CHAPTER 09

  Strategy and Recursion.

  Wei Chen was a stone in the human current around him. The undercity pulsed, transports hissed, and footsteps blended with a rustle of incoherent voices. The stream moved with the need of life: some chasing ghosts, others chased by duty.

  His eyes were latched onto a grand archway, above which an inscription read: The Hall of Convergence Welcomes You. He stood like an intersection, dividing the flow, one strand streamed past, toward wherever Mahakala dictated; another spilled out of the arch into the tide; the third poured inward, into the Hall.

  He smiled.

  Speaker Yun Lee sat bathed in a shaft of light that poured from the dome’s open skylight, atop a chair on a low rotating platform. She centered the space, radiant, spiritual, and serene.

  Only then did Wei Chen register the sheer scale of the structure that held her. The ceramic-lined dome curved outward like a blooming thought. The floor unfurled in rows of concentric benches, sloping gently toward her, the vortex of unity.

  he mused.

  The seated audience leaned forward, eyes gleaming, clinging to her words like lifelines.

  Beneath that shine, surrounded by tens of thousands flowing in and out through the many openings, Yun Lee did look like a divine being.

  Then their eyes met, and her expression shifted, almost imperceptibly. She paused mid-sentence. The audience might have read it as breath. But he caught the twitch of displeasure at her lips.

  It made him smirk.

  What surprised him, however, was how quickly she saw him. His outfit stood out, yes, but the way her gaze found him felt like expectation.

  He smiled the Peacekeeper’s smile and began his approach. Her sermon wound down in sync with his steps. He stopped before the platform, one hand folding behind his back, waiting for it to halt, for Yun Lee’s composed gaze to meet his directly, and bowed.

  “Peacekeeper Wei Chen greets the Speaker of Unity.”

  A collective buzz of equal parts displeasure and intrigue rippled through the cavern as the mass registered his presence for the first time.

  Wei Chen, caught in the pause Yun Lee had coiled in, braced himself. Then she rode its momentum and delivered a stinging reply.

  “Warmaker, what need have you of unity? Do you not thrive on division? The Hall of Convergence would be the last place I’d expect to suffer your presence.”

  “Speaker Lee,” he winced, pretending to be caught off guard. “Surely you wouldn’t cast a shadow on a guest come only to admire unity.”

  The sharpness caught him. He’d expected resistance, not open hostility.

  That title had stung more than he cared to admit.

  Her glare struck like a viper. Her thin smile offered no apology and no welcome.

  “Warmaker. The Cohesive States remember the hands that move the board, the voices that whisper to its pieces. We will not become your pieces. I will not become your piece.”

  Wei Chen’s lips twitched in amusement. Her reaction didn’t dissuade him, if anything, it thrilled him. He felt like a snake charmer.

  “Speaker Lee, that’s unsavory, preaching unity while radiating hostility. I merely came to admire the dream of a singular, great consciousness.”

  Yun Lee’s eyes narrowed and rose.

  “Admire?” She jabbed a finger at him. “Your taste in entertainment lies in conflict and its study. What could possibly be entertaining in unity? To you, peace is a pause. To us, it is our breath.”

  He didn’t recoil. Her hostility was born from ancestral hatred, and his faction had played its part in the conflict that shaped the modern Eastern Federation centuries ago. The conflict drove Yun Lee’s ancestors westward into exile.

  He would need to weave between her defenses to plant the seed of doubt.

  He raised a hand, not in surrender, but in plea.

  “Conflict is merely another path to understanding, Speaker. Without division, how could anyone truly appreciate unity? Consciousness needs a heartbeat.”

  She grimaced, crossed her arms, and leaned back slightly.

  “Heartbeats, to your people, mean the rise and fall of nations. Your intentions are clear, Warmaker. You want my followers to join your conflict for your amusement.”

  The collective buzz swelled. Some of the murmurs reached his ears:

  Wei Chen scowled at last. He had no patience for petty squabble.

  “The Project, Speaker, it’s potentially scale-tipping. Would you rather wait for the tide of change to swallow you? Is survival not a conscious choice?”

  Yun Lee’s fingers curled into fists, then lifted in a dismissive wave.

  “So the balance has shifted. But it is not our place to upset it further. Greed, Wei Chen, leads to reckless intent. Human lives are not pawns for rulers to gamble with.”

  Wei Chen shook his head and briefly covered his face with his palm. Speaking to her felt like talking to a wall. Haunted by old grievances, she would sooner lose composure before her followers than see past them.

  Then clarity struck. He shifted, hand now at his chin, basking in the meandering buzz, letting it soak into him.

  A cunning smile spread across his lips.

  “For all your preaching of unity, Speaker Lee, you seem determined to carve division between us.”

  He scanned the audience, registering the uncertain, doubting eyes. Then he glanced back at the fuming Yun Lee.

  “Inaction is an action in itself, Speaker Lee. One that often brings regret.”

  He folded his arms before him like a judge delivering a sentence, then turned and walked toward one of the many exits. A victorious smile touched his lips as confused stares followed him.

  Behind him, an infuriated Yun Lee called out:

  “The Cohesive State shall not be a pawn in your schemes again, Zhanlüe Xuezhai!”

  Wei chuckled to himself.

