Chapter 37 - The Collapse
The morning sun cast long shadows across the cordoned area where the rejects had been herded, three blocks from the main thoroughfare where their chant had once echoed off storefronts and office windows. Now they huddled in a pocket of the city—cracked pavement, shuttered shops, the kind of space the Republic used for things it wanted to forget.
Peter Vang stood at the perimeter, his Sky House emblem catching the light as he surveyed the dwindling crowd. What had been hundreds the day before was maybe fifty now. The rest had trickled away in the night, bellies empty, hope thinner than the morning air.
The funding had dried up first. The clinic tents that had appeared so helpfully at the protest's beginning had vanished overnight. The food lines, the small stipends, the supplies that had kept bodies fed and spirits up—all of it gone as quietly as it had arrived. Without those lifelines, the rejects faced a simple choice: starve for their principles or go home to whatever scraps of survival they could manage.
At the centre of what remained, a man held a phone above his head like a torch. His voice cracked as he shouted to the dispersing crowd.
"Look! The proof is here! CCX marked this device—he blessed it with his sign!" The phone's screen glowed with the CCX wallpaper, the letters seeming to pulse in the morning light. "He heard us! He answered us! We cannot abandon hope now!"
But even as he spoke, more protesters peeled away. A woman with a baby pressed to her chest approached one of the food assistance checkpoints, her face etched with exhaustion. An elderly man whose cough had grown worse overnight accepted vouchers with trembling hands, already calculating the distance to the nearest distribution centre. Three teenagers who'd slept on concrete and woke hungry chose survival over solidarity, surrendering their signs for the promise of a meal.
The enforcers were polite, efficient. "Identification, please. Thank you for your cooperation. These vouchers are valid today only at the listed locations. Next!"
The psychological effect was devastating. Each departure created a visible gap in the crowd. Those who remained could count the empty spaces where their fellow protesters had stood just hours before. Some left with guilty expressions, others with relief. All of them had to walk away—literally walk away—to claim their assistance, their backs turned to the cause they'd supported.
They left their banners behind—rough cloth painted with CCX in strokes heavy as woodcuts. They surrendered their makeshift signs, their slogans scrawled on cardboard that wilted in the morning dew. The Sky enforcers collected these tokens of rebellion with mechanical efficiency, cataloguing each piece before feeding it into industrial shredders.
The sound of tearing fabric and grinding cardboard provided a grim soundtrack to the protest's death.
Mark Berry stood apart from both groups, his shoulders rigid with internal conflict. He clutched a speaker and microphone in one hand, a CCX banner in the other—the tools he'd brought to amplify voices that were already fading. At 30, Mark had spent six months cleaning pods and running errands for Jamie Cash at Wall Pod, just like Chris. But where Chris moved up to IP Oversight, Mark was back at Eagle Logistics—same routes, same cargo, like the Wall Pod job never happened.
The rage that had driven him here wasn't revolutionary fervour—it was the grinding frustration of watching people younger than him succeed while he remained trapped in endless cycles of broken promises. Six months of saving every spare credit for his VR pod certification. Months of following every regulation, learning protocols he barely understood, trying to navigate a system designed for people who'd grown up inside it.
That was when Peter Vang approached him.
"Mark Berry," the Sky enforcer said, his tone conversational rather than confrontational. "I know who you are. Clean tax records and employment history. You're not like them." He gestured toward the remaining rejects. "You're a working citizen with a legitimate grievance, not someone seeking handouts."
Mark tensed, ready for arrest or worse. Instead, Peter continued in the same measured tone.
"Your Deep VR pod certification application with the House of the River. I've reviewed the case files. You've been trying for over 3 months—proper documentation, fees paid, even attempted to work with their cultural liaisons despite being Southern Commonwealth-born. But the paperwork keeps getting lost, transferred, buried in departmental silence."
"You've been tracking my case?" Mark's voice carried surprise and suspicion in equal measure.
"I track all cases that end up in protests. Most of the time, it's just poverty and entitlement. But yours..." Peter shook his head. "You followed every rule, paid every fee, tried to learn their customs despite having no family connections to guide you. You've been patient for longer than what is bureaucratically supposed to happen. That's not justice—that's systemic failure."
Mark felt something dangerous stirring in his chest—hope. The same hope that had been crushed repeatedly whenever another application disappeared into bureaucratic silence. "And you're telling me this why?"
"Because you don't belong here," Peter said, gesturing toward the cordoned area. "You're not seeking to overthrow the system—you're seeking for the system to work as advertised. You want to legally own a private Deep VR pod for personal use, contribute to the economy, pay your taxes. These people..." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "These people have grievances against the system and Republic of the Houses. They want to change the system, so it suits them, not knowing that the system suits everyone best—because it reflects each person's personal contribution, not a god-given right for exploitation.
The man with the phone was still shouting, his voice growing more desperate as his audience continued to shrink. "CCX will return! This phone proves he's watching! He'll liberate us from 210 years of slavery!"
