The dreams started simple for Marcus. Just the feeling again, the one that guided his patrols. But now, in sleep, it had a shape.
A shape like a flower made of dark metal. A silent, spinning thing hanging in the black above the world. And a hand—vast, calm, impossible to see clearly—resting on a giant, simple dial. The dial was turned to a setting that glowed a familiar, fierce orange-gold.
He'd wake up sweating, not from fear, but from a sense of scale. He was being… managed. Not by God. By a system.
He started sketching. On napkins, on the back of utility bills. Always the same thing: the petal-shape, the dial, the light. He didn't know what it was. He just knew it was real. It was the source of the Map in his head.
In Pune, the alarm was silent but shrill in my mind.
Ganesh's message was urgent. "Bhai. Chicago asset. He is drawing. Sending images."
The files came through. Sketches. Crude, but unmistakable. The Silent Choir. The resonance dial. He'd even captured the corrupted lattice of the junk amplifier clinging to it like a tumor.
Ye kya bawaseer bana diya hai. What a mess I've created.
This wasn't just power anymore. This was awareness. My accidental saint wasn't just accepting the gift. He was tracing the delivery address. And he was getting close.
Panic was a luxury. I had three choices:
Suppress him. Have MAKA stage an accident. Messy. Wasteful. A potential psychic backlash I couldn't calculate.
Reveal myself. Impossible. The moment he sees the man behind the curtain, the whole "divine frequency" illusion shatters. He might break.
Guide him. Reinforce the illusion. Give the "Source" a voice.
I chose option three. I was too deep in the fiction to break it now.
I accessed the Silent Choir's interface. Not the amplifier. Deeper. There was a primitive, psychic projection array—meant for broadcasting calming hymns to converts. I could repurpose it. For one night. For one man.
I tuned it to Marcus's unique psychic signature, a faint echo of the Durga/Kali frequency he was broadcasting. I composed a message. Not words. Concepts. Pure, resonant meaning.
I sent the pulse.
Chicago. 3 AM.
Marcus shot up in bed, a gasp ripped from his throat. The dream wasn't a dream this time. It was a presence.
The flower-ship filled his mind's eye, vast and silent. The unseen hand rested on the dial. And then, a command bloomed in his soul, not heard, but known:
PROTECT.
THE FLOCK IS YOUR PURPOSE.
DO NOT SEEK THE SHEPHERD.
THE SHIELD MUST HOLD.
It was absolute. It was divine law written into his bones. The desperate, clawing need to understand, to find the source, evaporated. Replaced by a crystal-clear mission.
He was not meant to know. He was meant to do.
He looked at his scattered sketches. For the first time, they looked childish. Presumptuous. He gathered them all, lit the gas stove, and burned them, watching the petal-shape curl and blacken into ash.
The Map in his head didn't fade. It sharpened. The edges became clearer. His purpose was now a compass needle, locked true north.
He went to his window, looking out at the sleeping, vulnerable streets of his beat.
The shield must hold, echoed in the silence of his spirit.
He nodded, once. Understood.
I watched the biometric feed MAKA scraped from his smartwatch. The spike of anxiety during the projection. Then the rapid drop into a deep, steady, purposeful rhythm. His heart rate slowed. His breathing evened. The neural seeking pattern flatlined.
He had accepted his role.
I closed the interface, my own heart pounding. The reserve had dipped another 0.1%. The cost of revelation.
It worked. I hadn't just given him power. I had given him theology. A purpose that neatly bypassed the need for a personal god. He served the Shield. The Shield protected the Flock. I was the mechanic, not the deity.
A cold, profound relief washed over me, followed by a deeper chill.
I could do this. I could guide them. Shape their understanding of their own power. Keep them useful. Keep them from looking back at me.
But the thought that followed was a whisper of pure dread: What happens when the next one doesn't listen?
I had just ordained my first true disciple. And in doing so, I realized I was now running a church where I was the only atheist. The gardener had just pruned his first seeking branch. The tree was now growing exactly as directed.
Bas, I thought, the Hinglish reflex calming me. Chalega. It will work.
For now.