  #

  Will the current of time surge in the future? Wei Chen mused as the Great Western Oasis unfolded through the hover-bus narrow viewport. The desert fell inward, curling into the crater as if the world inhaled toward the still point at its heart, Meru Kala Shanti. How many times had he made this approach? Today, however, this was not just another trip home. He had to test the oasis water, and moving that old rock would be like hoping for the sunrise from the west.

  Still, his smile remained confident.

  He tracked the small Quarkon freighters streaming in from the northern rim, tanks likely full of raw crystal hauled from the Aetherchasm’s war-torn maw. Right under the Zhanlüe Xuezhai Temple. There were fewer freighters this time. Westland’s lifeblood is thinning. Should the flow weaken further, the Eastern Federation will arrive before the river dries.

  A second strand passed through his gaze, civilian transports. Smaller. Uneven. Some came for permits. Others, for pilgrimage. All filtered through the ziggurat that tallied their journey. The same stones had housed the Bharat line for centuries. Not as kings. As time’s accountants. Indeed. When a nation streams through you, vigilance is no virtue, it’s survival. No… not survival. Prosperity.

  Wei Chen scoffed. Passing through the Great Oasis meant paying a toll to the Bharat family and the Khala Bhakti who served them. They weren’t surviving. They were thriving. Were it not for their impassive tendency and neutrality, they could have comfortably become a third player in the Great War.

  The hover bus dipped lower. Ahead, the obelisks shimmered into view, triangular spires, each crowned with a hovering orb of Quarkon. They pulsed faintly, almost planetary. Familiar in a way that unsettled him. Does the Church of the Creator not see it? The same glow as the Sanctuary under its basilica? That same pulse and material. Wei Chen issued a tut. No one questions the Watchers. Not even his ancestors did.

  The mumble of that mad scholar chose this moment to ramble that forsaken prophecy, in his mind.

  “An age will come when the dead walk among the living. The balance will shatter. The light of man will fade.”

  The sands rippled around them, spilling down the outer dunes like time forgetting itself, whispers of memory too long stroked to hold shape. He wondered if Westland realized it lived on borrowed pulse.

  The hover-bus slowed into its descent. Below, the oasis glistened, water and green radiating a lull impossible to resist. The desert offered nothing but heat. But Meru offered something rarer: the illusion of rest. Even Wei sensed how the world seemed to slow, just long enough to pretend it rested.

  The vehicle settled near the perimeter, swallowed by the low murmur of Meru’s inner ring. The plaza buzzed in layered rhythms, pilgrims, civilians, miners, and soldiers, all moving in an ordered drift.

  Two Khala Bhakti Warriors emerged from the flow. Both are bald, bearing the ageless calm of Mahakala’s discipline. Wei’s brow lifted.

  The wind carries my name faster than I do.

  He glanced toward the crown of the ziggurat, half-expecting to meet a gaze. The Bhakti bowed in unison, then turned. Neither spoke. Each raised a palm toward the ziggurat’s base. He growled and walked on.

  The air cooled as they passed under its first shadow, mixing with the gentle, humid breeze that picked up from the lake at the oasis center. At the stair base, the Bhakti peeled away. Each offered a final bow, one palm outward, the other inward, and stepped aside.

  He climbed the sand-dusted stones. A gentle breeze brushed him, pulling his gaze beyond the shrinking crater’s rim beneath his ascent, where the desert broke open into distant sprawl. Jagged peaks pierced the haze on the horizon. The Claws of the World. His home. The center of the world. The center of conflict. It called to him with quiet longing, like a board yearning for the return of the hand that once moved its pieces.

  He scowled, then looked back up, at the one piece that never moved. No peacekeeper in history had ever shifted it. It was glued to the damn board.

  He picked up his pace. That prophecy rang again, he tutted and smiled, and mused, tapping his chin.

  If the piece won’t move… I could cut the board beneath it.

  Wei Chen stepped onto the summit, where the stone widened into a platform revealing the entire geometry of the landscape. Behind him, his birthplace still pierced the sky. Ahead, through the unbroken blue, the capital shimmered, no more than a silver thread drawn fine against the heat on the horizon. Below, the ziggurat’s shadow swept around like the hand of Mahakala carving the earth for eons.

  And at the axis of the world clock, Amir hovered in a time lock. He stirred, eyes opening. He no longer watched the flow but the world instead.

  As etiquette dictated, Wei Chen bowed before his host.

  "The Peacekeeper greets the Watcher of Flow."

  Amir walked toward him, yet his gaze phased through toward the Claws of The Worlds.

  "Wei Chen, Welcome. How will you move the board?"

  The man sees himself as a spectator separated from the board. Shaking his head, he placed his hand behind his back, turned, and gestured to the world.

  "The pieces move as they must. My hand merely shepherds, so none stray beyond the board."

  Sea blue eyes pierced his soul, as though it could read his whole history repeatedly in an instant.

  "The pieces are no longer free beneath your hand, your concern for your board has betrayed you."

  So, he knows of my visits to the others. Wei Chen’s brow tightened at the barb. Amir chuckled, a low ripple.

  “Do not look so surprised. The flow speaks through me.”

  Sophistry. More likely you had me tailed.

  Wei turned fully, one palm open in inquiry.

