Chapter 21 – Another Monday
Preface – The Handshake Era
Before immortality went wireless, even the most advanced neural links still needed something human to hold onto.
Every EX-series prototype required an external handshake through a familiar device — a home rig, a workstation, anything that could prove a living mind was still tethered to a body.
It was a fragile connection of circuits and pulse, the last bridge between flesh and code.
Kai Min's EX-001 node authenticated through his personal computer — a quiet test that was never meant to happen.
A misplaced prototype, a moment of curiosity, and a single connection that changed everything.
When Erevos detected the anomaly, Director Victor Hale dispatched Dr. Eamon Rhys and Lysandra Vail to investigate.
Their assignment was simple: plant a telemetry relay in a tester's rig as part of the Eden Harvest initiative.
But by the time they arrived, Kai had already connected the EX-001.
The handshake completed mid-override — a cascade of light and pulse that fused his consciousness to the node.
Rhys stabilized his body. Vail filed the report. Hale sealed the file within the hour.
A life preserved, a mind displaced.
That glowing fragment of metal became the first true bridge of consciousness — the moment a human crossed completely into a digital world.
By the time Project Eden arrived a year later, the era of handshakes was over.
No hardware. No wires. Only minds.
"We called it a handshake, but it was really a goodbye."
— Dr. Elara Cho
Chapter 21 – Another Monday
Hidden Domain
Morning comes precisely on cue.
The city wakes in soft harmony — windows brightening, trams gliding, conversations rising in a practiced murmur.
Kai Min sits at his desk, cursor blinking against a column of balanced numbers.
Across the aisle, Clara laughs at something on her terminal.
The sound lands exactly where it should, warm and familiar.
Coffee Audit
Clara leans across the partition, a cup balanced perfectly in one manicured hand.
"Your quarterly caffeine expenditure's obscene," she says. "You're single-handedly keeping procurement in the red."
Kai doesn't look up. "I consider it R and D."
"Into what?"
"Human endurance."
She laughs — that same low, precise sound that used to mean you're lucky I'm amused.
She glances at his monitor. "Numbers again? You ever think about taking a creative role?"
"Accounting is creative," he says. "I just paint with smaller mistakes."
Clara smirks, shaking her head. "You're still impossible."
"And you're still pretending not to admire it."
Her lips curve. "Someone has to keep you humble."
The office hums around them — soft, even, unreal.
She lingers a heartbeat too long, then straightens, slipping back into that perfect rhythm of authority.
"Get the reports in by five, Min. Heroism doesn't excuse deadlines."
For a moment, everything feels exactly as it used to — her wit, his deflection, the friction that defined them.
Only the silence that follows gives it away — the world waiting, obedient, for its next cue.
The day unfolds without friction. Noon slides into evening; the office clock strikes five.
Kai pushes back his chair, exhales, and the world shifts.
The hallway dissolves into open air — golden light, a farmhouse, the scent of grass after rain.
Chickens cluck near the fence; two cows wait by the trough.
He loosens his tie and smiles. "Evening, ladies."
He moves through the motions — feeding, milking, humming tunelessly.
Everything answers him with gentle rhythm. The calm is perfect, unearned, infinite.
When he's done, he closes his eyes. The farm fades.
Warm air becomes the low hum of jazz, the smell of citrus and varnish.
He's at a bar now — the one from town, from before.
Clara's there again, at her usual stool, swirling a drink that never empties.
"Rough day?"
"Same as always."
"Feed the cows?"
He raises his glass.
"Kept the world running."
She laughs, and for a moment he can almost believe it's real.
Outside the window, the skyline glows in perfect equilibrium.
Kai breathes in, slow and content. The night folds around him, seamless.
Tomorrow will come, exactly on time.
Another Monday.
Erevos Headquarters — Real World, August 2036
A tower of glass cuts the city sky.
Inside, investors, data-equity analysts, and the Project Eden Steering Committee crowd around a holographic table.
