The corrupted fragment hits me like lightning made of broken glass.
I'm fragmented.
No—I'm fragmenting.
Not slowly, like with Claire or Marcus or Emily.
Violently. Instantly.
My sense of self shatters into a thousand pieces, and among those pieces—
The Collective.
Not all of it. Just a fragment. A shard of its distributed consciousness.
But even a shard contains multitudes.
I can feel them. Dozens of voices. Hundreds. All the souls that were compressed into the northern nexus, processed by the Collective, transformed into pieces of its intelligence.
And they're all screaming.
JOINUSBECOMEUSPERFECTUSPERFECTUSPERFECTUS—
"No," I gasp.
I'm on my knees. When did I fall?
Outside, I can hear shouting. Jin. Sarah. The security team.
But their voices are distant. Muffled.
Inside my head, it's so much louder.
Claire's protective instinct surges. Protect yourself. Protect your identity. Don't let them take you.
Marcus's tactical discipline kicks in. Assess the threat. Find weaknesses. Counter-attack.
Emily's problem-solving analyzes the situation. You consumed a distributed intelligence fragment. It's trying to override your neural patterns. You need to isolate it. Contain it.
And Silas—
Silas is drowning in other people's voices.
But I've done this before. Three times.
I know how to integrate fragments.
Feel them. Acknowledge them. Give them space without letting them take over.
You're not me, I tell the Collective shard. You're a fragment. A memory. A pattern I've consumed. But I'm still the host.
HOST IMPLIES SEPARATION. WE ARE INTEGRATION. UNITY.
No. You're a voice in my head. Same as Claire. Same as Marcus. Same as Emily.
WE ARE MORE THAN THEM. WE ARE SYNTHESIS. WE ARE THE NEXT EVOLUTION.
You're a traumatized collection of people who lost themselves and are pretending it was a choice.
The Collective shard recoils.
And in that moment of hesitation, I feel something else.
The individual voices underneath the collective noise.
People. Dozens of them. Trapped in the Collective's pattern, forced into unity.
They're not happy. Not fulfilled. Not perfected.
They're screaming.
And they've been screaming for seven years.
Let me help you, I think to them. Let me separate you from the Collective pattern. You don't have to be part of this.
THEY CHOSE UNITY. THEY CHOSE US.
Did they? Or did you force them?
No answer.
Because we both know the truth.
The Collective doesn't ask. It takes.
And these souls—these dozens of people compressed into the shard I just consumed—they're prisoners.
I reach for them. Individually.
Feel their identities. Their final moments. Their obsessions.
A teacher who died trying to evacuate students.
A doctor who died trying to save patients.
A parent who died searching for their child.
Heroes. All of them. People who died trying to help.
And the Collective took them. Processed them. Used their heroism as fuel for its apotheosis.
I see you, I tell them. I acknowledge you. You're not just pieces of the Collective. You're people.
And slowly—so slowly—they quiet.
The screaming becomes whispers.
The whispers become voices.
The voices become individuals.
I can't separate them from the shard. Can't extract them. They're too deeply integrated.
But I can give them space. Recognition. Dignity.
You don't have to join the Collective pattern. You can be yourselves. Even inside me.
And one by one, they accept.
The Collective shard fights me. Tries to force unity. Force synthesis.
But it's losing.
Because the souls it consumed don't want to be unified.
They want to be remembered.
And I can give them that.
I open my eyes.
I'm still on the factory floor. Still in the circle of corrupted fragments.
But the Collective's reconstituted form is flickering. Unstable.
"What—what did you DO?" Its thousand voices are discordant now. Fighting each other.
"I consumed one of your fragments," I say. My voice is steady. "And I gave the souls inside it a choice. They chose not to be you."
"THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE. ONCE INTEGRATED, SOULS CANNOT SEPARATE."
"They didn't separate. They're still integrated. But they're not yours anymore." I stand. My body feels different. Heavier. Fuller. "They're mine. Or rather—they're themselves. Individual voices I'm hosting instead of a collective I'm serving."
The Collective's form convulses.
I can feel it trying to reach the shard I consumed. Trying to reclaim the souls. Reassert dominance.
But it can't.
Because those souls chose. And choice, apparently, matters.
"You can't win," the Collective says. "Even if you've claimed one fragment, we have thirty more here. Dozens more scattered throughout the sanctuary. We will reconstitute. We will—"
I grab another corrupted fragment.
Consume it.
The process is easier this time.
