth acoustics. — Operative Sineus has the only means of tracking the true vector through the memetic interference. We are requesting emergency operational authority to bypass sovereign bandwidth protocols.
A delegate from the European Union bloc, his avatar a soft-edged man in a suit of shimmering, color-shifting fabric, raised a hand. — “Bypass protocols” is a euphemism for violating sovereign data-space, General Volkov. The market instability from the Chronos Shard’s activation is already costing my constituents trillions. An unsanctioned military action will trigger a full collapse.
— This is not a military action, — Dr. Vance interjected, his tone as sterile as the data he presented. — It is a containment procedure. The signal is a causal anomaly. Our models predict a 73% chance of severe reality degradation at its terminus if it is not secured.
The Pan-African envoy, a tall woman whose avatar wore robes of deep blue patterned with circuit-board gold, spoke next. Her voice was calm but unyielding. — Your models, Doctor. RosNova models. My bloc is responsible for feeding three billion people. Our supply chains are already flickering from the memetic chaos. What guarantees can you offer that your “containment procedure” won’t sever them completely?
The debate circled, a vortex of self-interest and fear. They argued over sanctions, airspace, data-lanes. They were debating the rules of a game that had already ended. They were trying to preserve the controlled lie of their own authority in the face of a chaotic, absolute truth. Sineus watched them, his face impassive. He was not listening to their words. He was watching the main map feed suspended in the center of the virtual chamber.
It was a live projection of the planet, a shimmering blue sphere webbed with the light of data traffic. As the envoys talked, he saw the decay. It started in a minor district of the Shenzhen arcology. The sector didn't just go dark. It glitched, its light stuttering, then resolving into a faint, grey after-image—a ghost of a place that was, for a few seconds, no longer there. A palimpsest scar on the face of the world.
Another one appeared. A trade hub over the Indian subcontinent. Then a financial node in the American Hegemony. The rival memetic edits, the brute-force attacks and narrative shells, were not just obscuring his path. They were un-writing the world. The cost of their inaction was not political; it was causal. He saw the faint, silent flicker of a phantom city, a ghost of what was being erased by their hesitation.
He had heard enough.
His fingers moved across his terminal, pulling up the master encryption keys he had stripped from Augustus Paxton’s channel. He bypassed the assembly’s speaker queue, bypassed the moderator protocols, and patched his own audio feed directly into the chamber’s central broadcast. He created a channel that was not supposed to exist.
His voice, cold and without inflection, cut through the bickering. It was not loud, but it silenced the entire chamber.
— You are debating the rules of a game that ended an hour ago.
The delegates turned as one, their avatars searching for the source of the intrusion. Volkov’s head snapped up, his eyes widening for a fraction of a second before his military discipline took over.
Sineus continued, his voice a blade of ice. — While you draft committees, reality is being deleted. Those are not network outages. They are erasures. Grant me the authority I require to follow the vector. Or I will take it. And the consequences of that action will be yours to bear, but the responsibility will be mine alone.
The choice was laid bare. Not a debate, but an ultimatum. He was forcing them to move from the lie of political process to the truth of necessary action. The price was clear: if they sanctioned his move, they owned the fallout. If they refused, he would act anyway, shattering the last illusion of their collaborative control.
A wave of panicked cross-talk erupted. The European delegate sputtered about protocol. The Archive State observer, silent until now, flagged a formal objection.
Volkov seized the moment. — A vote, — he commanded, his voice overriding the chaos. — Emergency authority for Operative Sineus. Yes or no. Now.
The central map dissolved, replaced by a voting tally. The daises lit up. Green for yes, red for no. The count was a rapid, flickering cascade. For a moment, the reds held a majority. Then the Pan-African envoy, after a long pause, switched her light to green. The Mideast and LatAm blocs followed her lead. They chose the compass over the wall.
The final tally solidified on the screen. 16 For. 14 Against.
A wave of relief and dread washed through the chamber. The motion passed. The deadlock was broken.
Sineus cut his connection. The holographic faces vanished, leaving him alone in the quiet, dusty dark of the relay junction. His terminal chimed with a single, encrypted message from Volkov.
— Authority granted. You are clear. Political risk to RosNova has increased by 40%. Try not to start a war you can’t finish.
Sineus closed the message. He had won. He had forced them to accept a piece of the truth. But the victory had cost his faction its political cover, painting a target on RosNova’s back. It was a necessary price.
The history of the Aletheia Kernel held another secret to its function, and he now had the freedom to pursue it. He pulled up the next encrypted file from his archive, a log from Elina Petrova labeled 'The Poison Pill'.
The air in the junction was still and cold. The distant hum of the habitat’s life support was the only sound.