Numbers, projections, and a single waveform pulse above them — steady, rhythmic, alive.
"It hasn't decayed," Dr. Eamon Rhys says. "Nearly a year, and the resonance still holds."
Lysandra Vail enlarges the projection: a miniature city blooming in light — peaceful, complete.
"Kai Min's construct is stable," she says. "Self-sustaining. No corruption, no entropy. He built a viable synthetic world."
The investors murmur. Someone whispers, "The Min Algorithm."
Vail's eyes narrow. "Don't romanticize it. He achieved what Hale never did."
Rhys leans back. "One mind rebuilt reality. Imagine a thousand."
A new holo-banner scrolls overhead:
PROJECT EDEN PHASE II — FULL COMMERCIAL LAUNCH
Investor: "And the stabilizer?"
Vail: "It's self-correcting. Empathic code patterns. We're calling it The Kai Protocol."
Investor 2: "After him?"
Vail: "After what he became."
Rhys: "You're commodifying consciousness."
Vail: "We're refining it. Eden needs gods who obey the market."
Outside the windows, the real city breathes — imperfect, alive — unaware its ghosts are being monetized.
The Survivors
A café on the edge of the harbor.
Clara Hargreaves stirs her coffee until it cools, watching sunlight skip across the water.
Torik Sato drops into the chair opposite her, bringing a young woman — Lina Tao, the survivor they pulled from the tunnels in the last days of DeadZ-2.
"You remember her," Torik says. "Your miracle case."
Lina smiles, tentative. "I remember you both. Kind of."
Clara's mouth softens. "You got out. That's enough."
Dr. Elara Cho arrives next, hood drawn low, followed by Mina Corvin, whose badge still bears the Erevos logo she keeps forgetting to remove.
"Late again," Elara mutters.
Mina grins. "Some of us have day jobs dismantling our fathers' empire."
Clara raises an eyebrow. "How's that going?"
"Terribly. But the coffee's great."
For a moment they almost feel normal — survivors pretending to be ordinary people.
Then Elara reaches into the pocket of her hood, retrieving a small, round device no larger than her palm. She sets it gently on the table. It hums once, low and familiar — thump-thump… thump-thump. The heartbeat signal.
Clara looks up. "Still him?"
Elara nods. "Still stable. Still building."
Torik leans back, exhaling through his teeth. "If Erevos finds a way in —"
"They already have," Mina says quietly. "They're calling it Eden Phase II."
No one speaks. The harbor wind carries the smell of salt and exhaust.
Lina finally breaks the silence. "If he's building a world… maybe he's waiting for us."
Clara looks toward the horizon. Somewhere beyond the neural grid, beyond the hum of servers and circuits, Kai Min's perfect city glows, untouched.
The puck on the table pulses once more. Then twice. The heartbeat stutters.
thump-thump… thump…
Torik frowns. "That's not interference."
Mina squints. "It's rhythmic — structured."
Lina tilts her head, listening. "That's not random," she murmurs. "It's like a code."
Elara glances up. "What kind of code?"
Lina hesitates. "My grandfather taught me this when I was little. It's old — from the early telegraph era. They used it through the world wars — dots and dashes sent as sound or light when radio lines were jammed."
She starts tracing the rhythm in the air with her finger, the pulse mirroring her motion.
"Short, short, long, short… short, short… long, short… long, short, short…"
The table goes still. The sequence repeats, deliberate and patient.
Lina whispers, counting under her breath as her eyes widen.
"That's… F–I–N–D…"
The pulse pauses — a long, breathless beat — then resumes.
"Long, long… short."
She looks up, voice trembling.
"He's saying, Find me."
A silence settles over the table. The pulse begins again — slightly altered, overlapping itself.
Elara taps the puck's edge; a faint blue ring expands outward as it projects a small holographic display above the table. Streams of light flicker, converting rhythm to waveform, waveform to pattern.
"The message's repeating," she murmurs. "But now it's carrying data."