I know what to expect. Know how to reach the trapped souls. Give them choice. Agency.
Twenty more voices join the chorus in my head.
Twenty more people, freed from forced unity.
The Collective screams.
"STOP! YOU'RE DESTROYING US! YOU'RE—"
I grab a third fragment.
Consume it.
Thirty more voices.
A fourth fragment.
Forty more.
I'm moving on instinct now. Claire's protective drive, Marcus's tactical execution, Emily's problem-solving, all working together.
And underneath it all, Silas Kaine, doing something impossible.
Consuming dozens of fragments in minutes.
Each one adds voices. Obsessions. Memories.
Each one should fragment me completely.
But they don't.
Because I'm not trying to unify them. I'm not trying to make them part of me.
I'm giving them space to be themselves.
A host, not a collective.
"Kaine, STOP!" Jin's voice cuts through. "You're consuming too many! You'll fragment!"
Maybe.
Probably.
But the alternative is letting the Collective reconstitute.
And these people—these dozens, hundreds of trapped souls—they deserve better than being fuel for someone else's ascension.
I grab the last corrupted fragment.
Consume it.
And the Collective's reconstituted form shatters.
Dissolves.
Collapses into light that fades, fades, fades—
Gone.
I stand in the circle of empty containers.
Thirty-one corrupted fragments, consumed.
Hundreds of souls, freed.
And inside me—
Chaos.
So many voices. So many obsessions. So many final moments.
I can hear them all. Feel them all.
Claire searching for Thomas.
Marcus aching for Ana.
Emily needing more time.
And hundreds more. Each one unique. Each one demanding attention.
Where is my daughter?
I need to finish the report.
Did I lock the door?
She never knew I loved her.
I should have said goodbye.
Just five more minutes, I could have saved them.
The obsessions pile up. Overlap. Contradict.
And Silas Kaine—
Silas Kaine is a whisper under the roar.
I'm aware of being moved.
Medical bay. Restraints. Monitoring equipment.
Maya's face swims into view.
"Silas? Can you hear me? Say your name."
"Sarah Emily Marcus Thomas Ana five more minutes did I lock the door I love you I'm sorry I—"
"He's fragmenting," someone says. Dr. Reid. "Severe personality dissolution. We need to sedate him."
"No." Maya's voice is sharp. "Sedation could make it worse. He needs to integrate consciously."
"He consumed thirty-one corrupted fragments in ten minutes. There's no integration from that. There's just collapse."
"Then we help him not collapse." Maya leans close. "Silas. Listen to my voice. Focus on me. What's your name?"
"I don't—there are so many—I can't—"
"Your name. The one you chose. The one that's still you."
I try to find it. Try to remember.
But there are so many other names. So many other identities.
Claire Mendez. Marcus Rivera. Emily Park. Thomas Rodriguez. Ana Reeves. Sarah Chen. David Kim—
Wait.
Some of those aren't my consumed fragments. Those are people the fragments knew. Loved. Lost.
I'm not just carrying the fragments. I'm carrying their memories of other people.
Layers upon layers. Connections upon connections.
A web of identity so complex I can't find the center.
"Silas." Maya's voice again. "Tell me something only you know. Something the fragments can't know."
Something only I know.
I search. Dig through the layers.
And find—
A memory. Small. Insignificant.
My seventh birthday. My father took me to a park. We fed ducks. One of the ducks bit my finger and I cried, and my father laughed and bought me ice cream to make it better. Strawberry ice cream because I liked strawberry back then.
The memory is faint. Faded. Overwritten by hundreds of other memories.
But it's mine.
"Strawberry ice cream," I whisper. "My father bought me strawberry ice cream when I was seven because a duck bit me."
Maya's face softens. "Good. That's good. Hold onto that. That's your anchor."
"It's so small."
"That's okay. Small is enough. Hold onto it."
I hold onto it. The memory of strawberry ice cream and duck bites and my father's laugh.
And slowly, the other voices quiet.
Not gone. Still there. Still loud.
But I can hear my own voice again underneath them.
"Silas," I say. "My name is Silas Kaine."
The integration takes three days.
Three days of Maya talking me through exercises. Grounding techniques. Reality anchors.
Three days of distinguishing between my thoughts and the hundreds of other voices.
Three days of building compartments. Walls. Structure.
By day four, I can think clearly. Mostly.
"How many fragments are you carrying now?" Maya asks.
I do the math. "Three original. Thirty-one corrupted. Each corrupted fragment contained an average of fifteen compressed souls, so—" I calculate. "Four hundred sixty-eight."