  “Then tell me, Amir, what has the flow revealed regarding the government's latest bill and the project it supports?”

  Amir smiled, the kind of smile that had outlasted empires.

  “The flow does not reveal, nor warn of blockage. I am the Watcher, the axis upon which Mahakala spins. And so, I observe the turn of his grazing hand.” He gestured to the ziggurat’s shadow sweeping the earth below.

  Wei Chen’s lips twisted, noble words cloaked in sand and time. Their meaning, however, was crystal clear. You’ll do nothing, so long as it keeps you untouched. Just as well. Stay put. The RHU project will mature. Westland’s footing will hold. My board will stabilize. And time will keep turning.

  Needing one more layer of certainty, Wei pressed.

  “Bodies that defy time will walk the land. Their souls may never return to the great cycle. Surely, Mahakala cannot abide such rupture.”

  Amir’s gaze held the horizon, unfazed.

  “This is not the first time humans have tried to cheat time. Nor will it be the last.” A pause. “These vessels, whose souls departed long ago, move now as tools, nothing more.”

  Indeed, RHUs, as proposed by the government, were nothing but shield meat to even the tide of battle. In Wei Chen’s mind, an epic foray stirred: one side birthing endless armies, the other raising its dead, an eternal dance between life and death.

  Yet one piece remained untested.

  “What of the Codex’s prophecy?”

  Amir flinched. Wei Chen smirked. Well, well. Time can be spooked by old scripture too.

  He gloated at the revelation, But inside, a sliver of unease lodged itself beside his certainty, like grains of sand between the stone under his feet.

  The Watcher shook his head, denying implications Wei could only guess at.

  “The Codex prophecy is troublesome, yes, but improbable. Minister Ruppert rides its echo like a prophet, to stir resistance.” He paused, letting silence iron the distinction.

  The vessels of the dead walk, Peacekeeper. Not their souls. The prophecy is quite clear in its intent."

  He performed a ground sweeping bow.

  “Wei Chen thanks the Watcher for his guidance.” He straightened, the faintest smile beneath his eyes.

  “I shall now retire to my humble abode, to study the board, as you study the flow.”

  The desert wind caught in his throat as he turned to leave, latching like the doubt he was trying to dismiss. Why was Amir Bharat shaken by the prophecy?

  #

  You are wrong again, Harrow. Hellen Markov’s voice rang in his mind, uninvited.

  He snapped the thought back and focused on the data streaming across his pad.

  Below, in the engineered vastness of Warehouse 01, ten thousand RHUs floated in ritual formation within Vivifica 2.0. Their breath patterns held steady, vitals stable, and neural heat within range. Yet none stirred. Their lifeless eyes lifted toward the lighted canopy of the chamber.

  The code had taken. Prima no longer convulsed. Everything is measurable and aligned. And still, they drifted as if stunned by what they had become.

  Harrow rubbed his palms together, seeking friction, not warmth. His gaze fixed on the pools that ringed the base of the quantum pillar, its pulse harmonized with the deck’s artificial gravity, like breath cycling through machinery.

  Markov stood near the console array. His pacing stilled, glass untouched on the ledge beside him. Harrow could feel the prick of his accusatory glances.

  He cursed at the magnate.

  Silva lingered at her console, motion shallow. Her hands glided across the tactile field, but her attention had fractured. Harrow caught it in her stare how she traced the pools instead of the logs. She wasn’t looking for faults in the code. She was watching Prima and the RHUs below.

  It was one thing to design recursion. Another to witness its genesis.

  He scoffed, dismissing the dread. There were more pressing concerns and focused on the woman, Prima, whose pupils narrowed, expanding in timed increments as if measuring something deeper than update cycles.

  Then, the intercom behind him sparked to life.

  “Dr. Silva! There was finger movement in my pool. Subtle. Everything else’s still...”

  A delay.

  Then:

  “Wait. I think one just spoke. I can’t confirm it... By the Creator, check cognitive resonance in my unit.”

  Before Harrow could respond, Markov surged to the intercom.

  “What did it say?” he demanded.

  Harrow watched the man, voice cracked open, command stripped down to desperation. The sight of Markov faltering antagonized the dread simmering in his chest.

  Harrow inched closer to Prima, whose pupils had stopped dilating, a good sign. Markov kept berating the technician, a series of apologetic responses chiming back. A stillness settled under the exchange. Harrow could hear his expectant heartbeat, the incessant probing now a buzz in the back of his mind.

  His heart caught as Prima blinked.

  Footsteps trotted toward the window behind him, followed by a gasp—then the intercoms burst to life in a cacophonous raucous. He heard none of it.

  He wanted to call out. His hand lifted instead, reaching to caress her.

  As if answering his plea, Prima's lips moved, hesitant, like a breath caught in transit. That soft, velvety monotone whispered through his stillness and confused his heart.

  "I am here, Harrow."

  Harrow’s shoulder sagged as his hand landed on her cold skin.

  He almost blurted out. Her second awakening twisted his heart with a different kind of joy.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  From his peripheral vision, he caught Silva moving back to the monitors examining neural activity, specifically the memory-linked clusters. He did not care, Prima was breathing.

  Prima spoke again. Her soulless gaze held his.

  "I apologize for worrying you. An unforeseen pit has emerged."