Peter followed Mark's gaze to the scene. "That man is clinging to fantasy because reality has offered him nothing. You're not in that position. You have employment history, tax records, demonstrated understanding of regulations. You just need the bureaucracy to function properly."
Mark studied the Sky enforcer's face, years of disappointment making him wary of official promises. "What's the catch?"
"No catch. Just a request." Peter's hand moved to rest on his House emblem. "Walk away from this. You're a working citizen who deserves better than association with... this." Another gesture toward the protest's remnants. "Your presence here legitimises something that shouldn't be legitimised."
"Talk is cheap," Mark said, thinking of all the Wall Pod customers who got their pods certified immediately through family connections while he remained stuck cleaning them. "I've heard promises before. Papers get lost, cases get transferred, departments claim they never received applications. How do I know this won't be more of the same?"
Peter nodded, as if he'd expected this response. "What would convince you?"
Mark remembered conversations he'd overheard at Wall Pod between House-connected customers, discussions about binding oaths and formal commitments that carried real weight in Republic culture. "Swear on your emblem. Make it a formal promise, not just words."
Peter hesitated. Making such an oath carried real consequences—failure to follow through would stain not just his personal honour but his House's reputation. Then he lifted his hand to the Sky emblem on his chest, fingers tracing its outline with deliberate precision.
"By the authority of the House of the Sky and the honour of my bloodline, I swear to personally investigate and resolve your certification case with the House of the River. If bureaucratic negligence or deliberate obstruction is found, I will pursue it as a matter of inter-House accountability. Your Deep VR pod will be certified, or you will receive full compensation for the delays. This I swear before these witnesses."
The formal cadence carried weight that Mark had never heard in his dealings with lower-level bureaucrats. This was how the Republic worked when officials actually took responsibility instead of passing problems between departments.
Around them, more protesters were giving up, handing over their banners to be shredded, walking away with sagging shoulders and empty hands. The movement was haemorrhaging support as hunger overwhelmed ideology.
"And all I have to do is walk away?"
"All I ask is that you acknowledge the difference between your situation and theirs," Peter said, nodding toward the protesters. "You're a working citizen with a specific, solvable problem. They're seeking revolution when what you need is competent administration."
Mark looked at the speaker in his hand, at the CCX banner that had felt so important just days before. The protest was dying whether he stayed or left. His presence wouldn't revive it, and his absence wouldn't kill it any faster.
But walking away meant abandoning the only community that had listened to his frustrations about the broken certification process, the endless bureaucratic maze, the grinding sense of being excluded from opportunities that others took for granted.
"They're not bad people," he said quietly.
"I never said they were. But they're seeking solutions to problems that protests can't fix." Peter's tone remained neutral. "Your problem has a solution—it just requires cutting through bureaucratic inertia at the right level."
Mark set down the speaker and microphone beside a pile of other abandoned equipment. The banner followed, rough cloth joining dozens of others destined for the shredders. As he handed them over, he caught sight of the reject still holding the phone aloft, still believing in salvation that would never come.
"I hope you keep your word," Mark said to Peter.
"You'll hear from the River House within the week. I guarantee it."
As Mark walked toward the perimeter checkpoint, he heard the phone-wielding reject behind him, voice cracking with desperation: "Don't leave! CCX is real! He gave us this sign!"
Mark didn't look back. The sound cut at him, but he kept walking. He'd tried revolution and found it empty. Now he would try the system one more time, with an enforcer's oath backing him instead of just hope.
But as he reached the cordon, he spotted something that made him pause.
A figure in nondescript clothing, hood pulled up despite the morning warmth, was approaching the protest area from another direction. Something about the man's build, his careful movements, struck Mark as familiar. The way he held his shoulders reminded Mark of someone—someone from his months at Wall Pod.
The hooded figure reached the edge of the crowd and stopped, scanning the faces of the remaining protesters with focused intensity. His attention fixed on the man with the phone, studying the device with interest that went beyond casual curiosity. Then his gaze swept the area more broadly, clearly looking for someone who wasn't there.
Mark found himself lingering at the checkpoint, recognition dawning. Jamie Cash. His former boss at Wall Pod, the man who'd fired him and Chris when the Bears shut down the rental business. What was Jamie doing here, watching the protest's collapse with such calculating attention?
As other departing protesters passed through the checkpoint, Mark noticed Jamie begin following them, maintaining careful distance. The ex-Wall Pod owner was tracking someone, but his quarry wasn't among the remaining die-hards clutching their false prophet's phone.
Mark quickened his pace, uncomfortable with the predatory patience in Jamie's movements. Behind them both, the protest entered its final death throes, but Jamie's presence suggested that not everyone was ready to let the CCX phenomenon die quietly.
The revolution was ending, but Mark had the unsettling feeling that other games were just beginning—involving people who knew more about the mysterious CCX than any of the true believers realised.
He walked toward an uncertain future, carrying Peter Vang's sworn promise and the weight of abandoning the only community that had understood his frustrations. But in his wake, Jamie Cash continued his patient hunt, tracking connections that led back to mysteries the dying protest had never suspected.