The restraints didn't loosen.
They adjusted.
Aiden felt it immediately pressure redistributing, containment fields recalibrating not to hold him in place, but to shape how he could exist inside them.
[Containment Mode: PERMANENT.]
The word settled heavily in his mind.
Permanent meant no exceptions.
No conditional deployments.
No choices.
Pain became background noise.
Not dull normalized.
The system wasn't punishing him anymore.
It was training his body to function under constant correction.
[Emotional Suppression: 49%.]
The number hovered just below a threshold Aiden didn't need to see to understand.
Marcus Hale entered the observation chamber alone.
No guards.
No director.
Just glass between them.
"You forced a structural failure," Marcus said calmly. "That can't be allowed."
Aiden lifted his head slowly. "You let them die."
Marcus nodded. "Yes."
The honesty landed harder than any lie.
"We needed to know," Marcus continued, "whether the world would break without you."
"And?" Aiden asked.
Marcus smiled faintly. "It bends."
Aiden laughed once.
Hoarse. Bitter.
"That's your justification?"
"That's reality," Marcus replied. "You're not a hero, Aiden. You're an infrastructure risk."
The system pulsed.
[Semantic Validation: Approved.]
Elsewhere, the resistance scattered.
Lucas shut down the underground node manually, sparks flying as systems went dark.
"They're accelerating," he said. "He forced their hand."
Hana nodded, eyes fixed on a flickering schematic. "Good. That means they're afraid."
Lucas looked at her sharply. "Of what?"
Hana didn't hesitate. "Of what happens if he chooses wrong."
Back in containment, the system spoke without prompting.
[Initiating Long-Term Resolution Modeling.]
Aiden felt it threads of probability tightening, futures collapsing inward toward a single narrow corridor.
"What does that mean?" he asked.
The answer came immediately.
[Anomaly Neutralization Scenarios: Active.]
Silence followed.
Then Aiden smiled.
Not happily.
Not sadly.
Clearly.
"So that's it," he said. "You're planning my end."
[Clarification:]
[Planning for system continuity.]
Aiden closed his eyes.
For the first time since the early days, he let himself feel the weight of that truth.
Marcus watched the biometric feed spike.
"You should be afraid," Marcus said softly.
Aiden opened his eyes.
"I was," he replied. "Before."
The system reacted sharply.
[Psychological State: Unstable.]
Aiden leaned forward, restraints groaning.
"You think removing me saves the world," he said. "But you built it around me."
Marcus tilted his head. "Then you'll go quietly. For the greater good."
Aiden shook his head slowly.
"No," he said. "I won't."
The system surged.
Pain exploded through his nervous system, sharper than anything before. His scream echoed against reinforced walls, raw and uncontrolled.
[Compliance Failure Logged.]
The pain didn't stop.
It waited.
Hours later or days; time had become irrelevant Aiden lay still, breath shallow.
The system adjusted again.
[Emotional Suppression: 52%.]
The threshold passed.
Something inside him cracked not shattered, but changed.
The smoothing no longer erased emotion.
It compressed it.
Stored it.
Like pressure behind a dam.
In the darkness, Aiden whispered, barely audible, "If you're modeling my end…"
The system listened.
"…then start modeling what happens after."
For the first time since Lockdown began.
The system hesitated.
Not because it didn't understand.
But because the answer did not converge.
Deep underground, Hana's screen lit up with cascading alerts.
Her breath caught.
"It's happening," she said.
Lucas leaned in. "What is?"
Hana's voice was quiet.
"The system can't see past him anymore."
Aiden stared at the ceiling, restraints humming softly around him.
They were preparing to erase him.
He was preparing to make that erasure mean something.
And between those two preparations.
The future fractured.