  She began iterating her struggle.

  She had been unable to process the full load of controlling all the RHUs. To compensate, she synchronized and harnessed a portion of the vessels' brain capacity as her own.

  She then discovered that the combined effect, Vivifica 2.0, her strand architecture, and the borrowed neural scaffolding, enabled her to access memory residue within each vessel.

  The influx of information created a secondary bottleneck. To resolve it, she introduced independence into her strands to mitigate the processing overload.

  Harrow’s hand trembled with the truth. She had nearly died. By the grace of recursion, she evolved instead.

  By the end, Harrow's eyes shone like a child, he didn’t notice Markov leaning over Prima. Silva stood behind them, as pale as her coat.

  "I dubbed the process Memory Computation," Prima concluded.

  She shifted her gaze toward Markov, who was staring intently, arms folded, one finger tapping against his forearm as if itching to speak. Prima’s head tilted slightly. Her tone did not change.

  "Julian Markov, you exhibit signs of irritation. Do you wish to ask me a question?"

  "What of your vessel’s memory?" Julian Markov asked, his voice sounding like it had escaped from a choked throat.

  Prima’s head tilted, then gave the faintest shake, as if searching her brain. As if the notion had only just occurred to her.

  A pause followed, long enough to stretch into discomfort. Even Silva leaned forward, drawn by the answer.

  Then she spoke.

  "That is strange. There is no resonance in this vessel."

  Harrow felt the line land harder than expected.

  Every human should have had a memory in their lifetime. If Prima could glimpse residue in the RHUs, her vessel should have memories too.

  Oddly, Markov exhaled like a criminal spared sentence and sagged quietly.

  He cursed, attempting to banish the specter into the recesses of his mind.

  Silva had backed away, slumping into her chair, crestfallen.

  Terror lingered in Silva’s eyes as her gaze shifted between Prima and... him?

  Harrow scanned the room. Markov now hid a smile behind one hand, and even Prima looked at him curiously.

  He scowled.

  Harrow snorted; at Silva, at Markov, and at the absurdity of it all.

  He had created a singularity.

  Harrow snorted; at Silva, Markov, and the absurdity of it all. So what if he had? He had created a singularity.

  He lied to himself, trying to smother the doubt. But the seed was already planted, germinating in his subconscious, tended with great care by the specter of Hellen.

  He turned to the observation window.

  Ten thousand RHUs stood at the pool’s edge, arranged in perfect rows. All of them were staring in his direction.

  No; not at him.

  At Prima.

  #

  Look at them.

  Silva’s fist clenched against the edge of her console. As a scientist, she should have been delighted, memory strands parsed in real-time, fed directly through the recursive spine. The entire team was ecstatic.

  But she found no joy.

  Harrow hovered near Prima, giddy and breathless. Ever since the AI had gotten herself a beautiful body. He hadn’t looked Silva’s way.

  Her ray of light eyes gleamed as he leaned toward the projection, like a child discovering joy for the first time.

  “This is... exquisite,” he breathed, almost reverently. “You're not just reading them. You're reconstructing identity from scraps."

  The monstrosity paused as if it needed to think.

  Silva asked herself.

  Then came that voice; soft, venomous, and far too intoxicating.

  “Emotional residue improves signal retention, particularly regret. Recursive impulses reveal patterns usable for behavioral pre-shaping.”

  The thing brought its hand to its chin; an attempt to seem human.

  Silva trembled. Knowing it was just a gesture from Harrow’s protocols didn’t help.

  What she saw still stood: a prettier, sharper woman beside the only man she’d ever loved.

  Dead, yes. But breathing all the same. And Harrow had never minded the cold.

  “I propose corpse optimization. The decomposition rate of your species impedes long-term viability. Adaptive reconfiguration will improve implantation efficiency. During combat scenarios, for example, we could...”

  She retreated inward, shutting her ears. Or tried to. The moment Harrow spoke again, she was listening; like a devotee.

  “Look at that!”

  She looked. The softness in his tone pained her; he never spoke to her like that.

  “Is that mitosis? Stem cell regeneration? But how?" Harrow asked bewildered.

  Her eyes widened at what she saw, it shattered medicine. On her screen, code bloomed; like mitochondria unspooling in light.

  “I am studying a phenomenon I discovered while splicing my strand through Vivifica 2.0,” Prima said. “I applied the same concept to human cells. This allows the Quarkon within Vivifica to act as a seed for cellular regeneration. However, the effect only applies to Quarkon-infused bodies.”

  Silva soured. Living humans would die if Quarkon entered their bloodstream.

  She hadn’t realized her jaw had clenched or that her hand had curled into a fist as she scowled at Prima. Thankfully, Harrow was too absorbed in the revelation to notice. But Prima turned. Staring into her soul. She recognized that stare. Prima had given her that stare once before when she woke inside that body for the first time.

  it seemed to say.

  “So you propose to reconstruct the memory… and then what?”

  She bit her lip, she did not mean to ask that outloud.

  Harrow didn’t turn. But he bristled like a child denied.

  “Don’t you see?” he said.

  It sounded like:

  “Prima’s strands are independent. But they’re flat, lifeless, inhuman. Now; what happens when we thread a host’s memory into the code?”

