The headquarters resembled a prison of illumination and anticipation. Pamela Pauline sat inside a mediation chamber its surfaces gently showing flows of encouraging public information. She kept her eyes on her tablet when he walked in.
"Sit, Devon."
He sat down. The chair adapted to his stance quietly urging him to stay attentive.
"The Ministry of Vital Engagement has submitted an inquiry " she started, her voice even administrative. "Your usage activity. That archive. You were attempting to link to Javier Jeffrey." At last she met his gaze. Her expression wasn't angry. Profoundly let down. A manager whose promising asset was now revealing slight cracks. "I stood up for you. Claimed you were pursuing a lead that your low engagement ratings occasionally led to guesses. Was I mistaken?"
The falsehood felt simpler this time cloaked in a veil of truth. "The suspicion involved evolution " Devon explained, maintaining a weary tone. "Somnum's cult was raw. Aggressive. Like a handed tool. The Aesthetes differ. Delicate. I aimed to discover if the belief system had… transformed. From zealotry, to ideology."
Pamela pondered this her fingers quietly tracing rhythms, on the tablet. "What's your verdict?"
"It has.. Perhaps not, in a manner demanding law enforcement." He tilted forward resembling an analyst piecing together clues. "What if their 'art' is ancient heresy polished? A cultural reuse? Perilous like nostalgia. Not truly threatening."
She observed him silently for moments then exhaled, the strain easing from her shoulders somewhat. "A specialist is coming to Amsterdam tomorrow. Dr. Celia Voss. An art historian. She has written about what she terms 'Baroque Exhaustion'—the era following the Renaissance when extravagance turned overwhelming and art reflected fullness and decline. The Ministry has tasked her with examining production. A cultural risk evaluation." Pamela pushed the tablet toward him. A file materialized. "You will coordinate. Offer background. Take this opportunity to demonstrate that your intuition is logical, not… emotional."
It was a tether. A guided return, to the group. Devon nodded. "Got it."
Dr. Celia Voss didn't operate from a university office. Rather, from a provisional studio established in an old diamond exchange structure. The area was a mosaic of high-definition holoscreens suspended in the air each showing a piece of artwork: a drooping saint painted by Caravaggio, a fading floral still life, the elaborate vertigo-inducing ceiling of a Bavarian chapel that appeared to engulf one's upward stare.
Voss was a woman defined by edges and lively intellectual vitality. Her engagement level Devon observed, was a fluctuating 89% shimmering with intensity.
"Duncan! You're the officer. Great." She withheld her hand motioning him toward a group of pictures. "See. Simply see. Ignore your crime files. Share with me what you sense."
The images she pointed out were creations. The Rotterdam orb. A photo of a white space by Fronie Felicity. A quiet video showing a feather descending inside a vacuum tube. Positioned next to these were fragments, from artworks: the shaded weary eyes of a Magdalene; the contorted exhausted form of a fallen angel; the dark hollow core of a mandorla.
"They're not the same " Devon said, fulfilling his role.
"Are they?" Voss's gaze sparkled. "On the surface yes. Baroque focused on extravagance culminating in downfall. Artistic creation is concerned with chasing emptiness.. The structure, Mr. Duncan. The fundamental language of emotion." She. Beams of light linked the pieces. She singled out a shadow in a Baroque piece the bend of a saint's drooping hand. Then she layered the contemporary curve of the sphere's edge, over it. The forms mirrored each other a language of decline.
Then she performed an act that took Devon's breath away. She extracted the emblem from the confiscated Belphegor archive—the swirling Lethargic Calculus—and removed its ancient complexity distilling its essential shapes. Next she started to superimpose those shapes onto the art.
The soft descending trajectory of the falling feather aligned with the swallowing curve." The concentric hollow rings in an Aesthetic work echoed the spirals found in calculus. Even the layout of platforms, within a Stillness Zone viewed from overhead formed a geometric design that subtly disturbingly evoked the mathematical blasphemy.
"It's not a sect " Voss murmured, her enthusiasm shifting into the wonder of a researcher. "It's an interpretation. The heresy has transformed. Initially it was a discipline for Somnum. Later, in your time a commercialized good—your ' Stillness.' Currently with these creators it's turned into an sensory medium. They have harnessed the mathematics of yielding. Rendered it… exquisite. Acceptable. They aren't enlisting warriors for a demon. They are turning people into followers of a mindset."
Devon's throat felt parched. "Are you suggesting that their artwork embodies the Lethargic Calculus itself?"
"Not the exact operative formula. The essence of it. The core. They have condensed the teaching of the void into an exhibition, a prolonged enactment. It's brilliant. And it is," she faced him her expression suddenly serious, "immeasurably more perilous than your Ministry comprehends. You can detain a zealot. You can control a commodity.. How do you outlaw an aesthetic? How do you charge an emotion?"
She introduced a picture. It was an advertising poster for an Aesthetic event in Geneva. A plain hazy photo of a lake at daybreak. The slogan read: "Surface Tension: A Meditation, on Depth." The creator was indicated as 'F. Fergal & Collective.'
"He isn't concealing himself anymore " Voss explained. "He's shaping the narrative. He's applying the language I've just demonstrated. This event… it won't be a realm, within a marketplace. It will be something. Something that employs this Baroque-inspired lexicon of fatigue to convey a much stronger message."
Devon's comms buzzed urgently with a priority message, from Pamela: "Voss's initial results verified. Geneva event is targeted for interruption. You must support CPB teams. Deploy immediately."
The system grasped Voss's assessment, solely as a menace. It recognized a novel, method, for spreading a virus. It failed to perceive the more dreadful reality Voss had revealed: the virus now existed in the atmosphere in the manner light descended, in the essence of beauty itself. The battle was finished for souls. It had commenced for perceptions.
Voss noticed the shift, in his expression. "You notice it well " she stated, not asking. "You're not present to mediate. You're here to observe the metamorphosis. The heresy has discarded its form once more. It doesn't require grimoires or ceremonies anymore. It demands a silent space, a particular shape, a fleeting instant of mutual fatigue elevated to something sacred." She shut off her holoscreens, the studio fading into shadow. "They're going to attempt to suppress this happening in Geneva. They will be unsuccessful. You cannot break a shadow. You cannot detain an echo."
Devon left the diamond exchange, the coordinates for the Highland Glen burning alongside Celia Voss's words in his mind. The archive was gone. The art was being targeted. The only path left was to the source—to the man who understood the grammar, and to the place where that grammar might be spoken in its original, potent tongue. Flavio was leading the system on a chase through galleries, a beautiful distraction. Devon now held the map to the heart of the quiet.