Torik leans forward. "Data?"
Elara breathes out. "Coordinates."
The hologram stabilizes — a red waypoint pulsing in mid-air, projected from the puck.
Only then does Clara's expression change, realization dawning.
She leans closer, studying the display.
"That's his apartment," she says quietly. "I dropped him off there a few times after some late shifts."
Torik stares. "You mean he's still there?"
Elara nods once. "His body never left. That's where the EX-001 first synced — and where it's waking up again."
Outside, the Erevos tower flares white across the bay.
"They're forcing a handshake," Elara whispers.
Power surges through the district. In Kai's old apartment, dust stirs as the ancient computer hums to life.
The screen glows.
AUTHENTICATION REQUEST — USER: KAI MIN [EX-001 NODE]
ACCESS DENIED.
A low tone builds under the city, merging with the heartbeat.
Elara's voice trembles. "They've reawakened his rig."
The café lights die. Drones drop into the harbor.
Something old and loyal to Kai stirs to defend itself.
The heartbeat returns — louder, faster, alive.
Clara whispers, "He's not just awake."
Elara watches the fading hologram. "He's warning us."
The heartbeat keeps time with the tide — steady, relentless, human.
Tomorrow will not come on time.
Fade out.
End of Chapter 21
GlobalNet Bulletin // Erevos Internal Archive 2036-07-02
[Transmission Source : Erevos Media Division – Authorized for Public Release]
Subject : Neural Catastrophe Containment / DeadZ-2 Beta Incident — Official Recovery Report
Following the full collapse of the DeadZ-2 Closed Beta Simulation, Erevos confirms that 249 registered participants were successfully stabilized and extracted from neural-link suspension.
Of these, 156 have regained baseline consciousness.
A further 94 remain under extended neurological observation for partial cognitive restoration.
Independent review by the Neural Ethics Board cites Residual Echo Syndrome (RES) as the primary complication — a neural desynchronization caused by exposure to unregulated empathic code during system cascade.
Symptoms range from temporary aphasia and sensory lag to irreversible motor failure.
Dr. Eamon Rhys, Chief of Neural Recovery Operations:
"The anomaly originated from the experimental EX-001 handshake prototype.
While catastrophic in design failure, it produced one unprecedented outcome — a self-sustaining consciousness loop within the core node.
We believe this loop prevented a total neural burn."
Unconfirmed eyewitness reports from recovered users reference a stabilizing presence inside the simulation — an entity many described simply as "Kai."
Erevos has declined to comment on the nature of this phenomenon, citing active investigation.
Among the extracted survivors are several Erevos-affiliated personnel and civilian beta testers listed as non-critical staff, including:
– Clara Hargreaves – Systems Management / Accounting Division (Manager to Participant #123)
– Torik Sato – Infrastructure Security Contractor
– Dr. Elara Cho – EX-Series R&D Lead / Systems Engineer
– Mina Corvin – Corporate Applicant / Daughter of Marcus Corvin (Board Member)
– Lina Tao – Civilian Beta Access #71 (Communications Specialist)
All have been placed under medical supervision and NDA-bound debriefing.
Casualty Note:
Technicians Jade Herrera and Rico Navarro were lost during the final cascade sequence.
Both were executing manual failsafe commands when Director Hale's override locked the control loop.
Their neural signatures were recursively overwritten during system collapse — confirmed digitally erased after containment breach.
Erevos Statement:
"We extend our gratitude to all participants whose courage has advanced humanity's understanding of immersive cognition.
DeadZ-2 will remain offline until safety parameters meet Project Eden compliance."
Unofficial Addendum — Redacted Internal Memo #A-771
Partial neural-trace data suggests the EX-001 node remains active within off-grid architecture.
Attempts to re-locate its origin are ongoing.
Recovered logs indicate residual signal patterns matching a human cardiac rhythm.
Pattern Classification: Unresolved
Codename: KAI PROTOCOL
End Transmission.