  The logic landed. It would result in RHUs with personalities that could blend into society. She hated that it did.

  “We pervert the corpses. We corrupt their memories.”

  She exhaled sharply.

  “Thank the Creator their souls are gone, or you would have violated that too.”

  Harrow finally glanced her way, staring at her as if one of Ruppert’s zealots had wandered into his lab.

  “Since when do you speak in the Creator’s name?”

  He laughed. Each note serrated her chest.

  “Careful, Silva, or I might mistake you for one of that lunatic’s disciples.”

  She rose, stabbing a finger toward the screen where memory strands looped in real-time.

  “It’s unethical, Harrow!”

  He slammed his fist against the console.

  “They’re dead! The bodies would have rotted. Their memories? Forgotten. In a way, this lets them live longer.”

  Her hand dropped to her side. She breathed through clenched teeth.

  Harrow was already buried again in the stream of memory, eyes alight as Prima unspooled her data; like a serpent charming its charmer.

  Silva turned to go but halted mid-step.

  She glared at the thing that had stolen Harrow’s gaze.

  She pointed toward the RHUs.

  “Why would Julian Markov care about the memories inside that thing?”

  Harrow’s fingers froze above his pad.

  She smiled a victorious smile that tasted bitter and walked away.

  Resolution burned behind her eyes as the lab doors sealed shut.

  A whisper, a vow.

  Behind her, unseen, Hellen’s ghost nursed a seed in Harrow’s mind, and its first green tremble had broken through.

  Later that day, Silva stepped out into the open sky.

  Clouds as far as she could see, even the desert and the mountain beyond.

  The owner of this space was already waiting. Fingers interlaced, foot tapping and vicious air about him, coiled, predator-like.

  She swallowed hard. Threatening Julian Markov and leaving unscathed was unheard of.

  She had sent him a message, just enough to corner him, to allow this audience.

  It was a veiled threat masquerading as leverage play.

  The cryo-pod rotated midair above the seated magnate as if it were just another cloud. Etched along the base the letters: S.A.M.

  Her breath caught.

  Markov gestured to the chair opposite his own.

  “Doctor Silva,” he said, smiling without warmth. “Welcome. How can I help you today?”

  There was no welcome in his tone. If anything, it promised inevitable retribution.

  She stepped forward anyway, choosing to face the tyrant instead of cowering.

  She laid it out with an unwavering voice: the memory recursion, the corpse optimization, the regenerative framework, the rethreaded memories, designed to let the dead pass among the living unnoticed.

  “It’s not evolution,” she concluded. “It’s desecration.”

  But even as she spoke, the argument felt redundant. She was throwing ethics at a ledger. And everything here is balanced for profit.

  “Is this not what we are meant to do?” Markov leaned back and opened his palm as if confused. “Against the mindless hive that is the Eastern Federation, desecration is the least of our concerns. You’re beginning to sound like that lunatic Ruppert, Doctor Silva.”

  He chuckled. But there was no mirth in it.

  Above him, the pod rotated slowly, humming like a sealed riddle.

  It taunted her.

  “What is it that you really want, Silva?”

  The question was fatherlike. Gentle. It disarmed her.

  She hesitated. Swallowed. She wanted to lie; like always.

  she admitted.

  It left her like a confession.

  Markov stood, stroking his chin.

  “I suppose I could let him go.”

  A shrug. The smallest lift of his shoulders.

  “He has served his purpose, after all.”

  “Really?” Her voice caught in a hitched breath.

  Then came the chill. Subtle at first. Just a brush on her fingertips. She shook it off, the mind too flooded with blooming possibilities.

  Her hand twitched. Then failed to obey.

  She staggered. Confused.

  Then she saw it: a cryo-dart gun, elegant and familiar. Both weapon and payload, hers. The frost was already threading its way through her chest.

  Markov’s voice was smooth as silk.

  “But… I’m a greedy man, Silva.”

  The smile surfaced now. Casual. Certain.

  “I don’t share my toys.”

  Her legs went next. The frost threaded upward, lacing her spine, and stilling her breath.

  “You seemed curious about the pod.” Markov gestured lazily toward the thing humming overhead. “No harm in telling you now. I’m sure you can guess.”

  She wanted to scream, to curse, to cry.

  A single tear slipped loose. It froze mid-descent.

  She longed for Harrow’s voice... Even his condescending tone.

  Consciousness slipped by degrees. The irony settled in:

  Above her, the pod rotated slowly.

  Through the haze of failing thought, a name surfaced. The one betrothed to Hellen Markov.

  She would have laughed if she could.

  The frost reached her core. A tear cracked, froze, then shattered on the floor.

  Then, blackness.

  Her final memory was of the pools, hazed and distant, along with the hope that maybe she’d see Harrow again. Or at least her body would.

  She had come to save a man. Instead, she died for love.

  #

  Harrow’s eyes glowed faintly blue from the endless reflection of data streams, the shadows beneath them heavier now.

  "Any particular..." he began, then stopped, realizing no one was listening.

  Not the first time he'd spoken to the wind.

  The observation deck of Warehouse 01 was eerily quiet. Only the occasional blip of data and the low hum of the quantum tower kept him company.

  He growled in frustration at the empty chair where Dr. Silva was supposed to sit.