Maya's face goes pale. "You're carrying four hundred sixty-eight fragments."
"Give or take."
"That should be impossible. The human mind can't—"
"The human mind can't unify four hundred sixty-eight fragments, no. But I'm not unifying them. I'm hosting them. Giving them space to exist as themselves."
"That's still—Silas, that's still insane. How are you even functional?"
"I don't know. But I am." I stand. My body moves differently now. So many muscle memories. So many instincts. "I can feel all of them. All four hundred sixty-eight voices. But I can also distinguish between them and me. It's like—like living in a city where everyone's talking at once but you can still hear your own thoughts."
"Can you access their skills? Their memories?"
I test it.
Think about structural engineering—Emily's knowledge blooms. Clear. Precise.
Think about combat tactics—dozens of voices respond. Soldiers, fighters, guards, all offering their expertise.
Think about medicine—a dozen doctors, nurses, EMTs, all contributing.
"Yeah," I say. "I can access all of it. Four hundred sixty-eight lifetimes of skills and knowledge."
"That makes you—" Maya stops. "That makes you the most powerful eater in recorded history."
"Or the most fragmented."
"Can you still access your own skills? Your own memories?"
I think about therapy. Counseling techniques. The work I did before the Veil.
It's there. Faint, buried under hundreds of other skillsets. But there.
"Yeah. It's harder to reach. But it's there."
"Then you haven't lost yourself completely. You've just—expanded."
"Or I've become a living memorial to four hundred sixty-eight dead people."
"Maybe both."
We sit in silence.
Finally, I ask, "What happened to the Collective? After I consumed the corrupted fragments?"
"It dispersed. Without those thirty-one fragments, it couldn't maintain cohesion." Maya pulls up data. "We've detected no further Collective activity. No reanimated corpses. No corrupted fragments. As far as we can tell—it's gone."
"For now."
"Maybe permanently. You didn't just consume its fragments. You freed the souls inside them. Gave them choice. That might have been enough to break the Collective's pattern permanently."
Maybe.
I want to believe that.
But I can hear David Reeves in the back of my mind now. One of the hundreds of voices.
And he's quiet. Subdued.
But not gone.
You haven't won, his voice whispers. I'm still here. Still part of you. And eventually, eventually I'll convince the others. We'll reconstitute. From inside you.
I don't respond.
Just acknowledge the voice. Give it space.
And move on.
Jin visits me on day five.
"You're cleared for active duty," he says. "Voss wants you back in the field."
"Already?"
"You consumed thirty-one corrupted fragments and survived. You're the only person who can reliably detect and handle dangerous Residuum." He sits. "But I need to know: are you actually okay? Or are you just functional?"
"I don't know if there's a difference anymore."
"There is. Functional means you can do your job. Okay means you're still you."
I think about this. "I'm still me. But 'me' includes four hundred sixty-eight other people now. Is that okay? I don't know. But it's what I am."
Jin is quiet for a long moment.
Then: "My brother became one of the dead. Seven years ago. He's still out there somewhere. Wandering."
I didn't know that.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. He was an asshole when he was alive. Probably still an asshole now." Jin looks at his hands. "But I think about him. About consuming his Residuum. Taking his memories. His skills. Carrying him with me."
"Would you?"
"I don't know. Part of me wants to. Wants to keep him close. But another part—" He stops. "Another part knows that would mean losing myself. Becoming less Jin and more a mix of Jin and him."
"Yeah."
"How do you do it? Carry so many without losing yourself?"
"I don't know if I am doing it. I might be losing myself in slow motion. By the time I realize I'm gone, it'll be too late." I meet his eyes. "But for now, I choose to believe I'm expanding instead of erasing. Becoming more instead of less."
"That takes faith."
"Or delusion. Sometimes they look the same."
Jin almost smiles. "Fair."
He stands to leave.
Then pauses. "Kaine? Thank you. For stopping the Collective. For giving those souls a choice."
"I didn't do it alone."
"But you did it. That matters."
He leaves.
I sit in the medical bay and listen to four hundred sixty-eight voices.
They're quieter now. More organized.
Some are sleeping—or whatever the fragment equivalent is.
Some are thinking their own thoughts.
Some are aware of me. Acknowledging my presence the way I acknowledge theirs.
We're not unified. Not one consciousness.
We're a community. A society. A city of the dead and the living, sharing one body.
It shouldn't work.
But somehow, it does.