"The Grid remembers everything. But it grieves for nothing. That's what makes it holy to some, and monstrous to the rest." Eli Renn, Journals of the Collapse (Vol. II, Fragmented Entry)
Location: Sector 7 Perimeter, Outer Gate Compound
The air was colder than it should've been. Not by temperature, but by tension.
Zhen stood just outside the eastern compound gate, wrapped in an old heatcloak that barely worked, boots soaked from half-melted chemical frost. Behind him, the people of Sector 7 were silent, gathering in rough lines that had stopped resembling queues and started resembling vigils.
It had been three days since Vorn's shadow loomed over the grid feeds, promising stability in exchange for surrender.
Zhen didn't believe in altars, but he knew what it felt like to stand at the edge of one. And this place, tonight, was exactly that.
Selis paced near the comms scaffolding, her arms tight across her ribs, knuckles scraped raw from old steel. She hadn't slept. Thom had offered something to help. She'd refused.
"We have to move before morning," she muttered.
Zhen nodded. "They're expecting us to wait."
Eli appeared behind them both, face unreadable, hood low over his eyes.
"No," he said simply. "They want a spectacle."
Selis glanced at him. "They'll get one. But not the kind they wrote."
A transmission blipped through static. Mara's voice. Breathless. Fractured. Something was wrong.
"Inbound convoy. Two minutes out. Fast. Military speed. Not Council-flagged. I think it's him. Vorn."
Selis grabbed the rail. "Weapons up. Defensive arc. We hold the front, push fallback routes on signal."
Zhen flinched. "No chance this is negotiation?"
Eli shook his head. "Vorn doesn't negotiate. He curates."
And then, the engines roared.
Flashback: 5 Years Ago Undergrid Archive, Prototype Chamber
Eli stood beside a younger Daelin Vorn, both watching a blank display in a room where light itself felt afraid to linger.
"They won't understand it," Eli said.
Vorn smiled, boyish then. "They're not meant to. You don't explain oxygen to lungs. You just make sure they keep breathing."
Eli frowned. "You didn't build a network, Daelin. You built a cathedral."
Vorn didn't correct him.
Present — Sector 7 Perimeter Wall
The convoy burst into view with chilling precision. Not armored trucks. Not hovercraft. Just one long, serpentine black vehicle with no insignia, only a thin pulse of light running across its centerline like a heartbeat.
And standing atop it, in a tailored grey coat and neural-thread gloves, was Daelin Vorn.
He wasn't broadcasting through drone, nor through uplink. He came in person.
That was the insult.
And Zhen knew it.
"Stay behind me," Selis said.
"No," Zhen replied.
He stepped forward. Hands open. Not raised. Just... open.
Vorn raised one brow. "Sector Seven's ghost-child. I expected someone taller."
"And I expected a god who knew how to bleed."
The crowd stirred.
Vorn smiled. "You're going to make a very meaningful martyr."
Then the light blinked twice.
Gunfire, Chaos.
Selis screamed his name, but Zhen was already falling.
The round had gone straight through. Chest to back. Clean. Efficient. Like the Grid had calculated his expiration to the millisecond.
People ran. Others stood. A few screamed.
Selis didn't move. She knelt beside him, hands pressed to a wound she couldn't stop, whispering words that were too soft for war.
Zhen's eyes fluttered. Then stilled.
Eli stood still, gaze locked on Vorn.
Vorn just turned, stepped back inside the vehicle, and vanished.
Later That Night
They burned no flags. They fired no shots.
But across the district, hundreds shaved lines into their arms with old blades, mimicking the neural-thread scar that had once marked Zhen's wrist-a symbol of his history, his exile, his survival.
Selis didn't speak until dawn.
When she did, the message echoed from block to block:
"He came to break our backs. Instead, he gave us a reason. He gave us Zhen's name. And that name will live longer than his empire ever will."