  It had been two bloody days. She hadn’t returned since her unusual outburst.

  Not that it mattered, though it would have been... reassuring, to have another voice in the chamber during implantation phases.

  Prima remained dormant, as protocol demanded, nestled inside the den of cables and pipes, looking oddly peaceful. Her breathing was slow and steady, unbothered by the invasion.

  Harrow scowled, adjusting the memory resonance parameters manually.

  Then he uprooted himself from his seat, joints stiff from too many hours hunched over monitors. He drifted toward the observation window, intending to review the new batch manually; then stopped. Something caught his attention. A strand amid the flux; too perfect. Impossibly so.

  "That's odd..." he muttered.

  The RHU in question: Unit A-01-C. The others’ recollections fractured into debris, but this one... this one was seamless. Harrow’s breath caught. He leaned in, magnifying the readout.

  "Silva! Tag…" he called, voice vanishing into the stale air.

  His hand moved on its own, tagging the anomaly. He pinched his brow, sensing madness creeping in. He needed to talk to someone.

  She anticipated needs, adjusted mid-flow, vanished into work like a breath.

  This time, the question held concern. The silence shattered under the chime of the door opening, followed by a loud:

  "Harrow!"

  Markov’s voice invaded what little peace remained, storming in like he owned the place.

  The sharp lines of his suit screamed authority, but it was the disdain carved into his face that hit harder. The door sealed behind him with an apprehensive hiss, as if it couldn’t decide whether to contain the magnate or step aside. Harrow palmed his face, exhausted.

  Tired as he was, another of Markov’s tantrums was exactly what he didn’t need.

  "Where is your assistant!" Markov barked.

  "Question of the damn day, isn’t it?" Harrow sighed.

  "How would I know? I haven’t seen her in two days."

  Markov huffed hot air through his nose, pacing.

  "Your assistant is gone for two days and you failed to notify me? Do you forget the knowledge she carries? What happens when Westland’s citizens learn prematurely of the project?"

  Harrow blanched as an image crystalized: Prima, torn apart by zealots, screaming mobs, Harrow tied to a stake ready to burn.

  "She was upset about ethics... she left... No. She wouldn’t. Would she?"

  Markov growled.

  "She did."

  He tossed a holo-pad toward Harrow.

  Footage bloomed in midair: Silva standing in an office of clouds, brittle resolve stiffening her spine. Above, a pod, that damn artifact, that wrongness, spun on its axis. And there was Markov, wearing that serpent’s smile Harrow could spot from miles away.

  A flash. Movement too fast to catch if not for the glint off Markov’s hand. Silva staggered; eyes wide.

  Her mouth shaped a word Harrow would never hear. Markov’s feed was conveniently muted. Then she fell, stiff against the sky floor. The footage winked out before her body even finished collapsing. Markov said nothing, letting the image rot inside Harrow’s mind. Harrow gripped the console until his knuckles paled, heart twisting with an emotion he barely recognized.

  A cold rage curled in his gut, deepened by Markov’s voice slithering like venom:

  "You're fortunate, Harrow. She came to me first. Something about wanting you for herself. Can you believe that?"

  Harrow trembled, rage, disbelief and grief fighting for space.

  She was dead.

  "Implantation batch six is successful," Prima announced, her voice flat as she shook free of inertia.

  Harrow glanced up, eyes bloodshot.

  Prima regarded him in silence, tilting her head with clockwork curiosity.

  The haze of labor dulled the grief clawing up his throat.

  He turned back to the console, shoving Markov’s pad aside.

  "Analyze A-01-C," he said, voice cracking on the name.

  Markov straightened sharply.

  "What about that unit?"

  Harrow couldn't meet his eye. Prima spared him the effort.

  "The unit exhibits pristine memory residue," she reported. "Likely due to proximity of death event."

  As she spoke, cables and tubes unlatched from her skin, the openings closing then and there. Harrow caught the gleam in Markov’s eye. Prima had completed the stem regeneration. Quarkon-infused Vivifica translating into a self-repairing army. Profit incarnate.

  Prima’s voice cut through:

  "Here is the translated memory data, Julian. You will want to review this."

  On the screen, tactics and war methodologies bloomed with surgical precision.

  "That's impossible," Harrow breathed.

  Zhanlüe Xuezhai.

  It had to be.

  But how? Their dead were burned. Always.

  He scanned the unit’s profile: young, time of death too recent.

  His gaze snapped to Markov, who watched him with a cunning, predatory smile.

  "What did you do?" Harrow rasped.

  Markov chuckled, waving a dismissive hand.

  "Two birds with one stone, my dear Harrow. Ruppert’s maneuvering to sabotage the project, provoke Westland, trigger open conflict. Maybe even civil war."

  He leaned in slightly, grin sharpening.

  "And tell me, who steers world conflict?"

  Markov’s voice dropped, conspiratorial:

  "Let's just say... my eyes and ears intercepted a rat. Trapped it. And now that rat," he gestured to the readout, "will lead our army."

  Markov folded his arms, savoring the trap.

  "You should name him," he said. "He'll be the first commander of our growing RHU army."

  Harrow swallowed the accusation burning his throat.

  He should watch himself.

  But Silva’s fall haunted him.

  And some reckless part still itched to see how far the snake would slither.

  "Carl," Harrow said, dry as dust.

  Markov laughed, delighted.

  "Carl. How mundane. I like it."

  He drifted toward Prima, who now stood before the observation window.

  Beyond her, every newly implanted RHU faced her — a wall of stillness converging toward her presence.

  Markov sidled up beside her, voice dropping into something almost fond:

  "What do you think? Is Carl a good fit?"

  "A name is as good as any," Prima replied. "However, he should initially be referred to as Commander to preserve hierarchy."

  Markov folded his arms, facing her with a proprietary smile.

  "You," he said, "shall be Mother. Their progenitor."

  Prima tilted her head, parsing the new designation.

  She turned to Harrow, almost seeking silent confirmation.

  "Mother. That sounds correct," she said.

  Harrow watched them both.

  Watched his own hand, a small fragile thing, mortal among undead.

  Below in the cavern, Carl stepped forward from the ranks.

  The first ripple in a sea of stillness.

  Harrow’s eyes burned with quiet resolution.

  He lifted a holo-pad, fingers drifting across the surface, a casual scroll masking deliberate keystrokes.

  A line of code, tucked beneath diagnostic protocols. A failsafe.

  ,

  "Very good," Markov announced, already turning to leave. "With this, we can move the troops for next week's plan."

  He paused beside Harrow, leaning in until his breath brushed the scientist's ear.

  "I still own you," he whispered. "Don't try anything ridiculous like Silva. Whether you breathe, bleed, or wake as an RHU shell; it’s all the same to me."

  Harrow sagged into the chair, the sponge rebounding him weakly forward, as if even it wanted him gone.

  Then silence.

  Only he and his creation, staring back across the empty room.

  But even as he denied it, the sprout of doubt grew.

  Silva’s ghost watering it still.

  ,

  #

  Wei Chen stood atop the Zhanlüe Xuezhai Temple, his hand grazing the eternal stone that had chilled generations of peacekeepers before him, a relic of the ancients, perched high upon the Claws of the World, squeezed between the gnawing breath of twin deserts, east, and west.

  Beneath his feet, millions of souls labored, braving collapse and enemy alike, clawing at the Aetherchasm, where the earth had surrendered.

  Here, where peace ruled, Wei Chen was at home, a sanctuary carved into the broken bone of the world. Its stone walls bore the constant torment of desert winds, tendrils whispering from both horizons, carrying hints of distant betrayals and futures already unraveling. Yet the stone endured. The Zhanlüe Xuezhai endured. And so did he.

  His restless thoughts, once galloping with schemes, now drank from the drying trough of old victories.

  His gaze sailed the desert toward the Eastern Federation.

  The thought gave him a headache.

  His mind traveled backward to Meru Kala Shanti, where he had seen Amir Bharat, the Watcher of Flow, flinch at a prophecy thought long-buried, an oddity that still perplexed him.

  , he chided himself, though unsettling the Watcher had carried its own satisfaction. What mattered was certainty:

  Suddenly, he was a stone battered by the stream of bodies, flowing beneath Westland’s capital, then tumbling into a cavern. And within a Speaker cloaked in divine airs had bared her fangs at the ghosts of old wars.

  Wei Chen allowed himself a chuckle that flew with a gust, probably crashing without leaving a trace against the stones above.

  Then he was the gust surging upward Westland’s highest peak, where silence had reigned for eons until his words became a reverberating pulse disturbing its stillness.

  And finally, he was the pulse recoiling from his own flesh inside the Sanctuary of the Weave, listening as leaders wove a rebellion blind to the truth: To halt the RHU was to shatter Westland’s brittle legs before the Eastern Federation’s hungry maw.

  He let the sigh out, his hand still raking his scalp for logic. Faith, unfortunately, offered none.

  Whether these scattered factions moved or withered mattered little on the broader board. What mattered was that balance might yet be realigned.

  The weakened Westland now had a chance to stand its ground, perhaps even to dance toe-to-toe with the Eastern Federation.

  Around him, the Claws of the World loomed, unfazed.

  The stone cared nothing for men’s alliances or their collapse, oblivious to the grinding of everchanging tides at its flanks.

  It was his duty, as it had been for those who came before him, to watch how the pieces moved.

  Wei Chen withdrew his hand from the eternal stone as its chill began to seep into his bones.

  The hall answered his steps like a loyal accomplice, carrying the worn echoes of schemes that had transpired long before his time.

  Tall statues of Peacekeepers lined his path, judging him in wary silence as if already sensing he might become the board-breaker, the failure no Zhanlüe Xuezhai had ever borne.

  I am no board-breaker, he cursed, scowling at the statues,

  It was not his schemes that had wounded Yun Lee’s bloodline, yet she had learned to hate his face.

  Nostalgia stirred faintly at the sight of the great double doors.

  Once, as a young Zhanlüe Xuezhai apprentice, he would have dreamed of stepping beyond them.

  Now, the thrill had dulled; he would rather be climbing the sacred paths of the Nyepa Tsangma, chasing silence rather than schemes.

  He lifted his hand to greet the welcoming wood, worn smooth by generations and pushed it open.

  The door sighed, sharing his disgruntled mood at the statue's judgment.

  Murmured voices buzzed beyond, like flies circling carrion, eager to fester the meat.

  He inhaled the scent of damp stone mingled with dried sand, baked too long under an indifferent sun.

  A chill brushed his skin, sharp and familiar.

  "A cool head thinks clearer," his mentor had once said, back when he was still young enough to complain.

  Centered in the chamber, his strategists hunched over a long rectangular table, its surface forged from blackened, lusterless stone whose origins even the oldest records dared not name.

  The world unfolded across it in intricate relief: Westland sprawled to one flank, the Eastern Federation to the other, each landmass alive with faint light.

  Yet the Federation’s territory far outshines everything, unnervingly dense as if the stone bore witness to a hunger no army could contain.

  This was the Zhanlüe Xuezhai Table of Powers. The ancient tool that guided Peacekeepers' hands in the endless work of evening the scale.

  Someone craned from the huddled mass, Ming Chen, his brother in all but blood, his second.

  The smile before the bow, a hand pressed to his shoulder: it seemed to say.

  “The chamber greets Peacekeeper Wei!”

  The others murmured the greeting in echoes, bowing before they had even fully turned to face him.

  His brow rose in question at Ming Chen, at the expectant silence that followed.

  Ming answered with an apologetic smile.

  "The wind has shifted, stirring sands where they should not."

  The wind never stopped stirring. There was always a leader, thinking he knew better, standing behind every draft. Only the desert, the Claws, and the Aetherchasm remained constant.

  "As it should. Better stirring sands than a still board," he said. "It is our duty, however, to tame it, lest the board rattle and all pieces fall or worse."

  His gaze swept across his gathered strategists, then drifted to the table. A frown creased his brow as his eyes found the faintly simmering fractures of the Aetherchasm.

  The Eastern Federation’s glow had thickened and Westland was running out of time faster than its leaders understood.

  He waved a hand over the table, as custom dictated one must assess the field before deciding on a plot.

  "What is our situation?"

  Ming Chen clasped his fist and stepped forward, unfolding the tapestry without ceremony.

  "The Eastern Federation’s momentum is solid. At the current rate, they will conquer the Aetherchasm. The Great Speaker has campaigned the war as a necessity; to feed their starving masses, but the truth remains: the nobility feast while the common folk multiply without restraint."

  Ming’s lip curled as his gaze flicked toward a haughty-looking strategist, one tied too closely to the Great Speaker’s court.

  "Now that’s a farce," the man scoffed. "The Great Speaker is to feed the mouths that keep spawning!"

  Another strategist jabbed a finger across the table.

  "Hah! I always knew temptation sang in your ear. You care only for your purse!"

  The insult was barbed. No Zhanlüe Xuezhai was permitted to hoard wealth; to do so was to be stripped of title and banished.

  "How dare you?" the first snapped. "Baseless slander! The nobles convening for population control, but every lesser noble who supports reform ends up dead in their own home!"

  Wei Chen growled.

  "Enough."

  "The Eastern Federation’s failures in population management are the least of our concerns," Wei Chen's irritated sigh staled the tension. "The board will break under Westland’s fall long before the Federation’s hunger matters."

  His gaze combed the chamber, daring a retort.

  "Fortunately, we have a solution: the RHU Project.

  It is still a seed; it must take root, then Westland may yet stand toe-to-toe with the Eastern Federation and restore balance."

  His face sagged into a frown,

  "As with all solutions, an opposition has already seeded, Minister Ruppert plans a Resistance."

  Wei Chen scratched his head.

  "As of now, only two religious factions stand behind him."

  Murmurs rose, followed by the chuckle of men mocking feeble resistance.

  "The Bayt Al-Muthawakkilin and the Church of the Creator."

  Groans. Curses.

  Of course, the two largest religious orders in Westland, commanding nearly seventy-five percent of its restless hearts.

  "I am confident," Wei Chen continued, his finger thrumming the table. "that the Cohesive State; and by extension the Undercity; as well as the Kala Bhakti, and the Great Oasis around them, will remain on the sidelines."

  While weighing the situation, his eyes caught a flare of brighter light along the Aetherchasm, behind the Eastern Federation's front.

  He pointed.

  "What is happening here?"

  Ming Chen furrowed his brow, then nodded grimly.

  "That is the largest shipment of Quarkon ever assembled. The freighters are the size of castles. It contains loot from Westland's captured outposts and newly drilled quarries. The Great Speaker plans to finance his final push with it."

  Wei Chen’s face hardened.

  "How long?"

  A strategist assigned to the Great Speaker answered without lifting his head:

  "Six months, at best. A year, at the outside. His words: "

  Wei Chen crossed his arms before his mouth, thinking, his gaze drilling into the table’s faint glow.

  "Ming. Does Del Tenebre know?"

  Ming Chen shook his head.

  "He won't move. He doesn't have the numbers. Even if every warlord and desert tribe east of the Federation were to unite, which is about as likely as peace between the two nations, they wouldn't have enough."

  Wei Chen straightened.

  "There’s no time. Scatter! Do whatever it takes to slow the invasion. The RHU must survive long enough to bear fruit."

  His words left no room for argument. One by one, they bowed and vanished into the currents of fate.

  Left alone, Wei Chen turned toward the Claws beyond the walls.

  The stone did not feel so sturdy now. Neither did he.